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1999 Project

1999 Project: NLCS Game 1

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

Thumbnail image for johnrocker.jpgThe Mets had almost three days off in between game 4 of the NLDS and the start of the championship series in Atlanta. But they began their assault on the Braves almost as soon as Todd Pratt’s home run cleared the center field fence at Shea. Their barrage was of the verbal variety. No Met was shy about expressing their opinion of the division champs.

It was a cavalier attitude, to say the least, considering Atlanta had their way with the Mets at every turn during the regular season. Perhaps their reversal of fortune since the last time they faced Chipper Jones and company caused them to believe they were bulletproof. Perhaps, whipped into a frenzy by a New York press corps with dreams of a Subway Series, they were already looking past the Braves. Whatever the reason, the word hubris had disappeared from their vocabulary.

“I thought I had heard that [the Braves] were shocked and surprised that we weren’t in,” Al Leiter said after the Mets’ series-clinching game 4 victory. “They must be really shocked and surprised now.”

“I think it’ll be even more special once we beat the Braves,” Turk Wendell said. “Just because of everything we’ve gone through this year and last year.” Regarding Chipper’s comments, “All I have to say is he stuck his foot in his mouth. He’s going to have to deal with it every game. He’s going to have to deal with the fans.”

“One thing that we’ve got to remember is the fact that they are supposed to beat us,” Darryl Hamilton said. “And they [the Braves] said that. The last time we played Atlanta they were talking about the ghost [the Mets], playing the Yankees. And all the Mets fans should go get their Yankees stuff.”

Not surprisingly, the most inflammatory words came from Bobby Valentine. He’d already landed in hot water for admitting he voted for Bobby Cox for manager of the year “because he had to manage this year.” (Valentine insisted there was a “really” in the statement that his interviewer missed.)

Now he told The New York Times, “We were supposed to be dead, right? Our fans were supposed to change gear. They’re supposed to be watching football.” Regarding Chipper Jones’ infamous ‘Yankee gear’ comment, “It was a premature statement and an incorrect statement. I think he was very confident he wouldn’t have to deal with the fans again this year. Guess what, he’s going to have to deal with them again this year.” And regarding the Braves’ opinion of the Mets:

We have great respect for them. I think we still have to earn our respect. They’ve shown us very little. There’s been a lot of comments. If the comments and actions they’ve made over the years were in New York, as a New York team, they’d be well-known and documented. A lot has slipped by….I don’t want to get into specifics. We know it and those who have been watching know it. We’ll just go on to earn our respect.

For the most part, the Braves kept quiet, said all the right things, and declined to talk any smack about the Mets. Even John Rocker had compliments for them, backhanded though they were: “I’m really shocked to see how they had to squeak into the playoffs with a one-game playoff. I thought they would beat us out for the division, just looking on paper, at talent, theirs versus ours.”

Perhaps because the head-to-head record spoke for itself (“We’re not at this level for nothing,” Brian Jordan said). Perhaps because they’d been to the playoffs so many times, they found it hard to get excited about the whole affair, even against a supposed hated rival. Perhaps because the press in Atlanta was more provincial and supportive, as opposed to the headline-hungry scribes of New York’s back pages. Or perhaps because the Braves successfully avoided the media altogether; according to the NBC announcing crew, Chipper Jones refused all interview requests in the days prior to game 1.

Regardless of the reason, the Braves refused to be drawn into a war of words. Bobby Cox went so far as to profess ignorance of the Mets’ comments. In a pregame interview with sideline reporter Jim Gray, when asked about his opponents’ comments, Cox said, “I haven’t read any of it, Jim, to be honest.”

Incredulously, Gray pressed him, “But certainly you’ve heard it?”

“Not much of it,” Cox said, with a straight face. He sounded much more excited about a quail hunting trip he’d go on with Ted Turner, contingent on the Braves reaching the World Series.

On the other side, Valentine looked distracted and distant when interviewed by Craig Sager. He didn’t exactly back off his comments, but he didn’t exactly deny them either. He didn’t exactly say much of anything, mouthing the usual “we gotta play hard” platitudes, as if he had a gun to his back and a directive to not say anything remotely interesting, lest he tempt the Baseball Fates even further.

