If you’re like me, it’s been extremely difficult to find the time – or mood – to actually do any work these days. After all, it serves only to disrupt the desired single-minded focus on the Mets.
But because there have been so very many memorable moments in this most memorable of years, it has actually become very difficult to process – not to mention comprehend – the whole thing, or focus on any single one, because each most-memorable-moment has been trumped by the next one…ad infinitum in 2015.
It is a rare thing, this fog of triumph.
As is most often the case, this magic carpet ride has been more about a most unexpected journey than the even more unexpected destination, lofty as that destination can now be. So for a moment before we commence hostilities on the ultimate stage, take a breath, stop, and reflect on a season that is already an embarrassment of riches, overflowing with most-memorable-moments-and-memories – even before a single pitch is hurled in the fall classic.
In April, we thought that 11 game winning streak would probably be the highlight of a season in which we expected to compete, but not win.
But then came May and the unveiling of Thor, who actually managed to exceed the enormous expectations we had for him.
But that might have been displaced in June, with the unforgettable debut of Steven Matz, his dominant stuff perhaps expected, his four RBI’s certainly not.
But of course, this was just getting started. Tip of the iceberg.
Things began to fall apart. Injuries and suspensions exacting a growing toll. Mayberry and Campbell being the worst four and five hitters in major league history – against Clayton Kershaw, no less – came to symbolize a Mets offense so pathetic that it had become a trending topic among seamheads. Something, anything, had to be done.
And then it happened. In the space of a single week, this team pulled off arguably the most dramatic offensive transformation ever. With trades and the return of disabled players, a third of the team turned over. The offense went from worst to first. Literally. Almost overnight. Could any transformation be more dramatic than that?
But these are the Mets, so of course before the transformation from the BC (Before Cespedes) Mets to the AD (After Deadline) Mets could take hold, the soap opera that was the transformation had to commence with pure pathos. It had to start, as these fairy tales so often do, with hitting rock bottom.
On the evening of July 29, who among us could believe anything would be more memorable – for better or worse – than Wilmer breaking into tears for all the world to see? The trade exiling Mr. Flores to Milwaukee never happened, and seemed like a death blow, not to mention another in a long line of major embarrassments for this star-crossed franchise. A failed trade magnified in the national spotlight. And now, no big bat to put us over the top.
And the long-running narrative of the LOL Mets was neatly wrapped in a bow the next day with a ghastly loss to the Padres – worst of the season – in a drenching downpour that seemed both appropriately depressing and certain to fully – and perhaps finally – relegate us to the permanent ranks of cursed, snake bitten losers.
Will this curse, this embarrassment, this shame stay with us forever, I asked myself. Thinking about all these years of collapses and Madoff and lousy teams, it seemed that, despite all this great young pitching, something was going very wrong. Again. After all, Generation K was going to be great, too…
If you had asked 1,000,000 Mets fans that day if they believed what has happened since was possible, precisely 0 would have said yes. OK, maybe 1.
Certainly, when the rebirth of the Mets was complete, when this Phoenix began its rise from the ashes on that last day of July which will forever be etched in the memory of Mets fans everywhere, simply acquiring Yoenis Cespedes would have been more than enough. Of course, thinking like a typical Mets fan, I knew he was a free swinger with big power. but also prone to strike out, not suited to CF, we were told, and since he would be joining his fourth team in two years, something must be wrong with him. After all, the Mets had tried to trade for three other guys first. I was grateful, but skeptical.
But, in a portent of the inconceivable pattern soon to emerge, even that huge trade was replaced in the realm of most-memorable-moment by the heroics of our instant folk hero that very evening. Wilmer’s 12th inning homer to slay the mighty Nationals would surely be the stuff of legend. It would surely stand up as the most-memorable-moment of the season. Not.
It took a while, but when Mr. Cespedes started heating up, he went places no one thought possible. 17 homers in 41 games. All big ones, it seemed.
Remember the eight home runs in one game in Philly in late August? What the heck could top that? Of course, in a classic case-in-point about displaced most-memorables, you may have long since forgotten that the Mets overcame five run deficits twice in sweeping that four game set in late at CBP. What a series! Most memorable? Maybe for a few days.
We move to the opener of what turned out to be the best regular season series in franchise history, the three gamer in DC in early September, when the captain capped a late inning comeback with the game winning hit and later provided the season’s most iconic image, that fist-pumping, adrenaline-drenched, frustration-releasing celebration after scoring.
