A 1964 Shea Stadium postcard and the great Pearl Bailey

I finally got around to scanning in a pile of various things I've picked up over the past year, and this is one of the cooler ones. It's not just the 1964 view of Shea Stadium in its first year, featuring the colored panels hanging outside the ramps, the old buses parked near the subway bridge, the vintage cars in the parking lot and the cartoons of the Jets and Mets (interesting number choice, by the way; No. 45 wasn't worn until 1964, by Ron Locke). Those things are cool, but it's a pretty common postcard. I've seen it plenty of times. What made me buy it was the back -- be sure to note the date it was sent.



First of all, I love old postcards that have been sent. I don't need to know anything about who sent it, who received it, or where it went. It's interesting to me just to get this small little window into one brief moment of a day or a trip in someone's life, decades ago. Of all the things they saw, experienced or had to tell someone, what was it that made them choose these details?

But back to this postcard: The Mets won the 1969 World Series on Oct. 16 at Shea; this postcard was mailed six weeks later from Flushing. Interesting choice by "Sidney," who makes no mention of anything but Broadway, the weather, and her (his?) flight. No talk of the Mets, no mention of the ballpark, no indication of why this postcard was chosen.

It's a shame Pearl Bailey wasn't in that Saturday performance of "Hello Dolly" -- Bailey and Cab Calloway starred in a very successful all-black production of the musical, and Bailey won a Tony Award in 1968 for her role -- because therein lies a connection not to just to baseball and the Mets, but also Game 5 of the '69 Series. A big Mets fan, Bailey sang the national anthem before Game 5 and took home a clump of sod from the field after the victory, according to The Amazin' Mets 1962-1969, by William J. Ryczek.

I wonder if Sidney had any idea of the subtle connection between that star and the front of the postcard sent to Miss Helen Phelps in Beaver, Pa.

The Mayor at the Mayor's Cup

Mayor Koch at Shea, April 1989

I think Ed Koch was my first celebrity sighting. It was 1989 and my father, uncle, cousin and I had driven up to Shea Stadium for the Mayor's Cup game between the Mets and Yankees to end spring training. Our seats were in the upper deck, but we arrived early enough to walk around the loge section. As we made our way along the left-field line, I heard people cheering and then noticed a small cluster of men in suits in the orange seats.

When one turned toward the cheers and raised his hands in acknowledgment, I realized it was the mayor. Though we were from the Jersey Shore, all our network television broadcasts originated in New York City, so the nightly newscasts covered the Big Apple, and Koch was a familiar face to me. I had my Kodak Disc camera with me and managed to press the shutter at the precise moment when he raised his hands to the fans. I suppose it was my first perfectly timed photograph, too.

It looks pleasant enough for an April Sunday morning, but I think it turned blustery that day, the wind whipping around the upper deck and sending us all home with pink, wind-burned faces. I have no idea where the mayor sat or how long he stayed, but his two-handed wave to the fans has stayed with me all these years.

Jim Qualls vs. Tom Seaver

Part of my 2011 Christmas haul

I finally watched the recent episode of Studio 42 with Bob Costas in which he sat down with Tom Seaver up in Cooperstown to talk about Tom Terrific's career. There was some great stuff in there, particularly Seaver's opinion of the use of today's pitchers. But he also talked about his "imperfect game" in 1969. When asked about Jim Qualls, who got the lone hit -- who was the only baserunner -- in that game, Seaver said he'd never faced the guy before, and he wasn't sure if he'd ever faced him after that.

So of course I had to look it up. I went to Baseball Reference's Play Index and drew up all of Qualls' appearances against Hall of Fame pitchers:

	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	SH	SF	IBB	HBP	GDP	missG
Tom Seaver	6	6	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.167	.167	.167	.333	0	0	0	0	0
Don Sutton	6	6	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	.333	.333	.333	.667	0	0	0	0	0
Bob Gibson	4	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	0	0	0
Don Drysdale	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	0	0	0
Juan Marichal	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	0	0	0
Gaylord Perry	2	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	.500	.500	.500	1.000	0	0	0	0	0
Catfish Hunter	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	0	0	0
Phil Niekro	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000	.000	.000	.000	0	0	0	0	0

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/28/2011.

Not much there. The hit in the ninth against Seaver on July 9, 1969, was Qualls' only one against The Franchise, and he had only three other hits -- of 31 in his career -- off future Hall of Famers. Seaver wasn't sure if he'd faced Qualls outside of that game, but he did, the following week in Chicago. Seaver allowed five hits and a walk and lost, 1-0. Qualls went 0-for-3.

But back to 7/9/69 -- how unlikely was Qualls' hit against Seaver? Qualls' career was so brief (144 plate appearances in three seasons, spread over four years with three teams) that he has no comparables on Baseball Reference. And a search of other players with 130-150 career PA and an OPS under .600 (Qualls' was .540) mostly gives you pitchers. So a present-day comparison might be Argenis Reyes -- or any number of pitchers -- breaking up a Justin Verlander perfecto with two outs to go. Or, from the last perfect game in the Majors, Roy Halladay against the Marlins in May 2010, the equivalent might be Bryan Peterson getting the hit in the ninth to spoil perfection.