The Mets did an excellent job of portraying themselves as the cocky upstarts, and the Braves played their role as the seasoned professionals. New York as Tanner Boyle, telling Atlanta where they could stick all their division trophies.

The Braves seemed less concerned by the Mets (at least outwardly) and more concerned with the label of Team of the Decade. Or rather, the question of whether or not they deserved such a label. They’d won the division title and gone to the league championship series every year since 1991. Despite all that success, they’d won only one World Series, causing some to consider them really, good and not great. “It’s easy to win when you’re not supposed to,” said John Smoltz in response (it is?). “It’s harder to keep doing it. Nobody can take anything away from us…Who cares if we’re the team of the decade or not? They’re going to forget these 10 years some day. All we care about is that we’ve got a chance to win again.”

In his pregame remarks on NBC, Joe Morgan surmised the Mets’ thoughts thusly: “I think the Mets know they have a good enough ball club to beat the Braves. They just have to play good fundamental baseball and not make mistakes.” He also said it was “important for the Mets to go after Chipper Jones right away”.

I present such obvious statements because, on paper, the former was much more doable than the latter. Chipper hit .400 against the Mets in 1999, with 7 home runs and 16 RBIs, so going after him was easier said than done. Mistakes should have been simple to avoid for a team with an historically low rate of committing errors.

But the opposite would turn out to be true. For the most part, Mets pitchers would limit Chippers’ ability to do damage throughout the series. It was errors, miscues, and all manner of mistakes that would undo them, particularly in the first three games.
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1999 Project

1999 Project: A First-hand Account of Pratt-tober

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a tad obsessed with the 1999 Mets. But I also have to admit, I didn’t not get to see them in person many times. Not more than twice, and I my usually steeltrap brain can’t recall any specific details from my trips to Shea that year. Shameful to admit, but true.

I also didn’t get to go to any playoff games–those I surely would have remembered. As I’ve explained before, it didn’t even occur to me at the time that I would be allowed to go to a playoff game. As if it was some sweet nectar reserved for only the very privileged.

But this week I received a communique from a friend who attended game 4 of the NLDS. I’m posting it here, complete and unedited, because not only is it a great first-hand account of the majesty and insanity of that game, but it also captures exactly why that team means so much to me. This comes from TheWhiteBoomBoom, longtime friend and frequent commenter in these parts. (He asked to be identified as “longtime friend and former lover,” but I said no. Ooops…)

Reading the last week or two of the 1999 Project has been awesome, mostly because I’ve found myself being totally thrilled by each win (or devastated by the loses), despite knowing exactly how the whole thing plays out.  I’m pretty sure I was going through the exact same thing at home, listening/watching the games, or more likely, catching the recaps on the news, since at the time I worked a job that usually got me home at about 11 pm.

Those last few weeks were a little overshadowed for me, though, as on September 27th of that year, my father passed away.  My father took me to my first baseball game when I was an infant, and even tried to catch a bare handed foul ball with me in his other arm (he didn’t go dashing or leaning over a railing for it or anything…he wasn’t THAT irresponsible.)  Some of my earliest memories were of he and I, sitting in our driveway during the summer, listening to the Pirates play on a little transistor radio. I remember when he explained to me what “the 3-2 pitch” actually meant.

My friends, who had converted me to being a Mets fan in the summer of 1998, called me when those playoffs started and said that they got tickets to game four of the NLDS and they wanted me to come.  My job paid me by the hour, and since I had just taken a week off to be with my family for the services, I was pretty broke.  They said not to worry, they would take care of it.  It was one of the best gifts anyone had given me.

The game was insane.  Our group were all lifelong Mets fans, who had waited in the big crazy line to get those tickets.  None of those corporate gifts for us.

The youngest of our group spent the entire game sitting, his hands folded in front of his mouth, staring at the field like he was trying to explode someone’s head like in Scanners.  The only time he did anything was a short burst of clapping when the Mets got a hit or a strikeout.  I could tell he wouldn’t feel relieved until the last out of the ninth.

Which means Alan probably got an ulcer before his 20th birthday, because OF COURSE the game went into extra innings.  It felt like the last 3 weeks had nothing but extra innings.

I remember when the final score of the Braves game showed on the scoreboard, and the fans started a chant saying, “We want the Braves!”  Dom turned to me and said, “Umm, no we don’t.”

