Getting Ahead of Not Getting Ahead of Ourselves

They've trained us plenty at this point, but that doesn't stop a fan from getting excited after one game. It's the reason why we get excited on Opening Day. It's the reason why fans start posting standings with the Mets in 1st place at a 7-3 record, something I cannot stand, as cautiously excited as we all can be.

AP Photo/Sara Stier
Photo via https://sports.yahoo.com

I've given them props for responding well to adversity before. They've come off of miserable road trips and played with life at home after looking so lifeless prior. They understood there was a lot of heat, at least in the press, on their manager after they played so atrociously for 5 straight games, and a good portion of this season since starting off so strong. It is certainly better than losing their 6th straight, and they needed an insurance run provided by the combo of a Carlos Gomez walk and a Dominic Smith single to more securely lead themselves back to the win column. This is all well and good. Even the worst teams, however, tend to win 70 games.

Everyone wants to point to Brodie Van Wagenen only going so far to state the security of Mickey Callaway's job. There is no reason, however, for BVW to state unequivocally that Mickey's job is safe. Mickey could take a shit on Jeff Wilpon's desk tomorrow, something I can only assume is a fireable offense, though you never know with this shit show of an organization. There could always be a fireable offense that pops up, so it isn't exactly surprising that this kind of lawyer-like language is used.

Good for Wilmer Font for serviceably pitching 4 innings, who's fault it is not that he's having to start every fifth day for this team. Good for Amed Rosario and Pete Alonso and Todd Frazier and Carlos Gomez and Dominic Smith for their RBIs. Good for Gagnon, who collected the dubbya, good for Zamora, good for Gsellman and good for Diaz (notice who's "Familiar" name I passed over?)

Until we see more consistency from this team, however, there is no reason to get ahead of ourselves. Hell, until they secure a playoff berth, there is no reason to get ahead of ourselves. Until this team wins the World Series, there is no reason to get ahead of ourselves. I will always be frustrated over the fact that the Wilpons keep proving us all right; that the organization will never have sustained success year to year as long as they are owners. I thought it in 2015 and I desperately wanted them to prove me wrong. They reverted to the mean, however. And I'll always be sad about that.

I'll also be sad that Yoenis Cespedes will most likely never play another inning for the New York Mets after breaking his ankle...falling into a hole on his ranch?

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.

In a London Metsian Groove

While the playoffs are most likely not happening, 'tis nice to check in from my first visit to London and see a laugher occur out of the All-Star break. 

AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

The Colorado Rockies are sitting rather comfortably in the 2nd Wild Card spot with a 6.5 game lead over their closest competition (we are 9.5 back of them) but have not been playing well of late after getting off to a ridiculously good start. They are an ever-annoying team (I guess that can be said about any team playing the Mets with some clearly at the top of the heap?) even when they have been on the lower end of the competitive spectrum. I am still not sold on that environment in Denver being conducive to a consistently good Major League caliber team, even though the ballpark is my favorite of the ones I have been to and the area around the ballpark a fun time as well. We'll see if they can one day prove me wrong.

Seeing Yoenis Cespedes look refreshed out of the break with a four-hit game and showing off his arm is a breath of fresh air, and hopefully this is the start of one of his ridonkulously great stretches. Keep those legs loose!!

Jacob deGrom is everyone's favorite pitcher on the Mets, right? I know the health of pitchers these days is a fluid situation, but this team should be aiming to build around Jacob, Thor and Matz.

Alright, I woke up here in London unable to get back to sleep after only 3 hours, and after getting a taste of the British version of McDonalds for breakfast (don't worry, I've been sampling plenty of the local goods that isn't their take on an American staple) I'm going to try to get back to the pillows. Looking to hopefully find the Sunday day game in a local pub if possible, so I'll let you all know how that goes.

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS.

LET'S. GO. METS.

The Metsies Clavicle Run

In a blink of an eye, it was gone.

You can say that about the 2016 season, and you can say that about my left clavicle, the collarbone, that of my southpaw arm, when it was shattered falling off a bike near Canal on Chrystie, near the Manhattan bridge at 6:00am in the early morning of August 19. Two weeks later, I had surgery to install a titanium plate, and 6 titanium bolts, and I continue my DL stint today. Though feeling much better, I still can't exactly swing a bat yet.

Mandatory Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports

The day I broke it, August 19, the Mets were 60-62 after a loss that night. Those next 2 wins brought us a split in the West Coast series and sealed us home field advantage for what just occurred, and obviously the rest is history. We all know, or at least us real die-hards, what the remaining record was after the 19th, though I'll repeat it again...27-13.