Perfection is not easy -- duh -- and though the Mets one day will pitch a no-hitter (they have to, right?), there's no telling if any of us will see a perfect game from the Amazin's anytime soon. If anyone was going to do it, it probably would've been Seaver against those Cubs in the summer of '69, just one week before Apollo 11 launched for the Moon.

A look back: Mets openers

Soon, Casey and I will be riding the rails out to Flushing for another Mets opener (and a Mr. Met bobblehead!). In celebration of baseball coming back to Queens for the season, I've pulled some photos from past openers. I don't have photos from each of the past 12 openers I've been to, but here's a sampling of what I do have.

My first opener, 1991

 Look at the price!

Coming off the train, 2004


Introductions, 2004


Groundskeeper Bill Butler's skyline, 2005


Mr. Met coming off the 7, 2006


On the 7 for Shea's last, 2008


Presenting the good luck wreath, 2008


Citi's debut, from the video board, 2009


After Citi's unveiling, 2009


A bigger flag, 2010


David Wright's home run, 2010

Shea Stadium in 1965

Batting practice in 1965, taken by
Flickr user rbglasson

This is a great shot of ol' Shea back in '65 -- with a crowded upper deck for batting practice! Check it out by clicking on the photo to the right or perusing rbglasson's great set of photos.

So Happy New Year and all that. I haven't quite gotten back on track from the holidays, but I hope to be updating again soon.

Happy Halloween!

Exploding head batter and baserunner

I've been lax with the posts, but I've been simultaneously enthralled with the postseason and uninspired to write about it. I suspect I'll get back to the blogging after the World Series is over.

But for now, here are a few pumpkins my wife and I carved in previous years. I don' think I've posted them here before, so here they are.

(If I remember correctly, the "exploding head" effect of the batter in the above photo was from some animal nomming at the pumpkin before I could take the picture.

The Kid bows out of the picture

Ken Griffey Jr. may have been our generation's Mickey Mantle, the player who was admired and beloved beyond his home stadium, the kid who managed to do things on a baseball field that few other players of his time could do.

I have vivid memories of Griffey's career from start to finish, which came yesterday when he announced his retirement. His decision came 23 years to the day after he was drafted first overall by the Mariners and 75 years to the day that Babe Ruth ended his career. Griffey's will undoubtedly lead to the same place: a plaque on a wall in Cooperstown six years and one month from now.

My first Griffey memory comes not from a play or a home run, but from a card. Many of us had it, the 1989 Upper Deck, No. 1. Card No. 1 in set No. 1, it turns out. Griffey didn't just turn around a franchise in the Mariners and get a new ballpark built in Seattle, he launched a business when Upper Deck came onto the scene. (And Junior may have indirectly sunk an industry, because after Upper Deck's emergence on the scene, the baseball card market quickly became saturated and the bubble -- such as it was -- burst.) So here's the story of how I came to own my 1989 Upper Deck #1, Ken Griffey Jr.

In August 1989, my family was on its annual vacation to visit family in Maine, my mother's brother and his family. With my most recent issue of Beckett Baseball Card Monthly packed in my bag, I noticed that there was a pretty sizeable baseball card show about half an hour away. With an idle afternoon at our disposal, I convinced my dad to drive me up to Augusta, the state capital, and drop me off at the convention center where the show was. Uninterested in browsing, Dad went off to check out a bait-and-tackle shop or some similar fishing outpost with the understanding that he'd pick me up an hour later at the spot where I got out of the car.

I went inside and sauntered up and down the aisles, buying a few individual cards and packs here and there. I may have blown through my vacation budget in that hour, or I may have wisely left some cash back at my uncle's in order to limit how much I spent on baseball cards. Either way, I walked out of the card show with exactly $4 in my wallet.

Dad wasn't there yet, so I sat down on a bench to wait, looking through my new purchases. I don't remember a single thing I bought at that show, but I remember a collector stopping to chat with me as he headed inside with a briefcase of cards. I don't remember what we talked about to break the ice, but I do know that he asked where I was from and when I said I grew up near the Jersey Shore and Sandy Hook, he knew that area. At some point, the Griffey card came up and he opened his brief case and handed me one. I looked it over closely; I had never held one -- it was in a protective sleeve, but it was still the first time I'd been able to examine one so closely, on my own terms. As Darren Rovell wrote in that Slate piece (also linked above), this was a card that came to define a generation of collectors. At the time, we couldn't see it in that light, but we still knew it was a collecting status symbol, a benchmark, a cardboard holy grail to attain.

It was beautiful. The smiling kid -- I'm guessing he had to be 16 or 17 in that picture, likely taken in his high-school uniform -- in a navy-blue turtleneck with gold chains resting on it, a white jersey, an "S" airbrushed onto his cap, a bat resting on his left shoulder. In place of the team logo was a "Rookie" banner, so looking at the front of the card, the gold "S" on the blue cap is the only indication that the kid from Florida was the Mariners' -- and baseball's -- No. 1 prospect.

