The Year of Happy Recaps

“This” being the familiar din of dejectedness that fills the air. “This” the unsettled feeling of a season that began with dreams of a World Series but ended with a 70-92 record, a season that began with “is this the best rotation is baseball?” as a not-at-all-kidding kind of legitimate question but ended with the third worst ERA in all of MLB. 

“This” being the air-out-of-the-balloon that were the hopes of an A. Rosario and D. Smith^3-fueled renaissance that gave way to uncomfortable questions of the “wait, are these guys for real?” variety, and memories of the A. Escobar’s and F. Martinez’s of the world. 

“This” being the unmitigating sense of hopelessness not but two years removed from the Year of the Phoenix, which was meant to herald a dynastic playoff run but ended up being the start of no more than two straight years -- never three, never three -- with playoff baseball^4. 

“This” after being the 2015 equivalent of the 2017 Yankees, the young team that had gotten valuable experience that they’d no doubt leverage for Octobers to come, only to get to leverage in exactly one — losing — additional playoff game. 

From that — this. 

* * * * *

For basically the entire season, or at least since Noah went down 30 April, “this” has been a rueful sigh. 

Today though we hope once more for better. 

Today, “this” is a new beginning for a team not yet needing to truly turn the page. I said to my wife yesterday — the funny thing about the Mets is, if deGrom and Syndergaard can stay healthy, if they ever make it to October again, they’d be a really dangerous team. 

You’re seeing this postseason, as you do every October, how valuable the types of pitchers we have are. Look at what J. Verlander did to the Yankees, or how essential C. Kershaw is to the LAD. We have those horses, we’ve seen what they can do under baseball’s brightest lights. We just have to get them there.

To do so we bring on a new manager, one steeped in the art of pitching. Do I know much about Mickey Callaway? No. Am I super positive on him? Yes. 

I wanted new blood. I wanted an indication that the Mets were going to turn towards data and analytics on the field, not just in the FO. Because when you lose with data at least you can point to something and try to address it, whereas if you lose with your gut, well, you can try to change your gut but for baseball lifers that’s just not how they really operate. 

I wanted someone who made you believe that next season could be a new day, not just a fingers-crossed continuation of the putrid “this” we’ve come to know this year. 

* * * * *

Managers are hired to be fired, so the old adage says. But before they’re let go, some of them etch their name in immortality — and if that sounds hyperbolic, tell me you don’t know the names of the managers who led the Mets to their first two World Series wins. 

Getting to a World Series is nice, but you’re only truly immortal if you win it. That’s just how it works. 

So next man up to try to punch his ticket to never-ending life is Mickey Callaway. Can he lead the Mets back to October? God I hope so. 

I hope so in part because the idea of another 15 years passing by before the Mets make the World Series again is horrifying. And I hope so as well, because, oh, speaking of never-ending life, these lives of ours do end in this Singularity-Is-Near-but-ok-not-quite-here-yet era we occupy. 

I hope to see the Mets win a World Series and watch a ticker tape parade with my Dad. And I hope to experience it while I’m still sort of young! Fifteen years from now I’ll be pushing 50. You shouldn’t have to wait that long to see your team win it all. 

And yet for us, for me, the wait, all 31 years of it, my entire recollect-able life, continues. I hope a new manager can offer that final deliverance, just once. 

So what’s that you say, Mickey Callaway? A dejected fanbase turns its forlorn eyes to you. 

- D.F.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 See, for reference, “Don’t wanna wait, Don’t wanna wait, Don’t wanna wait… No wait… No more…” as published 27 October, Year of the Phoenix

^2 No number of 1986 Mets Tape viewings can make the memories lived-in, and in that sense real, unfortunately. Strange though to reflect on how cherished the memories of that tape, and of the moments depicted therein, are. 

^3 If the guy has any intrinsic motivation or otherwise concern about his LT health or generally any sense about what being a successful athlete requires of you, you can more or less set your clock to the “best shape of my life” articles being written about young Dominic come Spring Training. 

As I wrote then, in a truly inspired bit of blogging, the response wasn’t: “one of schadenfreude or, more mildly perhaps, mere excitement that an unlikeable competitor had been compromised by the loss of their star pitcher. 

The feeling was more… man, that sucks.”

It sucks because if you love a sport, you want to watch the world’s best play it. It’s as true for elite players on other teams as it is for your own guys. 

But oh the dread it inspires when it is your own guys! And not just that, but your favorite player no less. 

Yes, on this collection of Mets, Syndergaard is my guy. The hair, the pop culture obsession, the social media mastery... I’m into the whole thing. When the news came out I immediately jumped to the conclusion that his arm had finally blown out, bringing to an end the age of worry that is the pre-Tommy John^2 chapter of Thor’s career. 