But true to form, that particular most-memorable-moment lasted all of one day. My wife and I watched from three rows behind the plate the next night as Mr. Cespedes cracked a three run double – and the Nats walked the ballpark – in that 6 run 7th inning as the boys overcame a 7-1 deficit in the next sure-to-be-most-memorable-moment.
But even that memory only lasted an inning, displaced by Captain Kirk’s game-winning bomb.
And just how fitting was it – spooky even – that it was a comeback from the same 7-1 score by which they led in that horrible loss to the Padres on July 30. One signalling a season that was going to end badly, the other serving as final confirmation this was all going to end well.
But it took only 24 hours for the previous night to be displaced in the memory bank, or at least equalled, by YC’s monstrous 8th inning home run off a shaken Drew Storen that assured a second straight sweep of the team that has tormented them for years, and locked them into an insurmountable lead atop the NL East.
Certainly, the series in Atlanta that followed could not provide any memories approaching that, right? Wrong. In the finale of that four game set, a game the Mets seemed almost to mail in, Daniel Murphy provided what no one at the time suspected would be a preview of an outrageous, unthinkable, unparalleled October display of power: a three run homer with two outs in the 9th to tie a game the Mets would win in extras to complete another sweep.
And then came Cincinnati. Lucas Duda cracks a freakin’ grand slam in the first inning of the clincher. Of course, that may have been topped by the captain’s three run bomb to place a perfect bow on a perfect day. Or our manager spraying champagne on the fans in Cincinnati (and later Chicago). Or the conga line with Mets fans along the rail in Cincinnati. Or the captain proclaiming that he bleeds orange and blue.
But have not almost all of those incredible regular season memories somehow become almost dim or distant when we consider the bushel of memories from a still incomplete October (and likely November)?
Start with Jacob’s 13 strikeout performance in the opener of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium. Then, the Utley play the next day – nothing if not memorable/unforgettable. But only until it was displaced by the awesome sight of Reuben limping out to join his teammates, and the fans warming up for their beatdown of Utley by ferociously booing the Dodgers’ massage therapist (!) in the first-ever post-season game at Citi.
But as my wife and I looked on from the best seats in the house, those memories were quickly displaced by a ten run outburst over three innings that brought us to the precipice of clinching…only to see that performance displaced in the memory banks three days later by Jacob’s historically gritty, unforgettably clutch performance in the deciding game on the road.
And then, there’s the aforementioned Daniel Murphy. It was pleasing to see him hit one homer, surprising to see him hit two, shocking to see him hit three, incredible to see him hit four, unbelievable to see him hit five, and otherworldly to see him hit six…in six straight games. All other adjectives describing his feat have been well exhausted.
The greatest couple of post-season series by a hitter in major league history. By a guy who never hit for power. Against the best pitchers in the league. The stuff of legends they will be talking about for years to come. Process that. I have yet to succeed in doing so.
In the NLCS series against the Cubs, the memories are not so much of moments or components, but of the composite. Scoring in every first inning. Trailing not for a single inning. Dominant starting pitching end to end, making good hitters look awful. Preventing even a single leadoff hitter to reach base in the first three games. A virtually flawless bullpen. A shutdown closer.
But even with all that, the team did things against the Cubs even the most optimistic fans could not have envisioned. Excellent defense. Seven stolen bases. Superb base running.
Wiping the floor with a 97 win team. Looking unbeatable.
And the managing? Everything Terry Collins has touched with the AD Mets has turned to gold. Um, exactly how did he morph from Art Howe into John McGraw? And while we’re at it, exactly how did Jeurys Familia morph into Mariano Rivera? And how did Curtis Granderson morph from Jason Bay into Rickey Henderson?
Perhaps these were gifts from the same angel who has obviously taken on Murph as a client.
I would say nothing could top the treasure trove of 2015 most-memorable-moments already burned into our souls. But I’ve said that so many times in the last three months, I refuse to do so on the doorstep of the biggest prize of all.
The Royals are a worthy foe loaded for bear after coming this close to winning it all last year. And while it is unrealistic to expect the Mets to perform as well as they did in the NLCS, if they come even close to that, it will not matter who they are playing.
Not sure about you, but I will need this entire winter to cut through this fog of triumph and process the full glory – ALL the most-memorable-moments of this forever season. And the final act has yet even to begin.
I suspect it will all make for a winter that is anything but dark and cold. What say we kick it off by meeting up at the Canyon of Heroes!
