Category Archives: Baseball

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 14-16

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

riverfront.jpgApril 20, 1999: Mets 3, Reds 2

The Mets traveled to Cincinnati to play a team other than the Expos or Marlins for the first time in 1999. The thoroughly boo-able Bobby Bonilla broke a 1-1 tie in the 7th with the first homer of his second tour of duty with the team, and Robin Ventura drove in another run in the eighth with an RBI single.

The Mets carried a 3-1 lead into the ninth, when John Franco decided to make things far too interesting by giving up singles to the first two batters. After a sac bunt, Pokey Reese singled in a run; a great play by Edgard Alfonzo kept the ball in the infield and prevented the tying run from scoring. Franco then walked pinch hitter Jeff Hammonds to load the bases with only one out, but struck out future Met Mike Cameron and induced a pop-up from Barry Larkin to end the game.

“I got away with one tonight,” Franco told reporters.

April 21, 1999: Reds 7, Mets 4

Birthday boy Masato Yoshii continued to struggle. The Mets handed him a 4-0 lead he could not hold; the Reds torched him for six runs in the fourth, knocked him out of the game, and cruised to a 7-4 victory. Yoshii’s ERA ballooned to 7.47, further endangering his future in the rotation.

During the game, Bobby Valentine got in a screaming match with home plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck, Roger Cedeno took a called strike three that was, in Valentine’s estimation, just as low as pitches by Yoshii that had been called balls. “Yoshii threw 15 pitches that good! I’ guarantee you that.” Amazingly, Valentine was not bounced for his insolence.

April 22, 1999: Mets 4, Reds 1

Al Leiter finally earned his first win of the season in this game, going six-plus innings and striking out eight. Valentine said Leiter pitched “like a man possessed.”

Another first came from the outfield, which featured all three of its projected starters for the first time that season (Bonilla, Brian McRae, and Rickey Henderson). That lasted exactly one inning before Bonilla removed himself from the game with knee trouble.

Todd Pratt (continuing to catch in Mike Piazza’s absence) hit his second homer in two games. Armando Benitez allowed a few baserunners in the eighth but escaped unscathed. Franco recorded a rare 1-2-3 ninth inning for his sixth save of the year.

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 11-13

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

youppi.jpgApril 16, 1999: Expos 6, Mets 4

Al Leiter entered the day seeking his first win of the year, and he left still seeking it. The lefty allowed only four hits in the first seven frames, but all four hits came in the fourth inning and resulted in four runs. Leiter limited the damage after that until the eighth, when he surrendered two more runs that put the game away for Montreal. Leiter’s counterpart, Dustin Hermanson, also gave up four hits in seven innings but held the Mets to just one run.

The Mets’ ostensible ace was done in by equal parts weather and bad luck. A one-hour-plus rain delay preceded the game; precipitation had figured so heavily in Leiter’s previous starts that John Franco dubbed him The Rain Man. He also had to deal with a weird hop on a ball hit by Michael Barrett that eluded Robin Ventura and prolonged the Expos’ four-run fourth inning.

“I’d be a little more distraught and a little more concerned if I felt I had no clue,” said a mystified Leiter (0-2). ”But my stuff is as good as it’s ever been in my career. I’m just not making that big pitch to get out of an inning. But I feel too good to get depressed about it yet.”

The Mets made a late bid to make things interesting, with one run in the eighth and two in the ninth on a Todd Pratt homer, but Expos closer/machete enthusiast Ugueth Urbina came in to get the last three outs without further incident.

Rickey Henderson hit a pinch-hit single in the eighth, then immediately asked to leave the game with a tight hamstring. After the game, he wouldn’t commit to making a start in left the following day. “I’ve got to wake up in the morning and see how it feels,” he said.

Continue reading 1999 Project: Games 11-13 →

Baseball, Pointless Nostalgia

Shea It’s Still So

A tweet by mr_met alerted me to this post over at the No Mas Scorecard–which I should have alerted myself to much sooner, as I’m a big fan of No Mas, their t-shirts, and their general outlook on The Sporting World. No matter; I shall endeavor to make up for lost time.

No Mas, Paul Lukas (Uniwatch guru), and The Reverend Vince Anderson have teamed to campaign the Mets to rename their new ballpark after their old one. Or, more importantly, to name it after the man without whom the Mets wouldn’t exist: Bill Shea.

I am totally on board with this movement. For one thing, it would remove the association with corporate cockfucks Citibank, which will continue to dog the team until they change the ballpark’s name. For another, it acknowledges that yes, the Mets do indeed have some history they should be proud of and celebrate.

I have very few complaints about CitiField as a place to watch a ballgame–and as noted elswhere, I think a lot of the criticism of the place is nitpicky and way out of line–but the Wilpons’ lack of acknowledgment of this history within it really bugs me. Supposedly, they’re working on some sort of Mets Museum, but quite tellingly, they didn’t make any formal announcements about it until fan outcry about the lack of Mets material in the stadium.

callitshea.jpgI get the impression that, in the absence of such an outcry, management would be totally happy with the current memorabilia-free state, which is a real shame. Go to any new ballpark, and it has some kind of feature on either the team, or the town, or both. The Nationals have been in DC all of 5 seasons and their new stadium has such a display. If they can do it, the Mets sure as hell can.

The Calling It Shea Project’s platform is a little murky, but part of it involves the sale of the t-shirt pictured here. Ten percent of the proceeds go to Food Bank NYC. Your dough could go to far worse places, so if you think Shea should be celebrated for his efforts in perpetuity, express it in t-shirt form.