I handed the card back to the collector, who then went into his sales pitch. At the time, the card was valued at $10 -- to a kid a few weeks away from his 13th birthday, a pretty substantial price for a picture of a baseball player -- but the collector offered to sell it to me for half that, $5. Knowing he'd already cut the price in half, I didn't even try to negotiate it further. "I'm sorry," I said, "but I literally only have $4." He understood and put the card back into his briefcase.

We chatted for a few more minutes before he got up to go into the convention center to do business. But then he turned and put the briefcase down on the bench and opened it. "Here you go," he said, handing me a Griffey card. "You sound like a big fan and collector. You should have one." Stunned, I went for my wallet to give him my last $4. "Don't worry about it," he said. "Just take the card."

He wouldn't take my money, so I got the hottest card of the year for free. I still have it, in what I imagine is the same protective sleeve, kept in a narrow cardboard box -- pretty much exactly the width of a hard protective baseball card sleeve -- with my other most-prized cards.

My next lasting encounters with Griffey were on TV, watching him rob a disbelieving Jesse Barfield of a home run at Yankee Stadium and his dash home in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS.

And then came the saga of 1999, leading up to The Kid ultimately being traded to the Reds for Mike Cameron, Brett Tomko, Antonio Perez and Minor Leaguer Jake Meyer. Sad day for the Mariners, but at least Cameron has had a productive Major League career -- and he once hit four home runs in a game, one more than Griffey ever did. I hoped Junior would be dealt to the Mets, but it was not to be. So my friends and I made a point to go to Griffey's first appearance at Shea Stadium, on April 25, 2000, and watch him go 0-for-3 with two walks and three strikeouts -- twice against Al Leiter and once against Armando Benitez to end the game, a 6-5 Mets win, with Sean Casey on first base as the tying run. We sat in the left-field mezzanine, in a box at the front of the section in fair territory. As the game went on, fans in that corner increased their razzing of Rickey Henderson. By the late innings, the field was littered with hot dogs, likely thrown from one of the suites below us, because I can't imagine anyone in the stands paying $5 for a hot dog only to throw it onto the field a dozen times over to make a statement at a player.

I saw Griffey again at Shea on June 19, 2006. He homered off of Orlando Hernandez that night, the 548th home run of his career, No. 12 of 27 that season. He hit just 82 more, the last coming in the final game of 2009. The third and final chance I got to see him came last summer, when my wife and I planned a visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for a weekend when the Indians were home. The Mariners were in town and Griffey went 0-for-3 as the DH, walking once and scoring on Franklin Gutierrez's home run. Junior was batting .215 after that game, one point higher than he'd finish the season. At .184 through 98 at-bats this season, it was clear that the time had come.

I'm glad he decided to bow out now. The whole clubhouse nap flap was the beginning of the end, and once that controversy came to light, it really became a matter of whether he'd try to finish the season or hang 'em up before then. It was starting to become depressing to see him come to bat as a pinch-hitter and ground out or do little more than punch a soft single into the shallow outfield, then jog to the bench as a pinch-runner. As a fan, I like to see players go out on their own terms, but I don't want to see them hanging on for one last shot at glory. They can't all have Ted Williams endings, hitting a home run in the final at-bat, at home no less. In many ways, it's a shame Griffey didn't decide to retire after last season, when he homered in the final game of the season, in Seattle. Whether he announced it at the start of the homestand, the start of the series, before that final game or after, or even a week later, to know that that game was the last time he'd button up the jersey and tie on his cleats would have been a fitting finale.

Last night was nice as the highlight film rolled on MLB Network, ESPN and MLB.com and the Mariners broadcast became a 10-inning retrospective on his career. To me, the only thing that could've made it better was if Griffey had been there. If I were scripting it, Griffey would've made the announcement at a pregame press conference, then taken the lineup card out to the umpires before the game. As far as I know, there was no transaction made, so he was still on the active roster and could have been in uniform. He then could've spent the game the way Cal Ripken did when he stopped his consecutive-games played streak in September 1998 against the Yankees: watching from the bullpen, warming up the outfielders, shaking hands and chatting with fans between innings. Ripken did it because he'd never had a chance to do those things after playing in every game for 16 years. If Griffey had done it, it would've served as a reminder that he was once The Kid who took batting practice wearing his cap backward, loving the game. But at least, in the end, Junior went out when he wanted to go out, not when he kept looking for a team to sign him when none would. He may have left a little later than his ability allowed, but at least he chose when to go.

Well played, Kid.

Where it all began for Chipper

This isn't a piece of trivia that I had tucked away in my brain, but if you'd asked me which team surrendered Chipper Jones' first Major League home run, I'd have said something along the lines of, "It would have to be the Mets."

And it was. It came, naturally, at Shea Stadium, where he hit 19 long balls in his career. The only places where he hit more were his home ballparks. He has one at Citi Field, hit last September, in 11 career games there to this point. The Marlins' home ballpark (the name keeps changing, so why bother putting one in when it could be obsolete in another year?) has yielded 16 homers to Chipper, a native Floridian, so he's got a chance to hit three or four more there in, presumably, 18 games this year and next before the team moves into its new home in 2012.