Now, I am not giving spiritual blame to the breaking of my clavicle (a word I most certainly didn't know existed until I broke it, which is remarkable considering you learn all clinical terms being a Mets fan...) I'm just saying it was an interestingly exciting time spent while my prized left arm stayed in the sling. There were highs, there were lows, there were ups, and downs, and tragedy. It was a crazy last few weeks indeed. A microcosm of life and death in one short span.

Unfortunately, we now sit back as in so many Octobers, and watch the remaining 8 duke it out. At least we got this chance. I wasn't so much anxious going into it as you would think 'cause that 6 week ride was one for the ages, though the anxiousness certainly settled in in the later innings. Still, I had such a blast, and the season cannot be seen as a failure. We kept the good vibes going, though wait till next year we will do once more.

I don't want to talk about Madison Bumgarner ever again. I look forward to the Cubs bludgeoning them. All in for erasing 1908.

And that is a franchise who knows of no next year.

May it finally arrive this exact one.

Wait till Next Year indeed.

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.

The Write Stuff

"Bay walked, as did Ike Davis, and up strolled Lucas May, a catcher brought in to compete for the back-up spot. May's numbers in AAA last year were quite solid (albeit Pacific Coast League), and a couple of pitches into the at bat, we soon found out why he was brought in here. Lucas May destroyed the baseball, and he slid into second base with a 2 RBI double. Lucas May tore the cover off the ball all day, a day that was the official beginning of what I have now coined as Lucas Mayhem (let the whole world know: you heard it here first). If he continues to hit the way he did today, we've got quite the competition for the back-up catcher on our hands. 

Let the Mayhem begin. 

Other takeaways from the game: 

* Adam Loewen has a mighty cut. He is an interesting option for power off the bench if he continues to perform. 

* There were horseshoe mustaches all around! Besides our Byrdak, Kevin Mattison and Chris Hatcher of the Marlins each have their own distinctive horseshoe 'stache. It would be awesome if this becomes an epidemic throughout baseball. David Wright should grow one. 

* Quintanilla = nice depth at back-up infielder 

* Miguel Batista = "The Handyman" (you heard it here first as well) 

* Turner is a good option at third. Justin Turner is a solid piece for this team 

* Den Dekker's got a good glove out there in center 

* Spring Training might be competitive practice, but it is also the time for practicing winning, or put another way, practicing how NOT to lose. Valdespin hopefully will learn from his 9th inning mistake (He stepped in front of the catcher as the catcher was trying to throw down to second base. The ump called interference) He's got an immense amount of talent, but these are the same mistakes that have separated us from the good teams for too long now, and must be corrected before these players get to the big leagues. 

* Mayhem.  

That is all." 

--The Greatest Spring Training Game Ever, Converted Mets Fan

I wrote that on Friday, March 9, 2012. In-depth, over-detailed analysis of a spring training game, and one the Mets lost (not even gonna look up what happened to Lucas Mayhem. Needles to say, he didn't keep hitting that way...And I didn't even quote the part about Mike Pelfrey.) I was a rookie back then. Now I am a seasoned veteran who has been on a leave of sabbatical.

Between last year and this year, when actual winning Mets baseball has been played, I am nowhere to be found. Oh, I've been paying plenty attention, you can bet on that, I just haven't gotten into any writing groove. Well, blogging groove. I have been writing a coming-of-age 20-something biopic screenplay for the past 2 years, it's current incarnation (4th draft) of which I finally sprinkled some Mets into it. From a thematic standpoint, they perfectly represent that force that is always so, so close, but can't get over the hump.

Hopefully, that is not the case this year, though the cards certainly look stacked against them. If the Mets do make it in to play at least one more, and maybe further, they will arguably be the worst team on paper in the tournament.

Let the Miracle of Miracles begin.

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.

We Finally Go to 12

I have just been driving through the night from Chicago to New York, so I am exhausted and ready for more than the hour I got at a rest area in Pennsylvania, but I had to chime in before I went to sleep about last night's game...

Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

I was on the road while listening, and when we went down 7-2, it didn't even occur to me that, once again, the potential for 12 games over .500 was in jeopardy, though the whole thing had been on my mind earlier in the day and after the last game in Colorado. It didn't cross my mind in the moment at all. I, in some ways, had forgotten of that fact. In FACT, I was at ease. I don't know whether I was at ease about the potential for a loss or at ease because I knew, or...echem...excuse me...BELIEVED...this team would come back. Maybe it was just the peacefulness of the road at sunset heading east, but whatever it was...

