Beltran is Burning

After two-and-a-half seasons in Flushing, most Mets fans now realize that the relentless home-run slugger Carlos Beltran was for the Astros in the 2004 postseason was somewhat of an unfair representation of this talented player.

With that said, Beltran seems to be taking advantage of his weekend stay in the City of Brotherly Bandboxes. And as a result, Mets fans are getting a glimpse of the player they thought they were signing a few years ago.

Beltran has slugged two home runs twice in the last two days, coming up with four home runs to power the Mets to three straight wins over the host Phillies. Today, he was especially unstoppable, going 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBI.

Beltran is in the unenviable spot of never being able to truly live up to that lofty contract he signed after his spotlight performance in the 04 playoffs. His relationship with the Mets faithful has suffered as a result. He’s been alternately booed and accepted. Never beloved. And being a bit shy and not really media savvy (just ask Paul Lo Duca) doesn’t help his chances.

But if Beltran can play steady baseball for most of the season and go on a few of these ridiculous hot streaks, I think most Mets fans will come to accept what they get from their superstar center fielder.

Double Your Pleasure

You probably noticed a bunch of Mets fans in the house yesterday in Philadelphia. I was one of them.

For the first game of the doubleheader at Citizens Bank Park, I’d estimate the crowd was probably comprised of 30 percent Mets fans and 69 percent Phillies fans. The outstanding 1 percent? Yankee fans who were, and I quote one of them, “definitely not rooting for the (blank) (blank) Phillies. Yes, baseball makes strange bedfellows.

But the double-dip was definitely a good one for the Amazin’s yesterday, as they held on in Game 1 and closed the door in Game 2. What you had to like most about the two games was you got two strong pitching performances from Orlando Hernandez and John Maine and a Carlos taking over each game. It was Delgado in the first and Beltran in the second. Perhaps if it was a tripleheader Gomez would have gone wild in the third. But I don’t think Philly fans could handle three losses in one day. They were already breaking out the “E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!” chant at the end of the first loss. They might strung up the Phanatic after a third loss.

Regardless, it was only a doubleheader and the Mets did what the needed to do to win two games. That’s got to give the team a great deal of confidence going into today’s afternoon contest on FOX.

I know it did for me.

* I present advertising icons, The Doublemint Twins, as the unofficial sponsor of the Mets’ doubleheader sweep for this blog.

Turmoil in the Clubhouse?

The Mets have been pretty successful the last couple years by having a happy, fun-loving clubhouse. Now they might have to see if they can be just as successful without it.

Yesterday seemed to be a breaking point when it came to Paul Lo Duca and he had quite an eventful day with the media even if the Mets never even got on the field. All the bloody details are here in Brian Heyman’s Mets Notebook, but it really seemed to boil down to two incidents.

First, Lo Duca got hot at the media for following up on his suspension. Take a look.

“Stop asking me when I’m going to drop my suspension. When are you guys going to drop it? I’m tired of talking about it. Go ask Tony (Bernazard) or Willie. God almighty, it’s like the president got killed.”

“So when are you going to drop it?” Billy Wagner playfully called out as Lo Duca stormed away.

So wait you’re telling me this guy…

… is a bit of a hothead?

I’m shocked.

At least Wagner is doing his part to keep things loose.

And seriously, that’s just Lo Duca blowing off steam about a subject I’m sure he’s not too proud of and obviously sick of talking about. I really don’t think that’s a big deal.

But the far more important outburst came after the game when Lo Duca told reporters to start talking to some of the other players on the team. Here’s the money quote:

“Some of these guys have got to start talking. They speak English, believe me.”

This is something that’s been brewing for a while, as Keith Hernandez made a similar observation a few weeks back on a Mets broadcast. The Mets are essentially being represented in the media by Lo Duca, Wagner and David Wright, with the implication being that the team’s heavy Latin American players are skirting their media duties.

Part of it is Wright, Wagner and Lo Duca are simply better quotes than any of the other players and as a journalist I can tell you, the media is going to go to them more often as a result. But the other part of the equation is those other players seem to be all too happy to leave the media responsibilities to others.

That’s OK if the talkative players don’t mind. If Lo Duca is any indication, it appears that they do.