It might be worth noting, too, that Chipper's seven homers off of Steve Trachsel are the most he's hit against any pitcher, but three of those came when Trachs was a Cub. The four Trachsel allowed as a Met equal the four Bobby Jones, wearing orange and blue, allowed to Chipper. Rick Reed also allowed four homers, but one was with the Reds.

Photo Flashback: 1989 Exhibition Finale

Lineups lined up

I missed Friday and was never married to the "Photo Friday" moniker anyway, so I'm going with "Photo Flashback" for this one.

While thumbing through an old photo album the other day, I came across several shots from various trips to Shea Stadium and Cooperstown. They were all taken with my meager Kodak Disk camera, so they images aren't great. The players look like specs on the film, so you'll pretty much have to take my word that they are indeed from April 1989.

It was a Sunday, the final day of the exhibition season. The Mets and Yankees had agreed to resume playing Spring Training games against one other in '89, culminating with two in New York during the final weekend. On Saturday, April 1, 1989, they played in the Bronx. On Sunday the 2nd, they were at Shea. And so was I, along with my father, his brother and my cousin, the only Yankee fan in the bunch.

The Yankees won, 4-0, their fourth win in six exhibition games against the Mets. But it was the Amazin's who would have the better season, finishing 87-75, though six games behind the NL East-winning Cubs. The Yankees went 74-87, trailing the champion Blue Jays by 14 1/2.

What follows are the photos I found worthy of scanning from that day (you can see them individually on my Flickr account). In the second one, you may notice two hands in the air, reaching just above the foul line in the center of the photo. That's Mayor Ed Koch, who was on hand for the game. Oh, and those pregame shots with players in the infield? Not batting practice -- infield practice. When's the last time you saw that at a big-league ballpark?

Watching the good Doctor work

Late last night, Marty Noble put up a blog post reminiscing about crooner Johnny Maestro and hurler Doc Gooden, and it brought up some memories of my own that I didn't include in my post about Gooden's Nike billboard in Midtown.

I was 10 in 1986, and the two games I did see that year were started by Sid Fernandez (8-2 on June 20!) and Rick Aguilera (he homered!). I didn't catch Gooden until he faced the Phillies on Opening Day 1991, my first opener and definitely a thrilling one because my parents let me miss school to go. Sometime during that offseason, I asked (probably begged) my parents to buy tickets and call me in sick to school. They agreed -- "Just this once" -- and Dad took the bullet by calling out sick himself and driving my friend Will (he might've actually been off on his Catholic high school's two-week Easter break, but his parents would've let him go anyway) and me to Queens. It truly would've pained my dad to take the day off and make the two-hour drive from the Jersey Shore, across Staten Island, up the BQE and down Northern Boulevard (before the internet and GPS, he took the most direct route, rather than the fastest, which is the BQE to the Grand Central Parkway). He's a Mets fan, but he prefers to watch on TV; Will's a Yankees fan, but he's not the dick kind that starts chanting "Let's go Yankees!" on Opening Day in Queens.

Traffic near Shea was a mess, and the parking lot where Citi Field now stands was full by the time we arrived. So we wouldn't miss the first pitch, Will and I got out of the car and walked across the lot and reached our seats in the left-field mezzanine with time to spare. Dad had to park somewhere in or near Flushing Meadows Park and caught up to us in the second inning, I believe. By then, the Mets were already ahead, 1-0, after Vince Coleman doubled down the right-field line in his first Mets at-bat and Gregg Jefferies followed with a double down the left-field line.

Gooden was on his game that day, getting through the first needing only 13 pitches to get Lenny Dykstra to fly out and fanning Darren Daulton and Von Hayes on seven total pitches. Doc went eight innings, allowing six hits and a walk and striking out seven. His only mistake was a 1-2 pitch to John Kruk leading off the fifth. Kruk belted a line-drive homer over the Mets bullpen in right field and hit one of the Phillies' buses parked beyond the 'pen.

The other game was on July 8, 2000, the Shea Stadium end of the first day-night Mets-Yankees doubleheader in both boroughs. Doc won that one, too -- for the Yankees, in his former home. I'm pretty sure that remains the loudest ovation given a Yankee in Queens since interleague play began, and the only time Mets and Yankees fans cheered in unison. That included myself and a college pal, Brad, another Yankees fan (he grew up in the Bronx suburb of Fort Wayne, Indiana). The game was Doc's first in his second stint with the Yankees, following his release by the Devil Rays, and it was his final victory at Shea. He won only three more games in his career.

So Gooden's combined stat line in the two games I saw him pitch reads like this:

13 IP, 12 H, 3 R/ER, 2 BB, 8 SO, .249 BAA, 1.08 WHIP, 2.08 ERA
He only struck out one Met that day, and his performace was overshadowed by the night game -- also a 4-2 Yankees win -- in which Roger Clemens beaned Mike Piazza, giving him a concussion and keeping him out of that year's All-Star Game.