And the feeling was that same flavor of “man, that sucks” that I felt about Wheeler and Harvey and, hell, even Jose Fernandez, only enhanced by a dash of mild, momentary depression. 

It’s a reminder of a debate that swirled last October when the Mets faced off against the Cubs, and which young core -- the former’s vaunted pitching or the latter’s vaunted hitting -- you’d rather build around. If I recall correctly, everyone chose Chicago’s, simple because of how fragile pitching arms are and how quickly it can all go. 

It seems we dodged a bullet this time, but it all just feels like so many doomsday clocks ticking, ticking, ticking down terribly, inevitably, to zero. 

And so we watch, and worry, and enjoy it while we can. 

- D.F.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 See, for reference, “Wheels Off” as published 22 March, Year of the Phoenix.

Now, another person would look at the present and feel pretty darn good about things. The Mets are in first place, albeit tied with WSH, and own the second best record in the National League.  We have the 5th best run differential in baseball. Our bullpen, widely regarded our biggest question mark entering the season, has been terrific. 

And yet somehow I can’t help but look at it all a bit askance. A lot of fans have reservations about our reliance on the long ball thus far, but I’m not as worried about that. Hard hit balls are hard hit balls, and the farther hard hit balls go the better; if more of those hard hit balls fell in for doubles we’d have a more varied attack, sure, but ultimately a less potent one. 

Moreover, I do expect C. Granderson, a slow starter throughout his career, to contribute at some point this year, at which point we should have more action on the bases. I expect in time our offense will be more balanced, is what I mean to say.

So it’s not the offense that worries me, it’s the starting rotation. And go figure that, would you? The one thing that was meant to be so solid, so infallibly strong, has instead looked mortal. 

Jacob deGrom hasn’t been the same guy as the last two years, plagued by injury and diminished velocity. 

Steven Matz has looked great but now has forearm issues.

Noah Syndergaard seems to have visited an elbow specialist at HSS two weeks ago, but nothing to see here. 

Most perplexing of all has been Matt Harvey, who has looked mostly bad on the young season. 

Bartolo is Bartolo. He matched up against Clayton Kershaw last night, and as good as Bart has been, you more or less knew we had no prayer. 

The rotation has looked good at times, but it’s been fragile throughout the campaign, and it’s not had one turn through the 5 guys where we looked dominant. 

And so I wait and see. 

- D.F.G.

Notes & Errata

When you have a season so rapturously delightful, so unexpected and so desperately appreciated as the Year of the Phoenix, what can you possibly do for an encore? 

When your season ends with a defeat in the World Series, is it indeed the case that there is but one way for the following season to be declared a success? 

Is it even possible that this year will be as great as last? 

These are the questions, the doubts, that preoccupy me. Where last year I entered the season thinking 84 wins was likely and constructed IFTTT^1-style decision trees that could help us sniff a chance at the 2nd Wild Card, this year it’s kind of World Series win or bust.

That’s a shit feeling on multiple levels^2, not least of which is that there’s nothing saying the Mets will even make the playoffs this year. The Nationals are still every bit as worrisome as they were last year^3, and by now all the questions about David Wright’s back and our bridge to Familia and the nature of orthopedics and attendant implications for our pitching staff have been asked. 

It’s not that I don’t have confidence in this team. Where I thought last year’s team was an 84-win ball club, this year’s edition looks to me to be good for 92 wins. In my heart of hearts, I do believe they’ll win the division. 

So fair to say I expect it will be a terrific season. 

As I predicted in my reflections on the World Series^4, the Year of Happy Recaps brings with it its own fantods, and at least for now as we endure the last gasps of the offseason, the fear that nothing will ever be as good as it was is chief among them. 

Can the year ahead ever be as thrilling a ride as last year was? Can a season where you enter with enormous expectations ever lead anywhere as special as a season where you expect virtually nothing? 

I hope with all my baseball-loving heart it can. And with as much optimism as I can muster I say: we’re about to find out.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 Tech bro-ism denoting “if this then that.”

^2 I’m not even gonna get into it with the whole Yankee mantra thing, but I’m thinking it. 

^3 Well perhaps not every bit: Jordan Zimmermann was one of those guys I always used to dread. 

Now in fairness, the Y.O.O.P.-era Phillies had something this WSH team doesn’t. A killer instinct, a sense of manifest destiny. To hear the Nats players talk, you definitely hear the wounded pride, but you still look at the team as a whole askance after the experience last year. 

All last year we waited for WSH to make a run, but the run never came. Why that was exactly you’d have to ask someone who followed them day in and day out. You hear it was clubhouse chemistry, or a bumbling manager, or whatever else. They had the MVP of the entire league, an ace pitcher who threw two no-no’s and still barely managed to break .500. 

But it’s all in the past now, as is the Mets’ success in the Year of the Phoenix. No matter how badly things went for WSH last year, I’m not sleeping on them entering this season. 

