David Russell grew up watching the Mets. Not far from his residence in Forest Hills it was attending games as a fan at Shea Stadium. Later he would take the 7 train or walk to Citi Field.

And as the years progressed, Russell has covered the team for the Queens Tribune and NY Sportsday, a reputed sports website. He has also written the autobiographies of Ron Gasper, the former Mets pitcher, and Tom Gamboa, a veteran coach and manager with the Kansas City Royals and Brooklyn Cyclones of the NY Penn League. 

His passion is with the Mets. From a fan perspective, Russell will admit it has been futile in Flushing with bad years and some of the good. Up front and close the good was covering the 2015 World Series at Citi Field.

So the  27-year old St. John University graduate and lifetime Mets fan said to himself, it was time to share some of those year-by-year Mets moments.  

“It took about a year on and off,” Russell said about “Fabulous To Futile In Flushing” a year-by-year history of the Mets published by Summer Game Books and now available on Amazon and in bookstores.

Russell says, the most memorable game he attended was the Mets beating the Cardinals 8-7, on August 22, 1999, That was the game when Mark McGwire hit two home runs, but the Mets rallied with a John Olerud grand slam and a Mike Piazza solo shot. There was the Edgardo Alfonzo game-winning single.

Using research available from Baseball Reference.com, YouTube, and old news articles, David Russell captured the moments. A longtime and new Mets fan will go through history with recaps of games, highlights, facts, and Mets trivia.

“It was going to be about the opening day games of the season ,” Russell said. “It branched out and expanded to the expectations and how the seasons panned out.” 

Each year lists the Opening Day lineups. Every year highlights those good and bad moments.

The seasons from 1962-2019. The futile moments of the 1962 “Brand New Mets Amaze And Amuse” and how the Mets were formed after the Giants and Dodgers left for California in 1957. The championship years of 1969, 1986, 2000, 2015, wild card spot in 2106. 

And last year, “Alonso and McNeil Shine, Pen Implodes.” The situation is described about Noah Syndergaard and his displeasure throwing to Wilson Ramos and confronting manager Mickey Callaway. And the meeting with GM Brodie Van Wagenen.

Russell writes, “Syndergaard was voicing his displeasure with Ramos being the behind the plate for his starts. He reportedly confronted Callaway and had a sit-down with Van Wagenen over the situation.”

Remember, then, Syndergaard had thrown seven shutout innings to Rene Rivera but ended throwing to Ramos. Recall it was all about Ramos’ 26-game hitting streak that kept him in the lineup.

There is the explanation from Callaway. “You can’t make everybody happy and it’s not about making guys happy. It’s about winning at this point.” 

We all know now what transpired. The top 5 highlights of 2019 are listed including the Jacob deGrom Opening Day win, Tomas Nido’s 13th inning home run off Buck Farmer and a win over the Tigers, Michael Conforto and a walk-off single against the Nationals which gave the Mets their seventh straight win. Pete Alonso  breaking the rookie home-run record. And Dom Smith ended the season with a three-run homer with two outs in the button of the 11th.

But it was another of those futile seasons that are chronicled and a different approach from others  over the years that have written about the Mets.

In particular, Russell enjoyed writing about the 1999 team “Mets Just Miss World Series.  As he says,”It  it was really the year I started following them day-by-day.” . 

The Mets were gearing up for a championship year that followed in 2000 under manager Bobby Valentine. The Braves still were the team to bypass in the NL East but the revamped Mets became the pick for the wild card and that possibility was there for a first Mets-Yankees World Series.

A year later, that first with the Mets and Yankees. And many years of “Fabulous To Futile In Flushing.”