It was clear from the beginning of the day game that the former Mets would do in the current Mets. Chuck Knoblauch led off the game by lining the first pitch to center for a hit, but Jay Payton threw him out at second base. After Yankees first-base coach Lee Mazzilli appealed to first-base umpire Robb Cook that first baseman Todd Zeile had interfered with Knoblauch, the call was overturned. Bobby Valentine argued and was objected, even though he was right -- the call was crap. Zeile barely moved from his position in the field, and Knoblauch took an unusually wide turn around first base. Valentine argued that Knoblauch never changed direction or came into contact with Zeile, but the blind umps wouldn't budge. I distinctly remember Valentine repeatedly and demonstratively walking in Knoblauch's footsteps on the otherwise pristine, freshly dragged infield to make his point. It's still a bullshit call. Knoblauch should've been out and Derek Jeter, who followed with an RBI double, should have one fewer RBI among his career totals.

There is one more memory of seeing Gooden in person, though he didn't pitch. Dad also took Will and me to the final weekend home game in 1989. The Expos won, 6-5, on Fan Appreciation Day (remember those?). Howard Johnson stole his 40th base and Darryl Strawberry hit his 29th home run. But the highlight came before the game, when Will and I were hanging over the railing at the end of the right-field loge, watching David Cone warm up for the start in the Mets bullpen. At one point, Gooden emerged from the small clubhouse beneath us and we called down to him, hoping we might get one of the baseballs lying on the grass. He didn't toss us a ball, but he looked up with a smile and a wave, and that made our day more than anything that happened in the game.

The 'King of Queens' at Shea

I took a bit of a break from blogging, even the internet in general (just a little), the past few days, hence the lack of activity. And so I'm a little bit behind on a query over at Uniwatch on Monday that concerns this screengrab from an episode of King of Queens:

The question is: Which game is it? Knowing that the answer would be posted in the comments to the post, I did my own research before reading those, and we all came to the same conclusion: It's from Sept. 8, 1999. Getting that was pretty easy. Never having seen the show, I first googled to find that the episode aired on Oct. 25, 1999, and presumed that it was filmed during the 1999 season. I then checked the dates when the Giants played at Shea Stadium that year, coming up with two three-game series, April 30-May 1 and Sept. 6-8. From there, it was a matter of matching the lineups -- specifically the pitchers, Shawn Estes and Octavio Dotel. Estes started both the April 30 and Sept. 8 games, but it was Dotel who started on Sept. 8 for the Mets.

Knowing I had the date, I went to the comments to confirm that it had been answered, which it was. But a couple of questions remain, one of which is why the clock reads 9:19 a.m. (because it is daylight). Another is the fact that Brent Mayne and Rich Aurilia are reversed in the Giants' batting order, and Daryl Hamilton (No. 18) and Roger Cedeno (19) are listed in the lineup for the Mets, but they were late-inning defensive replacements. One commenter also notes that the out-of-town scores are from Sept. 7, which you can see in the Cubs' 2-1 win over the Reds (Cincinnati won, 6-4, on Sept. 8), and the late scores of several other games that have identical finals.

Here's what I believe happened: The scene was filmed the morning of Sept. 9. The game on the 8th was a getaway game, with first pitch at 1:40 p.m. The next night, the Mets were on the road. So the production crew would've had all day on the 9th to shoot the scene. The 9:19 a.m. on the clock is probably accurate, and the scores were probably snapshots from two nights before. (As one commenter noted, "scoreboards in 1999 had a snapshot function, and the info was simply 'copy and pasted' from the night before.") As for the right fielder in the screenshot above and in the clip, it's got to be an extra in a Mets uniform, because he looks nothing like either Benny Agbayani or Cedeno, the two Mets who manned right on Sept. 8.

As you can see in the scene below, the dialogue was clearly shot at Shea, but the closely cropped view prevents seeing more of the stadium -- probably because they only hired enough extras to sit in a few seats around Kevin James and the rest of the cast. (Same goes for when Leah Remini goes to the concession stand.) So the crew was probably on the field, as it appears to be when James goes onto the playing surface. While some movies have shot scenes in the stands during Major League games, this show clearly wasn't. In the clip, James goes on to the field starting at about the 2:45 mark. Note the official game footage that shows the foul ball that starts the sequence features a Mets-Reds night game -- June 1 vs. the Reds, because the pitcher, you'll see, is Orel Hershiser:

As to why the Mets' lineup shows Hamilton and Cedeno in the game, when they were defensive replacements and did not start the game, I suspect that the lineups may have been input by hand (hence the flipping of Mayne and Aurilia). Cedeno entered the lineup as Agbayani's replacement in the top of the seventh and Melvin Mora replaced Rickey Henderson (No. 24, leading off) in left field in the top of the eighth -- but Hamilton didn't come into the game until the top of the ninth. In other words, Hamilton and Cedeno were not in the game together with Henderson still manning left. So a snapshot of the lineups is not likely. I suspect someone from the Mets input the lineups and either wasn't a regular operator of the scoreboard or simply did it quickly, without bothering (or really needing, in those pre-HD and DVD days) to ensure accuracy. So maybe the person started with Henderson leading off, but then chose Hamilton and Cedeno by the lower half of the batting order. As for the pitchers' spots still showing Estes' No. 55 and Dotel's No. 29? To me that's a simple explanation: They were the pitchers of record. Estes took the loss and Dotel got the win.