And what of the Mets? My heart tells me they’re going to be good, that they could even be great. But remember my head plays host to the Voice^3, and he’s been chirping early this year. 

Principally he reminds me that never in my Mets-watching life has the anticipation of success let to its realization.

In the Year of Face Palm, I believed Steve Somers when he said the Mets were going to come back and beat the Braves no matter the 3-0 hole. And when Robin hit one deep to right center field? And when Piazza went yard in Atlanta to erase the early 5-run lead? We were on our way, I just knew it. 

In the Year of Our Disappointment, I legit thought the Mets were going to take it to the Yankees. 

In the Year of Our Youth when Endy went over the wall? In that moment I believed anything was possible. 

And then most recently, in the Year of the Phoenix when I thought the Harvey-deGrom-Syndergaard triumvirate couldn’t fail^4, nor the Mets after we’d so thoroughly dismantled the Cubs in the NLCS. 

And where did those expectations get me? To a blown save from Benitez, to Timo dogging it around the bases, to Beltran watching strike 3 sail over the plate, and to so many balls trickling under Murph’s glove and misguided throws from first to home. 

If I have a worry heading into the Year of Happy Recaps, it’s that my history with expectation will repeat itself with all the cruelty of the Voice’s infallible logic that says: “this is your life as a Mets fan, failure ahead.” 

Next time: more positivity. 

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 RHK-ism denoting “Pre-Metsidized Time” (see, for reference, “Infinite Mets: A Guide to Metsidized Time (1/??),” as published 1 September, Year of the Phoenix

^2 Controversial, I know. Look, the playoff ride last year was a dream. But to have gotten to the World Series, to have led each game in the late innings (I guess things broke down on the earlier side in Game 2, but we still had a lead), and to have come away with but one win... the World Series was a distasteful dessert after the best meal of your life. 

^3 See, for reference, “Quiet Little Voices,” as published 17 September, Year of the Phoenix

If you’re reading this blog or following me on Twitter, it’s a near certainty you’re a hardcore baseball fan^2. To the hardcore baseball fan, nothing beats a pitchers duel, the drama of hanging on every pitch created by two masters of their craft. 

But to your man on the street, or your wife or your sister? The guy with the neon yellow sleeve who can run really fast, hit the ball really far and look really cool doing it adds a dimension to the game that even a Matt Harvey-type pitcher with personality can’t equal (if only because Harvey doesn’t go every day). 

Every night Yo’s gonna come to bat 3-5 times, and every night it’s going to be must-see TV, for hardcore and casual fans alike. No other player on the Mets has that same effect. Jose Reyes once did. David Wright in his prime, Carlos Beltran... maybe? 

Really the last guy like Cespedes was one Hall of Fame-bound former backstop, one Mike Piazza. And he was the first since who? Darryl? 

The point is, guys like this are super rare, and if you don’t think that Cespedes adds a quality to this team it didn’t have before, you’re not paying enough attention. 

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the flash and excitement, the sizzle, of Cespedes was the right baseball move, or if actually the Antonio Bastardos and the Neil Walkers were the deals that made the Mets meaningfully better than they’d have otherwise been^3. 

What you can’t argue, however, is that the Mets were more interesting before they brought Cespedes back. They’re a more compelling, more exciting on-field product. And that’s good news for hardcore Mets fans, casual Mets fans, and baseball fans more broadly. 

- D.F.G.

^1 I’d wager like 100 people bought Antonio Bastardo jerseys ironically, but that’s about where it’d top out.

^2 Either that or you’re one of the not-inconsiderable number of aspiring musicians who follow me for some reason. If anyone can shed any light on that, please do. 

Where the world had once rejoiced in “LOLMets”, the LOLs about the Mets fell silent as the team appears fully capable of matching up with the presumed class of the National League, the Chicago Cubs^3. 

Where memories of the Year of No A-Rod^4 lingered, the hope of the Year of Happy Recaps took its place. 

This is a remarkable time to be a Mets fan. I noted to my wife how never in our history have the Mets won consecutive division titles. There can be no certainties, but does it seem not just possible but in fact likely that we do so this year? 

This is our moment. Health permitting, this is the window of time some of us have been waiting our whole lives for: the window when we have a chance to be championship contenders several years running. 

I’ll say this: I’m not sure that window wasn’t open prior to Yoenis Cespedes resigning with the Mets. I thought we had a very good team prior to him re-upping. 

But before he signed, I couldn’t definitively say that team ownership was prepared to capitalize on this window. Some fans will contest how “definitive” their commitment is, particularly since Cespedes can opt out of his deal after the 2016 season. We’ll see then, they say, how definitive their commitment is. 

