“Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.” – Yogi Berra

Everyone loves a good “Yogism.” The funny thing about that one in particular, is that it makes absolutely no sense, and yet it makes perfect sense at the same time. Yogi’s math didn’t add up, but he was definitely on to something.

Psychologists are more convinced than ever that our lives gravitate toward the directions of our most dominant thoughts. In other words, people with very positive outlooks, tend to live very positive lives – while those with more negative outlooks, tend to lead more negative lives. You’ve heard the saying “we reap what we sow” – well psychologists are finding that this saying may be more than just a saying. It may hold a deeper meaning.

The same ideas hold true in the sports world, but especially baseball, where Yogi cleverly proclaimed that baseball is really ninety percent mental, and only half physical. The athletes’ minds are often where the games are won or lost. Not necessarily on the field. A study was once conducted on Olympic athletes where they were connected to bio-feedback equipment, and then asked to close their eyes, and run the race in their minds. They weren’t moving their limbs, but the equipment was picking up the muscle fibers firing in the same way as if they were actually running the race. And thus, the art of visualization was born. Many athletes practice this today, where they play out the events of a game in their mind before it happens.

I am reminded of a story I heard about Jose Lima which reflects the power the mind has over the athlete’s performance. I’m sure everyone remembers his very dominating 1998 and 1999 seasons, but Lima will be remembered more for his legendary collapse starting in the year 2000, and how he was never able to get his career back on track after that year. People will say that they don’t understand why an athlete’s careers can do a complete 360 like Lima’s did. They attribute it to the athlete simply not having it anymore. I’m not saying that can’t happen, but athletes’ skills tend to erode slowly as they age, and not just shut off like a switch. When we see a collapse of that magnitude, where it seems as if someone flipped a switch on a player’s career, the switch is most likely in the player’s mind, and not so much in the physical.

In Lima’s case, the Houston Astros happened to be moving into Minute Maid Park for the start of the 2000 season. This was the season which followed his most dominant 21 win season in 1999. Lima was on top of the pitching world. As the story goes – after Minute Maid was built, Lima was touring the stadium and walked out on to the field and to the pitcher’s mound. He looked around. He saw the short distance to the left field seats. This was clearly a hitter’s ballpark. After a 21 win season, and a career that seemed to be headed for super stardom, Lima looked around and proclaimed he would never be able to pitch in that stadium. What followed his thoughts was probably one of the biggest collapses an athlete can ever have. Sadly, he never got his career back on track.

As you can see, the mind is very powerful. Baseball is one of the more cerebral sports. Hitting slumps in baseball are generally mental, and sometimes a simple changing of thinking can break hitters out of slumps. The hitters that can’t change the thinking which has gotten them into the slumps, tend to wallow in slumps, sometimes never to return back to form (like Jason Bay– we will get to this later). A lot of times, the thinking is acting as a placebo effect. A player that thinks that they can’t hit in particular places, or pitch in particular places, actually causes it to occur.

This placebo effect could also be why players careers tend to take off when they move on to other teams. Simply thinking that they could not play in one city, and that playing in a new city will be better for them, is sometimes all that is needed. It makes you wonder if performance enhancing drugs in baseball actually make the players better baseball players, or is it the thought of using performance enhancing drugs making these players better ball players?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that PEDs do enhance physical performance – but it doesn’t give a hitter a magical power to actually make consistent contact with the baseball. A player that couldn’t hit a curveball before using PEDs, won’t be able to all of a sudden start hitting curveballs after using PEDs. The ball may go further after making contact, but it is the mental perception that using the PED will make them better players actually making them better hitters. It’s not the PED itself making the players better hitters.

Now on to how this all applies to the New York Mets, and more specifically Jason Bay. Jason Bay seems to be experiencing a very similar collapse to that of Jose Lima. I’m not really sure what happened when Bay arrived in New York, but it was clearly the point that his career took a turn for the worst. You will never get me to believe that he just lost all his ability overnight. This collapse was more than likely due to something mental.

Bay may never be the same. Much like Lima, he may never regain is super star status. The thoughts of failure may be so entrenched now, that even a change of scenery may not be the placebo needed for Bay to regain his all-star caliber play. Jason Bay expects to make outs at the plate. He has lost the battle in his mind. I firmly believe the physical tools are still there, because if they weren’t, the Mets probably would just cut him, and let him play independent baseball somewhere. They are keeping him around to see if he can flip that mental switch, and get his career back on track. They hope he can at least give them some sort of production, because physically, he still can.

I’m no psychologist, but I have been through slumps. The majority of the time, it’s not anything physical or anything mechanical causing it. I understand how easy it is to get caught up in a slump because you are trying to avoid making outs, instead of getting hits. I have to say, it is a shame to see how Jason Bay has let this take control of him. If he can get back in control, I really have no doubts that he can be a productive player again. The question is, can he get back in control?