The only way we'd ever know anything for sure is if someone from the Mets or the King of Queens production crew recalled the details of that day, and I'm not expecting either scenario. In the absence of any insider confirmation, I'm comfortable with my hypothesis.

Randy Johnson retires

After 22 seasons, Randy Johnson has announced his retirement. After originally planning a conference call for tomorrow, the Big Unit moved it up to tonight so as not to step on tomorrow's announcement of the new Hall of Fame class.

My lasting memory of seeing the Big Unit in person was on May 21, 2000, at Shea Stadium, when two of the most impressive home runs I've seen in person were hit. One was by Mike Piazza, who obliterated one of Johnson's pitches and launched it 492 feet into the mezzanine in left field. The other was hit by 5'11", 170-pound Joe McEwing.

And then, of course, there was this:



11:51 p.m. update...

Johnson leaves the game ranked impressively among baseball's greatest pitchers. His 10.6098 strikeouts per nine innings are the best among pitchers with 1,000 innings and, of course, he's second only to Nolan Ryan in strikeouts. His 303 wins rank 22nd, and many have speculated that he may be the last hurler to reach 300 victories. He's 30th in winning percentage at .646 and nine of those in front of him are Hall of Famers, with another two (Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens) Hall-worthy and two more (Johan Santana and Roy Halladay) seemingly on that track. He's also 22nd in allowing 7.2821 hits per nine innings.

That he rates pretty low in a few other categories shouldn't prevent him from being a first-ballot Hall of Famer. For one thing, voters will see the 4,875 strikeouts and 303 victories. Known for stretches of wildness, Johnson did walk 3.2580 batters per nine innings, ranking 716th all-time, three slots behind Babe Ruth (who had other things going for him), and ahead of just three Hall of Famers: Early Wynn, Goose Gossage and Hal Newhauser (at least among the top 1,000 ranked by Baseball-Reference). His 190 hit batters is third all-time, but Nos 1 (Walter Johnson), 2 (Eddie Plank) and 4 (Joe McGinnity) are all Hall of Famers. But despite his wildness with bases on balls and hit batters, the Big Unit only ranks 62nd in wild pitches, with 109. So either he was wild around the plate, or had a run of excellent catchers. The top six on the list are all in Cooperstown, led by Nolan Ryan's 277.

Following Randy Johnson's announcement, writers chipped in with their appreciations. In the style of Buster Olney ...

Jerry Crasnick likens Johnson to NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Tim Brown says Johnson never made it look easy.

Maybe because it didn't come easy, Scott Miller writes.

Johnson's legacy won't diminish over time, posted Carl Stewart of the Oakland Tribune.

The Big Unit defined dominance, according to Ed Price.

Cooperstown awaits, writes Craig Calcaterra.

And, finally, Tyler Kepner offers an appreciation and a quartet of MLB.com reporters have the story, plus a look at his stops in Arizona and Seattle, as well as a tribute by Mike Bauman.

When Shea knew football

The Jets are about to play the last football game at the Meadowlands, and though I was 7 years old when they first kicked off there, I don't remember their first game in New Jersey, or their time at Shea Stadium. Growing up on the Jersey Shore, I did not get into football until the late '80s, and my first love was the college game. I gradually began following the NFL, then really got into it when I started playing fantasy.

So today's story in the New York Times on the Jets' history from the Polo Grounds to Shea to the Meadowlands piqued my interest, particularly the above photo, which shows the layout of the gridiron at Shea. I did not realize that, during the Jets' tenure in Queens, the field-level seats seemed to have been movable. Not only are they missing from behind home plate, but it looks like those seats and those that would be down the third-base/left-field line have shifted over and stretch into left field. Same goes for the first-base/right-field sections. The position of the foul poles in both corners -- in that photo, they're now surrounded by seats -- gives an indication of the adjustments. It must have been after the Jets left and Shea became a baseball-only stadium that those sections were permanently affixed in place.

The Jets' final game at Shea came on Dec. 10, 1983, a 34-7 loss to the Steelers, a fact I did not know when I bought the flag shown in the photo on the left. The flag was one of those flown above Shea during the Jets' days there; it was part of the extensive online auction held following the end of the 2008 season. I'm not sure how the flags were flown for football, but one way or another, this flag may have been flying above the stadium during that final Jets game. It's one of two I know were available for auction over the past year, so I don't know how many they had. I also don't know how many might have flown for football games. For baseball, before 9/11, when they switched to all American flags ringing the top of the structure, they flew pennants with the names of the cities in the National League. (I bought one of the Pittsburgh ones; my wife is from there, hence the interest in these flags.) If they did the same for Jets games, the chances that the flag I own flew during that final football game is 50-50, or worse. But if they chose the flags based on the opponent that week, then I figure my flag must've been one of those flapping in the December Queens wind.

In any case, it's there on my front porch today, both to bring the Steelers a little luck on this final day of the season and as a small, in-the-know nod to the Jets' final game in their previous home as they prepare to end their tenancy there and move into the fourth in their history.