To that I say -- fine. For now, the Wilpons have proven their willingness to spend $25-$27.5m on a single player, a guy who can be a difference-maker. If they’re faced with the same decision next winter, I hope they prove a similar willingness. 

There will be time to consider opt-outs and the Wilpons’ frugality in November. For now I want to focus on the present day and what could be the year I’ve dreamed of my entire life. 

The Year of Happy Recaps.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 As I write this, Winter Storm Jonas continues dumping meter after meter of snow on Brooklyn. 

^2 I’ve been a baseball fan a long time. Never before had I heard “average annual value” used as a metric for player value, and now, all of a sudden, “AAV” is ubiquitous. I’m not arguing with this phenomenon, since basically it’s the first thing I would do after a player signed a contract was get on with it and divide the total contract value by the number of years, which quotient was sometimes referred to in articles announcing the player’s contract, but the term “AAV” was never to be found^2a.

^2a See, for reference, articles written about contracts awarded to Giancarlo Stanton (2014), Carlos Beltran (2013), and Johan Santana (2008). 

^3 Which two teams very much appeared destined for years of heated rivalry when they met last October. See, for reference,  “Four Wins for the Next Four Years of the National League” as published 17 October, Year of the Phoenix.

After 20 years though, and after significant contemplation of what those in his adopted home^3 would refer to as “vergangenheitsbewaeltigung”^4, he’d found his way back to the team that had drafted him, the team he’d never wanted to leave. And with something like the recklessness with which he used to flail around the bases, Murph, back in the bigs, sprung through the tunnel and out onto the grass. 

There, as instructed, was young Hal Heidegung. Heidi. The Dane. The young hitting prodigy that was to be Murphy’s page^5 in these earliest days of spring. 

The Dane profiled like many a can’t-miss prospect before him. Plus-plus all around. But he knew it was the thing, which certainty produced equal measures of, outwardly, arrogance, and, inwardly, an intense fear of falling short of his potential^6. 

“No sunglasses,” the older man snorted. 

“Sorry,” Heidi replied, somewhat confused, as he stripped the glasses from his boyish, hopeful face and looked into the grizzled wisdom of Murphy’s. There the two stood, silently, locked mostly eye to eye excepting moments when the peculiarity of the exercise became altogether unbearable for the Dane, for the better part of the next 30 minutes. 

“Tell me,” Murphy intoned, having concluded he’d sized up the younger man. “Son, does the word ‘allgemeinbildun’^7 mean anything to you?”

“No sir,” said the page, swallowing hard and fidgeting warily, which visible discomfort Murphy made mental note of. No matter how common learning German was throughout the broader EU, the Dane had paid disastrously little attention to his studies, figuring that the odds of playing Major League ball were incredibly slim to begin with, as a Dane, and that devoting himself to the study of German really wouldn’t help matters much. 

“I have one job here with you, Heidegung. And it’s to teach you everything I know about hitting. You know how long I been hitting? How old are you?”

“Twenty, sir.”

“Twenty?! Du liebe Zeit! I been hitting since before you were born, son. Long before. And I did it damn well, too. Damn well. And do you know how I did it? Do you know how I hit so well, son? Here, have a seat.”

He motioned to the grass, still wet with dew or maybe it was the spray of the sprinklers, and the Dane looked at it warily as his teacher assumed the padmasana pose before him. As Murphy looked expectantly up at him, the Dane lowered himself to the grass, whereupon the dampness of the sod combined with his polyester-clad rear end in most uncomfortable fashion. 

“Better?”

“Well, truthfu--”

“’Gewinnen den pitch.’”

“Pardon me?”

“Gewinnen den pitch. Win the pitch. That, my boy, is allgemeinbildun about hitting.”

The commitment to simplicity was indeed a departure for Murphy, who, in his younger days, had reveled in almost encyclopedic breakdowns of hitting phenomena, his discourses on which topic proved exhausting, if not completely alienating, to even the most committed baseball enthusiasts^8, to say nothing of hitting prodigies whose prowess with the bat owed more to reflexes and musculature than academia. 

“Coach, I --.”

“Call me ‘Trainer’.”

“Sure. Trainer... I try not to get too wrapped up pitch to pitch. I keep my focus on the broader AB, and that works for me. ”

He didn’t know what “padmasana pose” was.

“Ach! Kümmere Dich nicht um ungelegte Eier^9!”

“...”

“What is life if not but a series of little moments from which to learn? A series of moments past that inform the present and create the future? And what is each pitch if not an opportunity to learn? May it not be said, more broadly, that in all things ‘da liegt der Hase im Pfeffer’^10?”

As a look of complete and utter confusion creased across his face, around this point a first bead of sweat, which heretofore had been collecting on Heidi’s forehead against the brim of his cap, betrayed him, and began to trickle down the sides of his face, which detail definitely did not escape Murphy’s attention. 

