My third and last Mets post of the season

Can't say they broke my heart this year, the Mets.  I never expected them to come as close to the play-offs as they did.  You don't get to the post-season with one good, healthy starter and a bullpen full of batting practice pitchers.  Only reason they were in the chase at all for the Wild Card spot was Milwaukee forgot how to win there for a while, and the Phillies were just that much better than them all year and weren't going to simply step aside to let the Mets take the division. Last year's collapse was tough.  This year's quiet petering-out rated only mild annoyance.  Watching them give it up was like watching a car you know ran out of gas miles back but has been traveling downhill on fumes finally coast to a stop.  Even though I wasn't surprised, I was still kind of pissed at them for making me think going into the weekend that inertia alone would carry them across the finish line.

I feel a little bad for Carlos Delgado.  He had one of those beautiful and heroic late-career resurgences that signal the end is really near.   Great players his age can do that, through sheer grit and muscle memory they can recapture, for a while, some of the glory of their prime.  There was a week or so there when he was responsible all by himself for keeping the Mets in contention.  But I suspect he used himself up doing it and hasn't got anything left, at least not enough for the Mets to want to risk keeping him around.  I'm sure he's not through.  Somebody will pick him up.  Maybe Toronto will take him back for old times' sake.  But from here on out it's a farewell tour.

Too bad.  He's Oliver Mannion's favorite player.  Has been for since Oliver was four or five.   The Syracuse Skychiefs were the Blue Jays' Triple A club and one day back when we lived in Syracuse the Mannions were at a game in which Delgado was playing on a rehab assignment.   When Carlos came to the plate, I said to Oliver, "Watch this guy.  He's a good player."

"How good?" asked Oliver.

Delgado picked that moment to park one.  He swung and drove it over the right field fence on a line.  It cleared the tents set up out there for picnickers.  That was no short right field fence either.  A 450 foot homer, easy.

"That good," I said.

Oliver's been a Delgado fan, and a Blue Jays fan, from that moment.   His loyalty to the Blue Jays didn't get transferred to the Marlins or to the Mets when Toronto traded Carlos.  He's more of a Cardinals fan now, though.  It has something to do with birds.  Funny how team loyalties come about.

So the Mets are done for the year, and Shea Stadium's done for all time.  No last post season games will be played there.  Can't say I'm heartbroken about that either.  Dump should have been torn down years ago.  1965, say.  (Note to non-fans:  Shea opened in 1964.)  Longtime Met fan that I've been, I got to Shea very few times and the last time I was there Lee Mazzilli, the poor man's Bobby Murcer, was in the line-up.  The first time I went was when I was a little kid and I had a great time but even then I noticed the Mets were not playing in anything like a real ballpark, and I hadn't been inside Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, or Wrigley Field yet.   Aesthetically, Shea wasn't even minimalist.  It was barely even there.  It was just a lot of bright blue plastic seats hung none too solidly on some concrete and steel scaffolding with a great view of its own parking lot.  I'm sure if I'd gone to more games, if I'd grown up in and around the park, I might have more nostalgic memories and the imminent razing of the stadium might have me misting up a bit.  Like Carl, of Simply Left Behind, known in the comment section in these parts as actor212.  Carl'll be sorry to see the old eyesore go, as he says in his post Goodbye, Old Friend:

Shea is undoubtedly one of the ugliest stadiums ever built. Conceived for two sports, designed for neither, and hurriedly built to open in time with the 1964 World's Fair, Shea exuded the early Sixties optimism for technology and minimalist architecture: get it up and get it built.

No, really, Carl's fond of the place.  With good reasons.  Go read the rest of the post.

As for me the only thing I'll miss about Shea is the name.  The new ballpark's an architectural delight and all, reminiscent of Ebbett's Field and with all the swankiest new amenities.  But who wants to sit and watch baseball in a stadium named after one of the last banks standing after the financial collapse?

CitiField.

How long will that last?  Anybody done the study yet?  How fast a corporation goes under or gets bought up after it sticks its name on a sports arena?

Comments

[King Rat]

Unfortunately, the Jays likely won't take Carlos back. They really don't have anywhere to put him at the moment. But a great player, as you say, and easily the best Blue Jay hitter of all time. I was rooting for the Mets in the 2006 postseason so Carlos could win a ring (he technically has one for the 1993 Jays, but I believe he played two games for them that season.)

I'm glad to hear you're taking this loss in stride-I've been a little worried about Mets fans, in the wake of two consecutive last day defeats in a row.

[Mike Schilling]

In other words, Shea is Candlestick Park East.

[Linkmeister]

"Dump should have been torn down years ago. 1965, say."

Had that happened, I'd have missed the only game I ever saw there.

[actor212]

Personally, I'll be calling it Shea, thank you very much...