*****

Some quick housecleaning: I’ll be out in Philly today for at least the first game of the doubleheader. So don’t expect another entry until late tonight/early tomorrow. On the plus side, I should have my next entry in my Ballpark Review series up later this weekend. That’s right, the successor to the Vet, Citizens Bank Park. Should be interesting to see how it holds up after seeing some more decent parks on my roadtrip. Talk to you all later.

Twenty Years of the FAN

Growing up a sports fan in the Tri-State Area, you quickly learned to find 660 on the AM dial — the home of WFAN, the nation’s first all-sports talk radio station. I remember spending my summer days out in the backyard with the FAN blowing out of my hideously 80s-ish red boombox. There were a lot of Mets games (back when MLB scheduled day games) and some good sports talk that really expanded my sports universe. I remember taping an hourlong interview with Tom Seaver on a cassette tape that I still probably have somewhere. And of course, I remember staying up to 3 a.m. on Saturday nights to listen to Jody MacDonald talk professional wrestling and then trying not to doze off in church the next morning. OK, I probably would’ve had that problem anyway, but the lack of sleep sure didn’t help.

My point is, you don’t really become a big-time sports fan until you’re 10 or 11 and that’s right about when the FAN came into existence. July 1, 1987 to be exact. Without it, I don’t know that I’d be the sports fan I am today or even working in the sports media. So despite the maddening hosts and the over-reactive callers that sometimes plague the station, I know I’d miss WFAN if it were gone.

To help celebrate it 20th anniversary, the FAN ran a promotion where listeners could vote for the Top 20 moments of the last 20 years in New York sports. Here’s the list, as decided by the fans:

20: WFAN’s First Broadcast
19: David Cone Perfect Game
18: Buster Douglas KO’s Mike Tyson
17: Rangers Trade for Mark Messier
16: Endy Chavez Catch
15: Cal Ripken Breaks Gehrig’s Record
14: Clemens v. Piazza
13: Robin Ventura Grand Slam Single
12: Mets Win 2000 NLCS
11: Mets Sign Pedro Martinez
10: Mets Trade For Mike Piazza
9: Jeter Flip to Posada
8: Yankees Win 2000 World Series
7: Aaron Boone 2003 ALCS Home Run
6: Stephane Matteau GW OT Goal
5: Mike Piazza 9/11 Homerun
4: Red Sox End Curse
3: Yankees Win 1996 World Series
2: Norwood Misses FG, Giants Win SB XXV
1: Ranger Win 1994 Stanley Cup

It’s an interesting list, peppered by Mets moments, which is interesting considering the Yankee dominance over most of the last decade. What I think hurts the Yankee dynasty is the World Series wins haven’t been filled with the dramatic moments like the losses have. Think about the clips you see on YES throughout the day: Boone, the D’back late-inning homers and the Jeter flip are far more memorable to the average fan than anything that happened in 1996, 98 or 99. And 2000 was overshadowed by the Piazza-Clemens debacle. So I think that’s how there were six Mets moments and five Yankee moments in the Top 20, not counting the Red Sox ending the curse or the Piazza-Clemens thing.

As for my list, I struggled because I really don’t think you should count moments where the team didn’t ultimately succeed, which eliminates the grand slam single and the Chavez catch — which were amazing moments, but can’t stand up because of their lack of overall meaning. I also find it difficult to judge the national events like Ripken and Tyson because we’re talking New York here and I don’t really see the impact. Regardless, I came up with my Top 5, so let’s hit it.

No. 5: Yankees Win 1996 World Series — Surprised, considering I’m a Mets fan? You shouldn’t be. I say it all the time and most Yankee fans don’t believe me, but I was actually happy when the Yanks returned to the mantle in 96. I knew a lot of Yankee fans at the time and they had suffered through those dreadful teams in the 80s and all the Steinbrenner distractions. So I was glad that those fans were rewarded. If I knew then that it would create the largest bandwagon in the history of sports and years later I’d be accosted by drunken idiots yelling “26 BABY!” in my face in the Shea Stadium men’s room, I might have reconsidered. But at the time it was a major moment in New York, and while it doesn’t have the sizzle of some of those other Yankee highlights, its significance remains.