Anyway, up comes Todd Pratt.  And man, he nails that ball absolutely dead center.  The whole place stands up and waits, because while it seemed to have shot off his bat, Steve Finley had been an animal in center that whole series.  Maybe it’s time clouding my memory, but I remember him stealing several hits, not to mention a few leaps up the wall that turned should-have-been home runs into depressing outs.

And there he was again, jumping against that wall, about to steal the game winning home run in the 11th inning, in what had been an exhausting few weeks for Mets fans.  The whole stadium is on it’s feet, waiting, staring, dead silent, for what feels like an eternity while Finley lands, to find out if he did his magic again.  He lands, we’re all holding our breath, and he turns to the infield, and just shakes his head no.

I have never seen such an eruption of unadulterated joy by so many people due to one man’s failure in my life.  My friends and I literally jumped on each other, over our seats, bruises be damned.

My friends dropped me off somewhere in Williamsburg, and I all told them that I couldn’t thank them enough, and that they would never realize how much it meant to me that they took me to that game.  I know I got a little misty eyed in the back of the car, but I was able to keep it in check in front of my friends.  I won’t be so schmaltzy to say that it was my dad that kept that ball out of Finley’s glove that afternoon.  I couldn’t help but think, however, of those times he spent with me teaching me about baseball, and that I was so glad he had given me that gift, because I was now able to enjoy a few moments of absolute joy, in the face of that crushing pain.

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1999 Project

1999 Project: NLDS Game 4

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

99_nldsgm4_bobbyv.pngBefore, during, and after game 3, everyone connected with the Mets held out hope that Mike Piazza’s thumb would miraculously heal somehow and allow him to return in game 4. That proved to be a pipe dream, and for the second straight game, Todd Pratt would catch in his place. During his pregame remarks, Gary Cohen said Bobby Valentine told him “Mike might, might be able to pinch hit, but it seems unlikely we will see him again in this series”.

Piazza said later the team told him to rest up, and get ready for the NLCS (not that they had much choice, since he couldnt bend his thumb). They needed one more win to get there, of course, and the man charged with getting them there was Al Leiter. Despite having a so-so season, the lefty had won some of the season’s most important games. He ended an eight-game losing streak with eight great innings at Yankee Stadium, he ended a seven-game slide at the end of September by beating the Braves, and he went the distance in game 163 to launch the Mets into the playoffs.

Leiter pronounced himself ready for another challenge. The Jersey native, who grew up a Mets fan, relished the thought of finishing up this series in front of the home town crowd. He also had no issue throwing to Pratt instead of Piazza. His best start of the season–with 15 Ks against the Cubs–came with Pratt behind the plate.

He even threw some backhanded compliments to the backup backstop. “This is not a knock,” he told the Daily News, “but obviously [Pratt] doesn’t have the same career numbers as Mike, so he really takes that much more pride in catching a good ballgame. He really wants to catch a good game, and if Todd ends up getting some knocks, great.”

For his part, Pratt didn’t need to be told he wasn’t in Piazza’s offensive league. Like many backup catchers, his career had been one of ups and downs–mostly downs. After bouncing around several organizations, he wound up on the Phillies, and even made it on the postseason roster for the 1993 team that went to the World Series, though he would only get one at-bat in the playoffs.

After being released by the Mariners in 1996, he worked at Bucky Dent’s Baseball Academy for a while, then managed a Domino’s franchise . “If I had to go back to it, I could,” he told reporters who asked him about it. “There’s nothing wrong with managing a pizza parlor.”

The Mets rescued him from such a fate, and sent him to the minors. He hit his way out of triple-A Norfolk in 1997, though found himself back in the minors in 1998 when the Mets acquired catcher Jorge Fabregas. But Pratt was back in the bigs before the season was out, and spent all of 1999 as Piazza’s backup, a position akin to that of the Maytag repairman.

He knew his role and had no complaints about it. How could he? He was just grateful to be along for the ride. “I’m not Mike,” Pratt said after game 3, in case anyone was confused. “Nobody is in that league. He generates a lot of power and intimidation in the middle of the order.”

But for one at-bat on October 9, 1999, being Todd Pratt was more than enough. Much like the lyrics of the David Bowie song that played in ESPN’s division series bumpers (well, a very bad cover of a Bowie song, anyway): he’d be a hero, just for one day.
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