“It is one thing to say, ‘hit a home run,’ is it not?"

“...”

“Is it not?”

“Yes, Trainer.”

“And of course to hit a home run is to have had a successful at-bat, is it not?”

“Yes, Trainer.”

“But to have had a successful at bat is to have won a specific pitch in the at-bat, is it not?”

"Yes, Trainer, but --”

“In at-bats, as in life, may we not say Kleinvieh macht auch Mist^11?”

“...”

“Ach! Jugend wird auf den jungen verschwendet! Was it not so for me as well? Was it not the culmination of all my baseball tutelage, of the studious application of past moments to present that made it possible? What did I know then of the Schwarzwald? And still I hit home runs in 6 straight playoff games! Off of Kershaw, no less! Are you familiar with Kershaw? 

“Of cou---”

“So I ask again, what is life if not the sum of all small things? What then of the disposability of one J. Niese if J. deGrom had remained a shortstop? Or if not for the Cy Young campaign of R.A. Dickey which was turned into N. Syndergaard?” 

“He’s Danish!”

“It was not but so simple as to say N. Walker is this and our incumbent 2B that, any more than it was A. de Aza this and Y. Cespedes that. What then if F. Wilpon and B. Madoff had never run in the same circles, or J. Duquette had not dealt S. Kazm...”

Hours later, after the Dane had had a most prodigious round of BP and as the blazing afternoon sun gave way to dusk, D. Murphy, reclining in his seat back in the seclusion of the clubhouse, would allow himself a private delight. 

“Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund^12,” he said, a tumbler with cool lemonade and one oversized cube of ice swishing satisfyingly in this hand. Closing his eyes, he took a long sip of lemonade. He felt refreshed. “Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund.”

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 From the German meaning something like “bringing good tidings,” which name referred to some time around P.M.T. 2035. 

^2 Who can say, really, when a ballplayer’s retirement is premature? Not singular were the talent evaluators who said his swing had lost its urgency, his eye its precision, and the less said about his glove work the better. More than anything, what gnawed at Murph was the question of what might have been if only he’d discovered the potency of Schwarzwald^2a wood earlier in this career. 

^2a That is, the Black Forest, a wooded region of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. 

^3 Not insignificant though the temptation of returning home to Jacksonville, FL was, when he searched his heart and spoke to his Lord and Savior^3a, his only conclusion was that he wasn’t ready to hang ‘em up. 

In a frenzied bid to keep his career alive and broaden his cultural perspectives^3b (and as he’d come to appreciate in time, no small measure of torschlusspanik^3c, too, for that matter), Daniel Murphy had spurned the well-trod path through the Nippon Professional Baseball league in favor of a stint with Heidenheim Heideköpfe of the Baseball-Bundesliga in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The six batting titles in six years, the national adoration of Germany’s burgeoning baseball scene, the marital squabbles produced by his accepting a ~$5,000/mo. salary as he all the while continued siring an ever-expanding brood, all of it was in the past now.

^3a Which Lord and Savior had a not insignificant measure of influence on him then as now.

^3b The latter of which motivation he never came right out and said but when he really started to unpack the reasons behind his move to Germany, he could only conclude that it was a contributing factor.

^3c From the German cannoting something like the fear, usually as one gets older, that time is running out and important opportunities are slipping away. This, too, he never came right out and said. 

^4 From the German meaning something like the struggle to come to terms with the past.

^5 Team brass having concluded that Murphy’s significant European exposure would enable him to better connect with the baseball prodigy who hailed, however improbably, from outside Aalborg in North Denmark^5a. 

^5a Which region was known to locals as “Nordjylland.”

^6 Which fear, in Murphy, had eventually become full-on pain before his outright torschlusspanik acceptance. 

^7 From the German meaning more or less everything that any adult capable of living independently can reasonably be expected to know.

^8 e.g., David Wright. 

^9 From the German meaning effectively “don’t put the cart before the horse,” though not in so many words. 

^10 The German proverb here meaning “this is the cause of that”.

^11 German proverb meaning “Small amounts add up to something bigger.”

1964: Year of It’s a Dump, But It’s Our Dump (Y.I.D.B.O.D.)^1

1984: Year of Just What the Doctor Ordered (Y.J.W.D.O.)^2

1992: Year of the Worst Team Money Could Buy (Y.W.T.M.C.B.)^3

1995: Year of Generation K (Y.G.K.)^4

1998: Year of Forgotten Anguish (Y.F.A.)^5

2009: Year of I’m Calling it Shea (Y.O.I.C.I.S.)^6

2016: The Year of Happy Recaps (Y.H.R.)^7

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 What came first, the sentiment or the phrasing? There’s probably no right answer, but either way it’s remarkable how consistent Mets’ fans feelings about Shea Stadium were -- we loved it, warts and all. It wasn’t the love of someone who was unable to see the warts, mind you. We were well aware of those, but Shea was our happy place, the place we grew up loving baseball. So a dump? Yes. But our dump? Always.