No. 4: Matteau, Matteau, Matteau — At the time, I was working my first season at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J. As an 18-year-old Games & Attractions cast member, I often stayed late into the night, helping fix up the games area after the onslaught of summer crowds. Given the NHL’s recent ratings woes, it’s easy to forget that the Devils-Rangers Eastern Conference Finals was huge in this area. It was on everyone’s mind that night so someone in an office tuned into the game on the radio and broadcast it throughout the deserted theme park over one of the walkie-talkie channels. I was on a ladder, hanging stuffed pigs and cows on the wall of the “Barnyard Baskets” game when the Devils scored with seven seconds left to send the game into overtime. I was so angry, I lost my balance, falling safely into a pile of plush prizes. We finished up at the end the first overtime and I ended up driving home through the intermission. I didn’t quite make the time I was hoping to and the second overtime started before I got home. As I pulled onto my family’s street in East Windsor, Stephane Matteau scored the game-winner, sending the long suffering Rangers to the Stanley Cup Finals. Just as Howie Rose finished his legendary “Matteau, Matteau, Matteau” call, I started laying on my horn (Hey, no one should have been sleeping during that game.) and ran into my parents’ house just in time to see the replay of the fateful goal. Any moment I remember that vividly belongs in the Top 5.

No. 3: Clemens v. Piazza — I think people are starting to forget how big this thing was. It overshadowed a World Series, even before a shattered bat was ever thrown, and then continued for another two years until Shawn Estes managed to miss Clemens rather significant a$s. As Mike Francesa said on the FAN this afternoon, they could start taking calls on it today and it would still get heated. From a Mets fan perspective, Clemens beaning Piazza was like when Shooter McGavin had some dude run over Happy Gilmore because he couldn’t beat him fair and square. In Hollywood, Happy won anyway. In reality, Piazza had to wait a couple years before getting his happy ending. No, I’m not talking about his home run in the regular season game. I’m talking about when he gave away the pitches to the AL batters while catching Clemens in the All-Star Game. Watching the Rocket get rocked on a national stage — that was the happy ending to this saga.

No. 2: Super Bowl XXV — It remains unquestionably the greatest Super Bowl I’ve ever seen and it doesn’t hurt that the Giants won. But from an actual gameplay standpoint, both these teams were nearly flawless as they slugged it out in a physical war of a football game. Adding to the atmosphere was the actual war taking place in the Gulf which led to the most inspirational lip synching you’ll ever see from Whitney Houston. But the game will always be remembered for Scott Norwood missing the climactic kick and the underdog Giants winning their second Lombardi Trophy.

No. 1: Rangers Win The Cup — Without hesitation, this was the greatest moment of my sports fandom. Fifty-four years of frustration capped off with a tense 60 minutes of hockey. I just remember sitting on the edge of the sofa with my elbows on my knees and looking across the family room at my old man, sitting on the edge of the loveseat with his elbows on his knees. And we waited and waited. I hadn’t even been alive for 19 of the 54 years of frustration at that point, but every Ranger fan carried that burden that night. There was even that damn icing call to force one final faceoff before we could finally celebrate. For drama, for joy, for excitement, this event can never be topped. Every sporting event to come will always be fighting only for No. 2 on this list.

So that’s it. That’s my list. Here are the two events that almost made the cut… but didn’t.

HONORABLE MENTION: Piazza 9/11 Homer — It meant very little from a baseball perspective, being a regular season game in a year the Mets didn’t even make the playoffs. But from a societal standpoint, it was incredibly important. We all walked around in a daze after Sept. 11, unable to comprehend how the attacks could have transpired and unable to distract ourselves as television was overrun with round-the-clock news coverage and the sports world went on hiatus. Piazza homering in the first game back signalled somewhat of a return to normalcy and reminded us that it’s OK to cheer.

HONORABLE MENTION: O.J. Bronco Chase — This will always be one of the watershed moments in the history of television. It was salacious, shocking and celebrity all wrapped into one, transpiring live in the middle of an Knicks-Rockets NBA Finals game. I actually didn’t see it live (Six Flags again) but I had recorded the game on my VCR. I drove home listening to a mix tape, undoubtedly filled with 1994-ish music like Stone Temple Pilots and Jesus & Mary Chain, and avoided the result of the game so I could watch it as if it were live. It was late though, so I just started fast-forwarding through the game when all of sudden I noticed the split screen. “What the hell is that white Bronco doing? And why is it going so slow?” This event was the springboard for the O.J. story, which crossed all sorts of sports and societal boundaries and changed television news forever. Like most people, I still remember the details of the chase. I don’t remember the result of the game.

