Crash 3:16 share if you still believe this team can weave straw into gold.. Remember in the gloomy years when the Yankees always won & we could never even crack .500? I sat through some lean years. -You qualify if you remember players like Karim Garcia (as the Right fielder we got instead of Vlad Guerrero,) his buddy & fencing partner Shane Spencer soon to follow. Ricky Gutierrez as our opening day 2b. A guy that was billed as an awesome #5 starter, who they later tried to sell us as a #2 or 3 starter, Steve Tracsel. 2 fun facts about him: 1) He remains 10th on the all time Wins for the Mets with 66. Bartolo Colon his closest competition on the active roster, Jon Neise on the DL is closest among present Mets. (Will be happy in 2-3 years when names like Thor, Harvey, Degrom, Matz & co flood the top of this list leaving only the Doc & Tommy the Terrific Marine remaining.) & 2) He was an active member of the team in 2006 & on full rest when the playoffs started. Yet when the postseason began we found ourselves in dire need for a game 1 starter. Pedro was hurt, Glavine was on way short rest & El Duque was a last minute scratch due to a gluteal injury. Nobody said why but Tracsel was not even on the possession roster. Jon Maine got the ball & stepped up & took game 1 and the clincher. No reason to my knowledge has ever been given to why he was not available. Nor was he ever part of the team or Baseball again. A secret kept from the great NY Media that remains buried to this day... Boy did I just digress.
Do the names Kevin Apier, Pat MaHolmes, Braden Looper, Ricco Bronia, Darren Reed, Bobby Jones from the Left, Bobby Jones from the Right, Pat O'Brian, Mike Marshall, Jorge Toca, Tommy Herr (as a Met) Lenny Harris, Lance Johnson (& I am alarmed by how many more I can name.) mean anything to you? Me neither, but I routed for them. Because I believed in my team. Thanks to Men in Black & the 90 subsequent trivia games that asked for Bernard Gilkey's name you likely remember him. Of course if you share my thinking you are still scratching your head asking "How do you have a name like Butch Husky & suck at anything?"
Those were the lean years that's prominent feature was taking place behind closed doors where a deal was being struck to change the names on the stationary from Doubleday to Wilpon. We suffered for that too.
If you have read this far you likely have asked yourself this question several times: What if the Wildcard system as presently constituted had been like this for 30 years?
2015's subtitle was declared "Tears of Joy" Subtitled Until We Saw #33 come up the steps to pitch the 9th... then it was tears of blind "Bring it On Rage" then... just tears. But I would never trade the memory. We were that close but fell short to the team with 7 more games of World Series experience. Moral victories still ours.
This year... "The Uniforms that Made a Playoff Run with Outcome Pending" Guys like Seth Lugo or Robert GSelman would be as obscure as names listed above had it not been for this system & the diamonds hidden in the rough of our system. "Noah's Arc" if we make it back to the last dance. & Who knows?
I always force myself to believe. Last year was impossible even by my most optimistic standards. Yet it happened.
Next year will be the return of the Beasts, The Horses & The Warriors. For now let's enjoy whatever we get because in the end this is only the second year in a row where we aren't checking next year's free agent class & making pipe dreams for what likely won't happen. At the very least they took us to the end of September again. Did so with a MASH unit. (Mattz now officially done for the year.) We will remember this season fondly no matter when the clock strikes midnight. And I ask again... Who knows? Maybe the chariots turn back into pumpkins at the exact time when we start to pick pumpkins.. Mid to late October... I Still Believe.
Thanks.
Crash 3:16
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