^2 To this day I believe the billboard of Doc Gooden adorning like the entire side of a midtown Manhattan building is among the coolest things I’ve ever seen. In my dreams I live in a New York obsessed enough with the Mets to produce something like this again.

^3 I was old enough to remember rooting for this team, but not yet at a point to fully appreciate how big of a bust it was. What’s interesting is that Bobby Bonilla became one of the most reviled -- and, ahem, longest tenured -- Mets of all time, but his stats from his first tour with the Mets really weren’t that bad. He definitely had a down year in Y.W.T.M.C.B., but he had OPS’ of .874 and .878 the next two seasons, and had a .984 (!!) mark in Y.G.K. before getting shipped to BAL.

^4 Twenty years before a legitimate Generation K emerged there was the triumvirate of Paul Wilson, Jason Isringhausen, and Bill Pulsipher. I remember thinking at the time that everything might have been different for Wilson if he hadn’t given up that home run in the bottom of the 9th at Wrigley. But that’s probably not true.

^5 I can remember with excruciating detail the horrors of Y.O.O.P. and Y.L.P., and yet this season, which ended in similarly tragic fashion, goes largely unremembered / unmentioned in the annals of Mets atrocities. In short, we won 88 games, none of which wins came in the final 5 games of the season, wherein we lost 2 to the dreadful Montreal Expos and 3 to the very good, very hated Atlanta Braves, any 1 of which win would have at least created a 3-way tie for the NL Wild Card. I remember being very pissed off in the lunchroom at school the day following the final defeat, and not feeling very up for engaging any Yankee fan friends at all.

^6 True story: I was more accepting of Citi Field than most. As per point ^1 above, I loved Shea, but by the time Citi Field opened I had gotten my head around the fact that the Mets would have a new home. And in many ways I liked the new building from the start -- more than anything, I loved the freedom of movement. At Shea you had no choice but to watch a game from your seats. Perhaps because that was my viewing experience the first approx. 25 years of my life, ever since Citi Field opened I’ve been one to wander the park and watch from the Shea Bridge after about the 2nd or 3rd innings (playoff games excluded).

What I didn’t love about Citi Field, however, was how “un-Mets” it felt. The black walls, the green seats, the ridiculous dimensions that seemed conceived to sap our franchise player of his strengths, the (yes, ok, tasteful / poignant) Jackie Robinson / Brooklyn Dodgers homage compounding the sense of alienation. Did “I’m calling it Shea” become a rallying cry before these mistakes were known as an eff you to the new ballpark, or only after as a way of making the new ballpark feel somehow like our own? I can’t remember now. But I do know that the sentiment lives on, and will always be a reminder to some Mets fans that the current ownership isn’t like exactly in step with the fanbase.

There was a line he trotted out in a couple of interviews during the postseason, which was effectively, “last year I was wasting away in Las Vegas, and now...”

It wasn’t the most gracious thing he could say^2. Be that as it may, there’s no wasting away for Syndergaard now. He starred during October, winning critical games, pitching in relief and amazing crowds with 100 MPH heat. 

With the possible exception of the downtime between the end of the NLCS and the start of the World Series, there likely wasn’t much time for the players themselves to bring their heads up for air. It may be he’s only now realizing how much his life changed in October. 

No one’s star took a larger leap forward than Syndergaard’s^3. How different the world must seem to him. It must feel like he went to sleep in early October, and when he woke up in November he was a superstar. 

Two months ago he hardly would have registered on the jumbotron. Could he have even sat courtside? Would it have been a priority for MSG? 

This is his reality now. On his face you can see the excitement known by all 23-year-olds in New York. The city is so big, with so many different things to see and places to visit. He’s doing all this for the first time, and he genuinely seems to think it’s awesome. 

And I think that’s pretty awesome. You never actually know who these guys are, but I appreciate the way Syndergaard is handling his star turn. He seems like every other wide-eyed 23 year old: coming into his own as an adult, though still young enough to be experiencing everything for the first time. 

From afar, it looks like Syndergaard is buying into the life in NYC. It’s fun to see. You feel a certain kinship with the ballplayers who live in the city and take to it. 

Now if only one of them would move to Brooklyn. You could OWN Barclays, Noah!

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 To the amazement of my family, my sister found herself doing down dog mere inches away from one N. Syndergaard, the latter of whom’s hair purportedly grazed said sister’s feet. Pictorial evidence supports at least the former claim. 

^2 As if to underscore his feelings on the topic, the verb choice “wasting away” was used each time the topic came up.  

It pains me to change the name of this year because of what a joy this season was^1. It was a year of happy recaps no matter how it ended. But because of how it ended it cannot be the year of happy recaps. 