Wow, this became a ridiculously long post. I guess that’s what happens when my planned Mets game falls through. So anyway, Happy 20th WFAN. Hopefully, there will be some more great New York sports moments happening at Shea this October.

Torrential Tom

Tonight’s short contest against the Cardinals was one of those games where you either accepted you were going to be soggy all night or you were just going to be miserable. I’ve been at games like this and it’s all a state of mind. You paid for the ticket, you might as well enjoy it. Embrace the liquid. It’s the only way.

For those that did stick around for all five-and-a-half innings, they got to see history as Tommy Glavine picked up win No. 297. Three hundred is now firmly within sight, probably shortly after the All-Star Game. If he wins his next two starts in Colorado and Houston, that would set up the lefty to go for the milestone in front of the home fans sometime during the weekend series July 12-15 against Cincinnati. Otherwise he might be looking at doing it during a West Coast swing through San Diego and Los Angeles. Then we’d have to sit through some sort of ceremony when the Mets returned home. That’s no good. We need to get this out of the way in one shot. Mets fans haven’t embraced the former Brave that much. Do it at home and the Shea faithful will give a nice little ovation.

For those wondering, there’s little chance he could win it in front of his longtime Atlanta fans, as the Mets don’t return to Hotlanta until Aug. 31. And if Glavine can’t get three more wins in the next 65 days, it will mean the Mets have far larger issues than getting their veteran pitcher a landmark win.

And the way Glavine is dealing again, it shouldn’t take anywhere near that long to get three more W’s. Sure it was only six innings of work, but he held the Cards to one hit tonight and appears to be well on his way to putting his struggles of the Tigers and Yankees behind him… which is a good deal for everyone.

The Mets get a steady starter. Glavine gets his 300th. The fans get to pick on someone else. Everyone wins.

Give And Take

It was quite the evening for Jose Valentin.

He allowed the Cardinals to tack on a run by bobbling a grounder that deflected directly to him.

He made up for that by knocking in Shawn Green with the tying run in the bottom of the ninth with a two-out double.

He then bobbled a routine grounder in the 11th, allowing the Cardinals to again expand their lead to two runs.

And he got his chance to make up for that as the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the inning… but flew out to right.

He gave and he took away… twice. It had to be an emotional roller coaster for Valentin. It certainly was for Mets fans.

A few thoughts on the up-and-down loss:

– How is Willie Randolph going to Julio Franco with the winning run on third and two outs in the bottom of the ninth? Damion Easley was sitting on the bench. I’d much rather take my chances with Easley than hope for another “oldest player to do something” milestone from Franco.

– A fantastic at-bat from Shawn Green in the bottom of the ninth. Down 0-2, he manages to work out the two-out walk. When you include his walkoff blast Monday, Green has earned immunity for at least a week in this blog.

– Scott Schoeneweis continues to disappoint. Before Sunday’s perfect inning against the Athletics, Schoeneweis hadn’t managed to have a hitless outing since June 12… when he faced one batter. I didn’t like the option of Wagner pitching a second inning for the second straight night, but Schoeneweis has become the personification of tapping out in UFC.

– Finally, with a four-game win streak in the bag, you can’t complain about a loss too much, but you just wish the Mets weren’t such a tease tonight.

Hopefully, they put out a little more run production for Mr. 300 on Wednesday.

Coming Soon — More Steroids

If you’re wondering what I’ve been doing nearly every waking minute that I haven’t been watching the Mets the last 24 hours, look no further than the Chris Benoit saga.

I’d post a link to the most recent report but I’m sure you’ve all read or heard about it by now. And besides, in the time it would take me to post a link, a new even more disturbing detail would be revealed. This is a story of a family being killed that somehow has gotten worse 8-10 times in the last 24 hours. The latest twist is Benoit was allegedly a client of a company implicated in the upstate New York steroid bust. I don’t know how much worse it can get, but it probably will.

And WWE will be hurt tremendously by this story and I’m sure you’ll be seeing Vince McMahon before Congress sooner or later. But this story won’t stop there. You know where else it’s coming?

That’s right. Major League Baseball.

