For those of you getting squeamish about this upcoming playoff series with the Dodgers, allow me to enumerate at least three reasons for you to relax. First, there is the long layoff between Sunday’s finale and game one of the NLDS. For as long as many of us can remember, baseball’s post-season would begin close on the heels of the last day of the regular season. Qualifying teams would take a...
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Being decades older than Yoenis Cespedes would ordinarily mean that, if I met him, I would call him by his first name. But now, now, after I finish dropping to my knees in awe, I could only call him something ordinarily reserved for my elders. Mister Cespedes. Think of the indignant Sidney Poitier with that iconic Mister Tibbs utterance from the movie In the Heat of the Night (go to :55 on the...
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Get ready for this to stick, because this expression has until now only seemed only to apply to our hated crosstown rivals. A Real Met. For years, even Mets fans like me would engage ourselves in the debate of whether various performers for the evil empire possessed those intangible, mystical qualities that characterized them as real Yankees. Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, Posada, Bernie Williams...
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Writers like me tend to embrace subjects we call “evergreen.” This refers to topics that remain relevant for a good long time after they are published. And today’s topic is one of those. This could have been written in March, when all the experts said the Nationals would win the division simply by throwing their gloves on the field. Or when the Mets ripped off 11 straight wins in April. Or at...
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It is perilous to build narratives, or even make predictions, in the middle of an upturn, just as it is during a downturn. Nevertheless, driven by still-vivid memories of the most glorious team in franchise history, and under-girded by a shared sense among Mets fans that this team may have that same special “it,” some combination of talent, grit, timing and good fortune, how about we give it a...
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