So if this isn’t the Year of Happy Recaps, what is it?

It’s not fully final as yet, but the current lead contender is The Year of the Phoenix. I played around with other ideas but none captured the risen-from-the-ashes quality that a phoenix connotes. I say the name isn’t final because I want to live with it for a little while before committing to it. 

For now though the name seems fitting. What did we do this year if not gain new life? What did we do if not set the stage for continued splendor?

Like the phoenix, the Year of Happy Recaps will rise again, and in quite short order as we’re already nearing the new year. And thanks in no small measure to the wonder that was the Year of the Phoenix, there’s all the more reason to believe that the Year of Happy Recaps moniker will stick next time around. 

- A.F.O.M.G.

As I write those words they do give me the fantods, and the depression starts to creep up. But then I remind myself what a wonderful, unexpected season this was. No matter the final outcome, the Year of the Phoenix was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

I’d seen Mets teams win of course. I’d even seen one make it all the way to the World Series. Never though had I seen a Mets team delight you with its defiance of all probability. 

We had hope coming into the season^2, but a division title? Beating Greinke and Kershaw in the NLDS? Sweeping a 97-win team in the NLCS? A World Series run? Forget it. We did things and went places we never imagined were possible. 

This season was a fever dream of Mets fandom. The fact of it having ended is like waking up from the happiest dream you can remember. 

But here we are, shaken awake from our happy dream of a season, just as the long night of the baseball universe is upon us. So as for now we drift back to sleep. Some four months hence it will be morning again, and this time the Mets won’t sneak up on us or anyone else. The league will be ready for them, ready for the defending National League Champions. 

I can’t wait for the next ride. There will be new challenges to overcome, new fantods to confront and new successes to relish. And of course there’s one steep mountain left to climb. 

"Meet me in the morning, have the motor running.” 

We’ve got places to go.  

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 In truth, I already sort of did that in the bottom of the 9th on Sunday, when I believe my exact words were, “I fucking make that throw, Duda!” I’ve mellowed since the immediate aftermath I suppose. 

^2 For context, my prediction was an 83-79 record, good for 2nd or 3rd in the NL East^2a and MAYBE an outside shot at a second Wild Card berth. 

What a great phrase that was. It implores you to both focus on the moment at hand and to remember that even though you’re down, you’re still a dangerous team. 

If I could deliver one message to the Mets it would be to remember the team they’ve been all season, the one that beat the odds in beating out WSH for the NL East title, and then did the same against LA and CHC. 

They should remember that their core strength all along has been starting pitching, and now with three must-win games on the docket they have Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard lined up. 

There’s been one game this series they deserved to lose, but all others were winnable games, games that turned on Lady Fate as much as anything. Who’s to say the wind won’t blow our way from here on out? 

We’re about 2 hours to game time. I’m terrified and exhilarated all at once. But most important, for me, is that I’m ready to take these games one at a time. Here’s hoping the Mets are, too.

Sip moved to Los Angeles some time ago, but with the Mets in the World Series he’s back in New York, and about 20 minutes hence I’ll make the pilgrimage to the Upper West to watch this pivotal Game 4 where I watched so many other pivotal games over the years, and across the street from the building where it all began. 

Tonight nostalgia and familiarity will be on overdrive, quite the opposite from last night. 

If you have any ability to go to a World Series game, go. The experience was truly unforgettable.

I don’t have anything truly profound to say about the win last night, other than thank god they won. It was poetic somehow to see David Wright have the signature postseason game his stature had been desperate for. Grandy might have been the MVP with the go-ahead home run and ranging catch in right center. 

But in the end the game ball goes to Noah Syndergaard, who overcame some bleeders and bullshit to win a game the Mets HAD to win. There’s been a lot of talk about his first pitch last night, but for my money the only one that really mattered was pitch 104, which ended a bases loaded jam in the 6th. 

It was the last pitch he threw all night, and it was a good one. Tonight it’s the local kid’s turn. Just as a part of my childhood will meld with the game tonight, so too will a part of his. 

It would be an amazin’ story if he pitched the game of his life. 

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 But also great.

Here we are in the World Series and we’re in a hole. So what? We’ve been in a hole all season, whether it was Z. Wheeler going down or Wright or d’Arnaud or trailing Washington or facing Kershaw and Greinke or, or, or. 

Each time the team stepped up, and when they prevailed there was nothing else to say than that they earned it. They’ll have to do the same thing in the World Series. 

So coo coo cachoo, Noah Syndergaard. A fan base turns its desperate eyes to you. 

I’ve seen enough strikeouts from Tyler Clippard and Jon Niese to believe Syndergaard can set these guys down. If we’re gonna earn it we’ll need him to. 

A final exercise before I go, as much for me as it is for anyone reading this. 