Jose Lima, for better or worse, wore his heart on his sleeve. In 1999 Lima finished 4^th in NL Cy Young votes posting a 21-10 record for the Houston Astros. At the end of the day, many will look to that season as his legacy.

To me, it was the fact that he knew he was getting paid to play a game, and he tried to make everybody around him feel the same way. He was competitive yes, but he had fun in the face of competition.

Several Phillies & Mets will attend services for Lima in Queens. Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo, Alex Cora, Fernando Tatis and Johan Santana are all reportedly going to attend services for Lima.

I always hope that in life we can learn something when we lose a friend. When I think back to Jose Lima’s antics on the field, and his clubhouse nature, and the fact that despite his “showmanship,” he went out and won 21 games in 1999.

I think about all of that, and it makes me hope that somebody like Jose Reyes gets back to playing this game, as though he loved it. Reyes was the personality of the Mets, and then certain people on opposing teams, or the media tried to bring his spirit down.

If Reyes could reflect on the memory of Jose Lima in uniform, he’d realize they had one thing in common up until recently. They both were known for having fun while playing. Reyes was at his best when he performed with a smile on his face, and when he didn’t have to worry about what somebody else would think if he showed a little enthusiasm in the dugout. Lima didn’t care what the critics thought; he was going to be himself, for better or for worse. A lesson I think we can all take and use in our everyday lives.

Taken from an ESPN column about Lima, Johan Santana pretty much summed up Lima’s career in one quote.

“I met him when both of us were with the Houston Astros. Even though Lima was in the Major Leagues, he would visit the minor leagues on his days off and sing to us, a gesture that those who were there have never forgotten,” said Santana.

I’ve gone through the archives (and by archives, I mean Google and my warped little mind) and picked out some moments that’ll make you cringe, some moments that’ll make you squirm and some moments that’ll make you want to look away.  Of course, if you’re a Mets-ochist like I am, you’ll want to keep your eyes glued to the screen throughout the whole piece.  After all, we wouldn’t want you to miss any of the bloody goodness.

So grab some popcorn or maybe some deviled eggs and enjoy some of the most macabre Mets moments I could find.  Don’t worry.  It won’t hurt you…unless if you let it.

There have been numerous trades in Mets history that might be considered frightening.  For example, there was the trade that involved Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi.  More recently, there was the trade of Scott Kazmir for the wrong Zambrano.  Heck, I know a few 14-year old boys who were petrified when Anna Benson was traded away with her husband, Kris.

But perhaps the trade that scared off many Mets fans from coming back to Shea Stadium was the trade of Tom Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds in 1977.  Seaver and Mets chairman of the board M. Donald Grant never had the best relationship, with the war of words often spilling onto the back pages of the tabloids. Seaver’s relationship with Grant reached its nadir when he blamed him for giving negative information about his wife to legendary sportswriter Dick Young.  Young wrote a column claiming that Seaver and his wife were jealous of the money Nolan Ryan was earning with the California Angels.

On June 15, 1977, the Mets conducted what is now known as “The Midnight Massacre”, where they parted ways with Tom Seaver and slugger Dave Kingman in two separate trades.  Following the trades, attendance at Shea Stadium dropped as quickly as the Mets did in the standings.  Is it no wonder that fans started referring to Shea as Grant’s Tomb after the bloody massacre was complete?

There have been numerous on-field injuries that were gruesome to behold.  Just recently, the Mets were forced to watch David Wright be the recipient of a head-seeking missile by Giants’ starter Matt Cain.  The concussion suffered by Wright forced him to go on the disabled list for the first time in his career.  Fortunately, the injury wasn’t as frightening as it looked as Wright was able to return to the Mets when his 15 day stay at the DL Hotel expired.  Although he was forced to return his stylish hospital attire (see photo, right), he was more than happy to leave the hospital and return to the Mets lineup.  Unfortunately, not every Mets player who went down with an injury was as fortunate as David was.  Some players just vanished into thin air, never to be heard from again.

Remember Bernard Gilkey?  He had a spectacular season for an otherwise unspectacular Mets club in 1996.  He finished the season with a .317 average, along with 30 HR and 117 RBI.  He also collected a franchise-record 44 doubles.  Then he decided to appear in the movie “Men In Black”.  In his one scene, he was playing left field at Shea Stadium when an alien spacecraft appeared over Flushing.  Left in a state of shock, Gilkey never saw a fly ball headed in the direction of his coconut, where (you guessed it), he suffered a close encounter of the third kind with the baseball.  Unlike David Wright’s injury, Gilkey’s head injury clearly affected his career.  He followed up his stellar 1996 season with a subpar 1997 campaign, hitting only .249 with 18 HR and 78 RBI.  It got worse from there.  He was traded to Arizona during the 1998 season and only hit a total of 18 HR for the rest of his career until his final season in the majors in 2001.

One more injury involving heads happened in 2005 in San Diego, but this one was no laughing matter.  On August 11, 2005, Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron were involved in a terrifying on-field collision at Petco Park, where both players attempted to make a diving catch for a shallow fly ball.