Lance, if the Mets had played .500 ball under Randolph, they would have won the division by eight games. This is an honest-to-god good team that for whatever reason couldn't get its act together under a nice guy, and waited for an even nicer guy to get things going.

Waiting that long guaranteed they'd wear down under the stress. I blame Scott Schoen-tell for the season, but in truth, you could pick nearly any position on the field...Ryan Church leaps to mind...and find one or two games that he could have been even average, and they'd have won the division.

Delgado? I agree. I think he's done after one last near-MVP season this year. It would be hard to say he didn't do all he could for this team during his tenure.

The big loss for the Mets, however, would be Oliver Perez, who finally showed consistency and the ability to find the plate. if they lose him, they really have trouble in the rotation. And seeing as Santana had to throw a complete game to win anything down the last two weeks, losing another starting pitcher is putting the entire staff at risk.

I'm not sure what the answer to the bullpen is: John Maine? Possibly. I like him as a starter, and while it's not unprecedented (Heilmann holds the only no-hitter the Mets organization has ever tossed), it would be a big hole to fill.

Parnell pitched well, but he's really young. At least he wasn't coddled down the stretch, he might end up a good set up man. Ayala is not a closer, unless John Franco can somehow teach him about placement of his change up and curve. I'd rather see Feliciano in that role. At least when he gives up a home run, it's off his pitch.

I think this September was far more frustrating than last, King Rat. Last year, it happened so unbelievably that we were stunned into numbness. This year it was like watching a Dali watch draped off a tree limb, torturously ticking off the moments.

[Bill Altreuter]

Why are you harshing on Lee Mazzilli? It wasn't his fault that when he was the best guy on the team the team was terrible-- when he came back in as role-player he was a dependable sub and a solid pinch-hitter, and he never seemed to think he was any better than he actually was.

Actually, when you think about the Mets there are a lot of players like that-- good guys on bad teams who were expected to carry the club. Neil Allen was another-- when he was traded to the Cards as part of the Keith Hernandez deal we realized that he was never anything other than a decent middle relief pitcher. Hubbie Brooks was never going to be Brooks Robinson, but we loved him while we had him, because he was the best we had at the time. It would be a fun list to compose, I think-- The Hall of Pretty Good.

[Chris The Cop]

FYI - The Skychiefs are called simply The Chiefs again, only they're not Indian Chiefs but engineering Chiefs, as in train engineering Chiefs (I agree - it's a beyond a stretch)

Went to Shea for three games with my brother and father two years ago and it wasn't the same, but I'll never forget the games I went to there (including two Banner Days)

I was at an Old Timer's came there in '64 and my dad caught a foul pop hit by a player whose name escapes me. He handed me that ball and I thought he was the greatest man in the world.

[greginak]

i actually have a lot of fond memories of Shea. my dad used to take me there a few times as a kid. i always got to pick the games. of course i picked all games where there was some give away, like bat day. (hmmmm i wonder why they don't have bat days anymore.) so one day my dad says ..RRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR of a jet plane....so that was the most profound thing my dad ever said to me.

good ol shea

[HenryFTP]

I've probably watched more baseball at Shea than any other stadium, even though I'm not really a Mets fan. It is every bit as much an icon of the 1960s as are the Van Wyck Expressway, the Pan Am Building and the new Madison Square Garden. If Dodger Stadium is the 1964 Mustang of ballparks, then surely Shea is the Corvair.

It is perhaps instructive that the greatest Mets team, in 1986, played almost as well on the road as they did at home (53-28 vs. 55-26) and did play better at Fenway Park in the World Series than they did at Shea. As charming as the No. 7 Flushing for its customers, and a nasty ballpark for hitters -- fickle winds and sepulchral gloom in night games because of pathetically poor lighting.

Of course I'll miss it, just as I miss RFK Stadium in DC and Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, and very glad to have a nicer ballpark to take my kids to.

[Lance]

Bill Altreuter: Why are you harshing on Lee Mazzilli?

Bill, I didn't mean to harsh on Maz. I liked him as a player, and I was glad when he came back and was there in 86 and 88. I was just remembering the time when he was about all Mets fans had to root for and describing him as pretty good pretty much sums him up, unfortunately.

I'm all for putting together a Pretty Good Mets team. But I think Len Dykstra plays center on that one.

No way you will ever hear me say a harsh word about Eubie!

greg, lol! At least the new park is still in the flight paths.

Chris, well, at least the new uniforms are nice. Buy a cap yet? Funny thing. Back when they changed their name to the SkyChiefs my second thought was that they were referring to the locomotive and I was surprised when they came up with the flying baseball bat logo.

My first thought was, Why are they naming themselves after a brand of Texaco gasoline?

When and why did Toronto drop them?

HenryFTP: If Dodger Stadium is the 1964 Mustang of ballparks, then surely Shea is the Corvair.

Ain't it the truth!