...isn't it a weird feeling?

I've been monitoring this whole 12 games over thing for a long time. I remember we had a chance against the Yankees in the Bronx in 2010, and lost 5-3.

The 2012 team didn't make it above 8, which they hit 2 days after the no-hitter on Sunday ESPN baseball in the black with a 6-1 win. Things felt pretty awesome that evening. The win put the Mets, Nats and Marlins in a 3-way tie for 1st. We lost the next day to the Cards 5-4.

We had a chance this year heading into Yankee Stadium to rake off 12 wins in a row, which at the time, would have brought us to 11 over. I didn't think about the correlation either last night, but deGrom got roughed up and we lost 6-1. Did something tell me it would be different this time? Maybe it was still the elation of Wright's comeback home run hanging in the air, giving it a free feeling of no worry. Or maybe it's because the 2015 New York Mets is the team that's supposed to turn the knob higher. There's no point in making 10 louder. The volume should always go to a greater plain of numbers.

At this point, though, the only number that matters is 5 1/2 games up. And whatever that number is at the end of the year, as long as it still involves the word "up" and not "back."

There is only one sentence "back" should be used in....

Alright, time for bed. Happy to be BACK in the City ⚾️

PUSH⚾️ PAST⚾️ 13⚾️

LET'S⚾️ GO⚾️ METS⚾️

#KEEPONPUSHIN'

This Converted One Seconds That, Jason Fry.

"I no longer remember the exact circumstances, but years ago there was a newspaper story featuring a Yankee fan who didn’t understand why any franchise would adopt “Ya Gotta Believe” (or one of its non-spontaneous, corporate-approved descendants) as a rallying cry. Terrible slogan, she snorted dismissively: “Believe? That’s lame. We know.”

That always struck me as a perfect way to describe the two New York fanbases, because strip away the condescension and that long-ago fan got it right.

Yankee fans expect dollars to flow and moves to be made to ensure a full calendar in October and a ticker-tape parade a month later; anything less than that is a failure, for which there will be consequences.

Mets fans? We love ticker tape as much as the next guy and gal, and we’ll take a wire-to-wire regular-season cruise that doesn’t require too much heavy breathing. But dismissing anything less than a World Series trophy as a failure? We don’t get that — it’s entitled hubris that sounds deeply and dreadfully boring.

Knowing? Where’s the fun in that? Give us wild hope and a stubborn belief that refuses to be extinguished, no matter what obstacles the baseball gods throw in our way. (Tug’s call to arms was as much battered defiance as it was optimism.) Those are the things that power our baseball dreams."

-Jason Fry, Faith And Fear In Flushing

It's remarkable to think, that come September, these two New York franchise's will most likely be playing each other during each's respective pennant races, capable of putting a thorn into the other's playoff plans. That's remarkable, it's unprecedented, and could be a preview for more interleague Subway Series games a few weeks later...

If you think I just jinxed it, I've decided to throw all caring of superstitions away. I DID say "COULD be" because that's all I know. WILL be won't be discussed here. That's where you're tempting the fates...

But who KNOWS what those FATES have in store, because after the last week, week and a half, after the last few years and the last 10 years since I joined the Metsian River midstream, I couldn't have seen ANY of that rollercoaster we just experienced coming, and none of you saw it either. The full payoff hasn't been reached yet, but it felt GREAT to finally get to THIS point after so long.

Believing is beautiful, and it's what I lost in the Yankees. I stopped believing in them once I became an adult. I saw that childlike joy lost in me as I settled into Yankee Fandom semi-adulthood, then full-fledged adulthood, or at least as what's determined by puberty and the American Law. I accepted my baseball identity at the age of 20, realizing it had been there the entire time. I am of the New York National League faith.

I wasn't able to go to any games this weekend, because I work at night, and the "stooges of ESPN" as Howie referred to them moved the game to national last night. BUT I appreciate that the Mets were able to sweep the nationals on the national stage. We're patriotic here in New York, but we aren't Nationals. We're METROPOLITANS.

Speaking of ESPN, though, they do a TERRIBLE job with their production and direction. It's always interesting to hear what the national broadcasters think of the Mets, like Curt Shilling, Aaron Boone, and what not, but the main guy isn't that good at calling, and the camera work and cut-to's are horrendous. Where was the foul pole look at Duda's home run? Why are you cutting to Bryce looking up? Don't you get access to all of SNY's good looks? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!