Forget everything that happened in the first two games. Forget fielding blunders and quick pitches and getting set down for 9 innings by Johnny Cueto. 

Think of this Mets team at their best. Think of Wilmer hitting a shot to deep left center. Think of Cespedes hitting 3 HR in one game. Think of Familia jumping for joy after the NLDS. Think of Duda driving in 5 in the clincher of the NLCS. Think of Thor bringing the hammer.

Remember who this team is. That team? That one you watched all season long and into the playoffs? That team can still win this thing. 

Did you see a back and forth game for the ages that could have gone either way and say, hey, the Mets can play with these guys, we’re in for an epic series? Or did you see a Royals team that refused to lose when they were down 3-1 in the 6th or 4-3 in the 9th, a team that took advantage of defensive miscues in the 1st and 14th innings, a team the Mets can hang with, maybe, but cannot beat? 

There are any number of interpretations of Game 1. In classic Rorschach inkblot form, your answers to the questions above ultimately say more about you than the game itself^4. 

My answers? Here’s what I wrote to my friends when it was over: “That's the kind of loss that makes you wonder if you'll win one game all series.” It was a low moment. 

It’s these kinds of losses where the Voice^5 creeps up real nice and close like. Where he gets right in my face and answers: “snakebitten,” “shouldn’t have had the ball, not what he was, blew it,” and “cannot beat” to the questions above. 

As he often does, the Voice slinks away in the daylight. He comes knocking from time to time, but today I can rationalize what happened. My buddy Nails said we needed a game to get our heads in the competition, and that may be right. We did look a bit rusty at times, a bit overawed by the spotlight but in a manner that should prove passing. 

I’m in a mostly good headspace now. The Voice does come creeping back as I said; he reminds me that losing just that one game means the Mets now have to go 4-2 over the next 6 to win, and oh by the way and don’t look now but if they lose tonight they’d have to go 4-1 to win it all and good luck pulling that off. 

That said, we’ve got Jacob deGrom on the hill tonight, who always inspires confidence. On their side, Johnny Cueto has been an enigma, equally capable of brilliance and disaster, so let’s hope for the latter. 

It’s a big momentum game. Safe to say the Voice will be perched on my shoulder all night, but there’s nothing new there. 

What’s new is a chance to right the ship, to gather the momentum before returning to Citi Field. We can make Game 1 a distant memory with a win tonight. Let’s get it done. 

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 If that play wasn’t an error I’m not sure what is. 

^2 Using K. Johnson at DH, Y. Cespedes in CF, and M. Conforto in LF, rather than Cespedes in LF, Conforto at DH, and J. Lagares in CF. 

^3 The first time all playoffs a TC decision came up a lemon, mind you.

^4 Check back in 5 November for definitive answers on all.  

Not all disappointments are created equal; there have been some great moments, some great years, sprinkled in along the way. And as the kind of person who follows the Mets religiously in good times and bad, it’s worth nothing that they are for me a never-ending passion, source of intrigue, and yes, comfort no matter how they’re going.

To the extent though that my fandom was born watching that [P.M.T.] '86^2 Mets Tape, and to the extent that part of what that tape instilled in me was the hope and belief that I might see such a thing for myself someday^3, it's fair to say that the opportunity we have over the next 10 days is the one I've been waiting for lo these past 30 years.

What do I expect? As I said before the NLCS, I don’t like making predictions. Baseball is so difficult to predict^4 that it is to me almost not worth doing at all^5. 

But as I said then, there are things I’ve come to expect from this Y.O.T.P. Mets team. 

I expect them to pitch really, really well. I expect their offense to be better than anyone gives it credit for. I expect them to be resilient AF^6. These are the things they’ve shown us time and time again throughout the regular season and into the playoffs. 

My hope for them is that they play the game well. My hope is that there is no Timo Perez-like baserunning gaffe, that there are no Murphy-isms or other physical or mental errors that come back to bite us. 

And my hope for myself and all Mets fans of my vintage is that our waiting is over. The fever dream^7 du jour is to watch the Mets pile on top of each other in front of a delirious home crowd at Citi Field, the celebration as glorious as anything I’ve ever imagined. 

I’m ready for that moment. Tonight we take the first step. I can hardly wait. 

- A.F.O.M.G.

Notes & Errata

^1 !!

^2 Despite being no less than the inventor of Metisidized Time, I can’t bring myself to refer to this video as anything other than “the ‘86 Mets Tape”.

^3 See, for reference, “The Dream of My Youth” as published 22 October, Y.O.T.P.

^4 Who had Daniel Murphy turning into Babe Ruth the past two rounds? 

^5 To say nothing of the karmic implications and fantods that would prevail upon a predictor, should their prediction prove incorrect.

^6 Internet argot meaning “as fuck.”