Neither player caught the ball hit by Padres’ catcher David Ross, but they caught quite a bit of each other’s faces.  Although Beltran escaped the collision with only minor injuries, the same could not be said for Cameron.

On the play, Cameron broke his nose, had multiple fractures of both cheekbones and suffered a slight concussion.  He was placed on the disabled list and did not play again in 2005.

The collision in San Diego would be the last time Mike Cameron played for the New York Mets as he was traded to San Diego (how ironic) for Xavier Nady during the off-season.  To this day, Cameron has trouble remembering the collision, not that it’s a memory he would like to have back.

Frightening moments aren’t always events that resulted in fan favorites being traded away or players getting injured.  Sometimes, it could be a failed experiment on the field.  Does anyone remember “Turn Ahead The Clock Day” in 1999?

Ten years ago, Major League Baseball decided to go the other way with its popular retro uniform promotions.  Instead of looking back at its glorious past, baseball decided to look ahead at its ugly future.  At least the uniforms were ugly.  For one night in 1999, major league teams wore futuristic jerseys and caps in what had to have been the concoction of a seriously inebriated marketing department.  The Mets played the Pittsburgh Pirates that night and were defeated by a young rookie pitcher by the name of Kris Benson (that name seems awfully familiar).

It didn’t matter that the 5-1 defeat to the lowly Pirates almost kept the Mets from making the playoffs that year (they needed a one-game playoff with Cincinnati to earn the wild card berth).  All that mattered was that Orel Hershiser looked like this in his Mercury Mets jersey (see photo, right).

Yes, Mets fans.  Orel Hershiser was actually a Met.  That, in and of itself, is scary enough to me.  But putting him in that abominable jersey is downright chilling.  Spooky is as spooky does.

I can imagine you’re getting ready to give out candy to all the lovely trick-or-treaters who are about to ring your bell and then thank you for your sweet treats by throwing toilet paper all over your trees.  So I will leave you with the most frightening moment in Mets history.  What could be more frightening than the horrific injuries suffered by Mets players over the years?  Is there anything that scared more Mets fans away than the Midnight Massacre?  Is it possible that there is something more terrifying than the sight of Orel Hershiser in a Mercury Mets jersey?

Yes, my friends.  I believe there is.  The most frightening moment in Mets history began in 2006 and has continued to this day.  That’s right, Mets fans.  I’m talking about Jose Lima.

In 2006, the Mets used numerous starting pitchers because of injuries.  The only starters to make more than 23 starts were Tom Glavine and Steve Trachsel.  Although Pedro Martinez and Orlando “The Dookie” Hernandez were also around during the first half of the season, a fifth starter was still needed.  Unfortunately, one of the men they turned to was Jose Lima.

The Mets allowed Lima to make four starts for them in 2006.  The self-proclaimed creator of “Lima Time” was worse than Charlie Brown facing a squad full of Peppermint Patties.  In those four starts, Lima was only able to pitch 17.1 innings.  His ERA was an abysmal 9.87 and he was the losing pitcher in all four starts.  Although Lima’s career with the Mets was finished, Lima was not finished with the Mets.

Urban legend has it that Jose Lima did not leave the Mets quietly (not that he could ever be quiet if he wanted to).  It has been told that when Lima left the Mets, he placed a hex on the team, vowing that they would never win another championship.  Just as the “Curse of the Bambino” prevented the Red Sox from winning a championship for 86 years and the “Curse of the Billy Goat” is still haunting the Cubs, the “Curse of Lima Time” has been passed down to the Mets.

In 2006, the Mets appeared to be steamrolling towards the World Series until Carlos Beltran saw the “Do Not Swing” sign on Adam Wainwright’s curveball.  The hex continued into 2007 and 2008 as the Mets failed to make the postseason in both years.  Finally, in 2009, the injury portion of the curse took hold and choked the life away from the team.

Now tell me, Mets fans.  How can there be anything more frightening than the “Curse of Lima Time”?  It’s so frightening that the curse has even affected Lima himself.  After being designated for assignment by the Mets in 2006, Lima never pitched again in the major leagues.  Even his fledgling singing career never took off as he has only sold one of his CDs and that was to his mother (she bought it in the bargain bin).

I don’t know if the Mets will have to call in an exorcist, the guys from Ghost Hunters or the woman from Poltergeist, but there has certainly been some paranormal activity going around the Mets clubhouse over the years.  It seems to have followed them from Shea Stadium to Citi Field.  Whether the “Curse of Lima Time” is real or not, it needs to be erased before the Mets continue to experience frightening moments on the field.

Well, Scooby Gang, that’s all I have for you today.  I hope you can sleep well tonight and that these stories of terror didn’t make you go running to that old box in the attic where you’ve been storing your Mets night light all these years.  Remember, these moments have only affected the Mets, not their fans.  At least they haven’t affected the fans yet.  Have a great Halloween!