A pile of rubble, blue steel and concrete

[NOTE: Updated, as you can see, with some of the pictures I took. I also embedded a great home video from 1982 Opening Day found on YouTube.]

After having lunch with two dear friends this afternoon, I had four hours to kill before work at 6 p.m., so with my camera bag slung over my shoulder, I rode the 7 out to Willets Point in Queens. The stop is still labeled "Willets Point-Shea Stadium," but that moniker is true in name only. As of yesterday, Shea Stadium no longer stands.

It's now just a pile of steel and rubble, not even the entire remnants of the old ballpark. Taken down in stages, it was likewise hauled away over the winter weeks so that what was left today is only a fraction of what has come down since September. (I'll add some of my pictures tomorrow; I'm just too drained to muster up the desire to deal with them tonight.)

You first notice the change leaving the Junction Blvd. station. Where you used to see the hulking blue edifice of Shea peeking over the rooftops along Roosevelt Ave., you now get a glimpse of Citi Field's light towers and the name of the ballpark emblazoned atop the scoreboard. It's a drastic change that fits more with the neighborhood -- the black steel of the light supports replacing the bright blue of the former stadium's walls -- yet still leaves a feeling of something missing. Then as the train approaches the Willets Point stop, you take note of the freshly paved parking lot, one that was already there but appears to have been resurfaced and re-lined, with new guard booths at the entrance.

But then the new lot leads to a construction fence, beyond which lie the piles of debris and a few small hills of crumbled concrete. Citi Field rises behind it all, even more beautiful now as you get a full look at the brickwork and archways that define the ballpark's architecture. Upon arriving at the station, I first walked east along Roosevelt Ave. on the sidewalk outside the fence that runs along Citi Field. The parking lot was full, a bright red Pepsi-Cola sign rests high above right field and the video screen was in action.

Construction workers continued to make progress both inside and outside the ballpark. Inside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, I could see men on a crane working in the rafters, while crews outside laid sections of concrete for the walkway from the subway exit to the Rotunda's main entrance. A circular section midway between the station and the ballpark looks like an area set aside for either a fountain or landscaping, and the wide sidewalk covers the entire gap, ensuring that Citi Field's parking lots along the first- and third-base sides remain separated by a pedestrian thoroughfare. It'll be a nice break, aesthetically, preventing the ballpark from feeling surrounded by parking lots, as Shea was.

I then walked back through the turnstiles and up to the subway platform on the Manhattan-bound side to overlook the former site of Shea Stadium. Four others stood there taking pictures, three of whom got on the next inbound train when it pulled into the station. Only I and an older man remained, cameras in hand, looking for a few new angles from our limited perch.

"We should've been here yesterday," he said. "That's when they brought down the last piece."

Even had I known that the last section was coming down, I'm not sure I would've dragged myself out of bed that early on a gray, wintery-mix-filled day to watch a small section of ramps crumble. But this gentleman was a regular commuter on the 7 train and said he kept telling himself to take the time to come by with his camera, but didn't act on in until it was too late.

I'm only slightly sad to see the old structure go, and I'm sure that feeling of nostalgia or loss is tempered by the disappointing finishes the last three seasons. Had any of them ended with a World Series appearance, I might find saying goodbye a bit tougher to fathom. But it was a dump -- it was our dump, of course, but a dump nonetheless. I went to enough games last season -- 11 in 2008 and 81 dating back to 1985 -- to get my fill, say my peace and give it a proper goodbye. I've had enough of crowded, dank corridors, of no standing room for a better view and of meals of peanuts brought from home to avoid paying way too much for horrible food.

I'm ready for the new era, the Citi Field era. I'm optimistic it will be a period of perennial winners, of pleasant summer evenings and sunny afternoons at a ballgame, of Mets wins and Phillies losses. Perhaps more than the better sightlines and the fresh, clean feeling of a new arena, I'm stoked for the new food options. Danny Meyer's offerings alone could keep me satisfied during as many of the 15 games I attend from the ticket pack Dave and I bought, and I'm not sure I'll even get near the Shake Shack on a busy summer Saturday afternoon.

When the next train bound for Manhattan pulled into the station, I got into the first car and sat by a window, looking over the last pieces of Shea Stadium as we pulled away. The next time I see that spot, it will be a paved grid of parking spaces, no doubt already scattered with cars on a Monday in April as the fans, the players and the new ballpark get ready for its true regular-season debut. The Padres will be in town and the Mets, I hope, will finish the night 1-0 at their new home.

Falling short once again

I've let time pass and decided I'm ready to write this post. It's hard to watch your team come so close to the postseason and not close the deal. It's particularly tough when your boys have it in their control -- all they have to do is win -- and it still gets away. But as time passes, as the days go by and we get deeper into October, we get further from the season and reality sets in. Baseball fades as teams drop from the playoffs, football rises, and sad thoughts of this year become hopeful wishes for next year.