And it’s all because the media is already jumping all over the possible “roid rage” angle with this story. (Nevermind the fact that “roid rage” is an incredibly large cop-out or at the very least a simplistic explanation for a double murder/suicide.) And since steroids have become the big hot-button issue in the world of sports — particularly baseball — this will become the next rallying cry to “clean up the sport.”

Dig The Mosh Pit

There are few things greater to see in baseball than your team gathering around home plate for one of the more recent baseball traditions — the mosh pit.

It’s everything you want to see out of your professional athletes.

They’re showing passion…

They’re displaying camaraderie…

They’re having fun…

And perhaps most importantly, they’ve obviously just won.

When Shawn Green bruised the right-field scoreboard in the bottom of the 11th, it accomplished many things. It gave the Mets a win in a game they really had no business winning. It gave Green — one of the more beleaguered Mets among fans — a shining moment before the home crowd. It continued the Mets’ current winning streak and further distanced the team from its recent woes.

And, of course, it brought out the mosh pit. Good times.

Buehrle Buzz

Mark Buehrle appears to be the most popular player right now throughout the Mets blogosphere. Only one problem. He’s not a Met.

Could he be one soon? Sure. All indications are the spiraling White Sox will unload their soon-to-be free agent pitcher and the Mets certainly have the chips to get him.

The only real question is: Should they?

Buehrle is a fine pitcher, throwing to a 3.39 ERA in the American League with 60 strikeouts and just 17 walks in 93 innings. He’s only 4-4, but the White Sox are only playing .400 baseball so he should be happy his record is that good. After an off-year in 2006, where his ERA approached 5.00, he’s now pitching to the form that saw him 16 games with a sub-4.00 ERA in 04 and 05. At 28, he should have many productive years ahead.

All good signs, right? Go ahead and make the deal, right?

Maybe not. He will need to be extended and according to our beat writer John Delcos of The Journal News, the White Sox aren’t allowing for a negotiating window. That makes it a tremendous gamble to trade for Buehrle and hope against hope that he won’t be enticed by the dancing dollar signs of offseason free agency and leave for Seattle or Kansas City or whoever’s throwing around the ridiculous bucks this winter.

Because we all remember how insane the pitching market was this past winter, don’t we. Here’s a brief reminder, courtesy of Peter Gammons’ column at ESPN.com. $537.1 million was spent on 16 pitchers (SIXTEEN~!) for a total of 47 seasons. That averages out to $11.5M per pitcher per season. Now that’s a relative bargain if you ended up with Daisuke Matsuzaka and his 9-5 record. But it wasn’t all Dice-Ks in that market. There was Jason Schmidt and his 1-4 record and season-ending surgery out there. There was Vicente Padilla and his 3-8 mark with a near 7.00 ERA cashing in. And there was Jeff Weaver ruining his career by moving to Seattle for a one-year, $8.35M deal that’s almost as big as his 8.56 ERA. In all, the suitors have received a combined 74-85 record from those 16 well-compensated pitchers.

All I’m trying to say is you better be sure you’ve got a Dice-K and not a Weaver when you wade into that free-agent pitching pool.

Who do you think Buehrle is?

Long Lost Shea Sweep

Remember Aug. 24, 2006?

“Snakes on a Plane” was proving to have a lot of hiss but little bite at the box office.

Fifteen years had passed since Mikhail Gorbachev resigned his post after a failed coup.

And people still thought Eric Mangini was a humorless taskmaster who would have a short, failed run as Jets coach.

It seems like so long ago. It also happened to be the last time the Mets swept a team at Shea Stadium.

That was until this afternoon.

The Amazin’s finally put away a team in Flushing today when they smacked around the A’s 10-2. It completed the three-game sweep at Shea Stadium for the first time since wiping out the Cardinals last August. Now if we could just get people to stop making 1973 World Series revenge jokes.

It was the kind of performance every Mets fan had waited all June to see. Good baserunning — Strong pitching — Early lead — Tack on — Pull away. It’s the winning formula the Mets seemed to forget about all month. I guess the Mets simply had a case of senioritis.

So perhaps this is it. Maybe the Mets have snapped out of their monthlong funk. We’ll find out over the next four days as the Mets close out their homestand. The opposition? Those same Cardinals who they swept at Shea last August and swept in St. Louis to start this season.

Does anyone remember if they played at all in between? I sure don’t.