It's nights like that you really appreciate how great of a job SNY does with these games. At least Howie and Josh got to call the craziness of the 3rd inning, but definitely missed what Gary, Keith and Ron would have done with 3 home runs in 5 pitches.

So, first, it was the Wilmer Flores Appreciation Night on Friday.


Then it was All the Du-da Night.

Last night, the whole thing was an ENTIRE METSIAN effort. Curtis, Noah, Murph, Cespedes, Duda, Clippard, etc...


Greg Prince, of Faith and Fear in Flushing as well, might have thought he was Born Again back during the 11-game hitting streak, but it seems the entire Metropolitan fanbase was born again this weekend, and Citi Field would appear to be FINALLY christened.

That's as far as the regular season is concerned...

There's still a lot more work to do to keep the christenings coming.

THAT STARTS TONIGHT.

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.

The Violent Metsian Pendulum

I fell off my bike this morning.

I was biking down 8th Avenue, heading home from work. Well, I first wanted to stop by the Apple Store at 59th and 5th, because for the longest time, I have been listening to Mets games and talking to people with only the right ear in, as I had lost my left rubber ear bud. Someone please immediately start a band called My Left Rubber Ear Bud.

Anyway, I was kind of amped up.

I wonder why.

On top of it being a fantastic night at Two Boots Hell's Kitchen (44th and 9th, stop by) the Mets finished the July end of the season with a ridiculous back and forth swing of the emotional Metsian pendulum, one which swung more violently in one 7-10 day span than I can ever remember in my 10 years of full-fledged Mets fandom, my 25-27 year awareness of the Mets, or my 20 years living in New York City. 

They sent us off into August on an unbelievable high, 2 games back in the division heading into the last 2 months of the season with another new and exciting player on his way into town to reinforce a roster who has hung on tight but desperately needs the help.

And there I was, ready to get home after the long night, write about it and the way I experienced the moment Wilmer Flores hit that home run.

And then I lost my footing on the pedals crossing 48th.

I tried to recover, but it was too late, and I skidded to the ground in front of a couple going home, or where ever they may have been going.

I hopped up immediately, the folks certainly concerned and immediately coming to my aid. My right forearm, on the bone side, was bleeding, and modestly. I asked the folks if they had any napkins, at which point a man pulling a hot dog cart across the street offered me napkins and squeezed hand sanitizer into my wound, which I would later find out is deeper than I thought (probably a couple centimeters.) It burned, but I enjoyed it. I felt alive, and already on the way to recovery while shaking my head at the turn of events.

I love this town.

"You can get band-aids there," the man said, pointing to Duane Reade on the northwest corner of 48th and 8th, a perfect place to crash if you can take care of everything yourself without an ambulance involved. I parked the bike, after thanking the folks who stopped to help, went into the place and bought big band-aids, Bacitracin and a spray-bottle of hydrogen peroxide. And a bottle of water. I grabbed some napkins, went back outside, took care of business and got back on my bike after sealing the wound.

Apple was kind enough to give me replacement rubber ear bud covers for free, after which I kept biking on 59th Street over the bridge and onto the Long Island that houses Queens and Brooklyn. I biked home to Carroll between Franklin and Washington, around the corner from where some Bums used to play baseball.

As the narrative of this post changed in my head as I was immediately thrusted into wound-healing operations, I thought to myself that what I am going through, and anything I have gone through in my life, pales in comparison to what Yoenis Cespedes has gone through in his life, especially just to play Major League Baseball in America...or what Wilmer Flores has gone through over the last 72 hours alone. Or what the Mets franchise and its fans have gone through. 

They, and we, have gotten through that shit. 

I'll be fine.


As I basked in the glory that is the final trade we made for such a potential 2015 game-changer, I went through the Cuban man's short career, including every home run he hit in the Derby at Citi in 2013. Then I watched his throw from left in Anaheim when he was with the Athletics. 

Already, seeing him in those other uniforms looks weird. Watching him in the Orange and Blue, which we were afforded 2 years ago, looks just right. They are the colors he was meant to wear. And I can't wait for him to get started.

I LOVE THIS TOWN.

2 months left. 2 games back. And a MONSTER about to enter the lineup.

A pennant race beckons.

What fun this will be.

A Cespedes for the Mets of Us.

LET'S. GO. METS.