This year's fall wasn't as bad as last year's. It didn't hurt as much. While I hoped the Mets would erase the bad taste from 2007, this year's team wasn't as good. It didn't have the depth to overcome all the injuries. Bringing back Moises Alou probably wasn't a good idea from the outset, but losing him wasn't the worst thing to happen. But losing Angel Pagan and then Fernando Tatis, well, that exacerbated the problem. John Maine's absence in September wouldn't have been crippling if Billy Wagner hadn't gone down and blown up the entire bullpen. With Wagner on board, that bullpen lines up much better and fewer games get blown; more close losses instead to go the Mets' way and -- perhaps -- they edge out the Brewers by a game, instead of the other way around.

The 2007 Mets were on top of the NL East -- and the National League -- for the bulk of the season. They led until the final week. They were the better team. The 2008 Mets, though, weren't as good as this year's Phillies. Nevermind the postseason, where anything can happen (note the 2006 Cardinals and '07 Rockies, to name just two recent hot-at-the-right-time teams).

What we can hope for, as Mets fans, is that this year taught management a lesson. Luis Castillo is a black hole in the lineup and at second base. The bullpen needs an overhaul. Oliver Perez, for all his inconsistency, should probably be brought back. It'll be easier to fill that fifth-starter's position than both slots four and five. Ryan Church can be an everyday right fielder so long as he isn't concussed, and while Daniel Murphy and Nick Evans could probably be a serviceable left-field platoon, an everyday replacement there would probably be a better move.

I'll use another post to go through the free-agent options, but one thing is clear: The Mets are probably going to have to open the checking account to bring in Francisco Rodriguez or Kerry Wood. A closer is needed, and there aren't many available. Brian Fuentes may be had in a trade, but if the fans got on Wagner just because he put two runners on base before getting the last out, what will they do when Fuentes turns two-run wins into one-run wins? Or worse?

And I'd love to see them revive a possible acquisition from three years ago: Rafael Furcal to play second base. Castillo would have to be traded (and his contract paid for), but I'd rather spend throw money at the solution than throw losses at the problem by starting Castillo everyday.

So now we're left with another offseason of waiting, watching, wanting. The Phillies are up, 2-0, in the NLCS and appear headed to the World Series. Those fans will be even more obnoxious and unbearable if they get there. As for us, we'll just have to anticipate the Winter Meetings, wait for the New Year and long for Spring Training and then the coming of Citi Field.

Picnic in the (ball)park

Sitting in Shea Stadium's picnic area was all that I'd hoped it would be. While not quite on the level -- even a smaller level -- of Wrigley Field's bleachers, Shea's small section of metal benches and close proximity to the left fielder brings a different feel to the game.

In Flushing, the picnic area leans more toward families, with plenty of small rumps to fill seats on the bleachers and not make it feel too crowded. In Wrigleyville, the bleachers are definitely the adult section behind the curtain at the video store.

Casey and I got there early enough that we had our pick of seating areas in the top half of the bleachers; we were too late to find much open space in the first half-dozen or so rows that lead down closest to the fence. But we had a good view and didn't get too crowded out as the benches filled in.

The Mets didn't disappoint, either. In the first inning, David Wright sent a towering home run into the picnic area, about 30 feet to our left. We could see the ball quickly climb beyond the edge of the top of the stadium, a small white dot against the darkening sky that quickly grew larger as it soared toward us. It came down almost directly to our left, and when they later announced the distance as 410 feet, I had to look over at the landing spot again to see where they got that measurement from. I was certain it was 10-15 feet deeper than the 410 mark in center field, but perhaps it was further left of center than I realized. Later, Carlos Delgado provided the only other run of the game -- on a home run to the left of center that also came our way. It couldn't have gone much better.

Ironically, though, for a section named "the picnic area," the food there is a much more limited selection of the basic crap sold inside Shea Stadium. Don't get me wrong -- I love the Mets and will buy concessions from time to time. But neither New York ballpark is going to top any lists of the best ballpark food in America. Things will change when Citi Field opens next year, but for now, I always bring my own peanuts to push back hunger in case lukewarm pretzels or hit-or-miss pizza or Nathan's fries don't entice me. Having gorged ourselves at lunch earlier in the day, there was no need for us to visit the concession stand, other than the soda I got to quench my thirst. And I did nibble on a few of the peanuts in my bag.

As for the bleachers themselves, as any high school or college football fan knows, extended time sitting on the ridged metal will numb the bum and ache the back, so we took to standing between each inning and, as everyone got up for the seventh-inning stretch, made our way down to Long Ball Alley beneath the stands. There, a small souvenir stand hawks merch and a few round bar tables fill the space and give the fans a standing-room area to watch the game through the chain links in the outfield wall. Josh Willingham stood much closer to us and the crushed red brick of the warning track lay on just the other side.

Having seen a game from the press box -- also the same level as the "luxury" boxes -- there remains only one section open to fans from which I haven't watched a game, and probably never will: The StubHub DreamSeats in the left- and right-field corners. Maybe there's a chance I'll get updated at one of these last games -- 25 to go, after tonight's 8-6 win over the Marlins, and at least four I expect to attend -- but if I don't make it, I won't have any regrets. I may not remember much of the changes that have been implemented at Shea in its four decades, but I do know that the DreamSeats are less than a decade old. There's no remorse in missing out on a recent gimmick.