Monday, August 17, 2009

Let Me Count The Ways

After seeing David Wright get beaned in the head, in the ear hole, like it was done by a perfect marksman, it marked the culmination of one of the most disappointing years ever. But crazy stuff has always happened to the Mets:

1. Gil Hodges dies of a massive heart attack during spring training in 1972. He was only 47. Wonder how Straw and Gooden would have turned out if Hodges was managing them? I mean, they came up 11-12 years later, Hodges still would have been in his fifties.

2. The 1973 worst to first run in September, followed by beating the big Red Machine and losing the devastating 7th game to the A's. (Wonder how much Petey Rose lost on the 1973 playoffs.)

3. They release Cleon Jones in the spring of '75 after finding him with a white woman in a van down south. Crazy.

4. The midnight massacre. June 15, 1977. Tom Seaver, the Franchise, is traded. When Seaver was up for the Hall of Fame, he received a higher percentage of votes than anyone in history. The Mets traded him because he wanted like 200k and they used Dick Young to make Seaver look like a villain. Great move.

5. Oh yeah you know how no Met has ever thrown a no-hitter ? Seaver did it when he went to Cincinnati. And Nolan Ryan threw like a hundred no-hitters after we gave him away.

6. They get Seaver back in 1983, but leave him on the unprotected list and we lost him to the White Sox.

7. By 1986, Seaver is on the Red Sox, and is on the DL in the Red Sox uniform during the 1986 World Series. Think about that: The Franchise was in the enemy dugout wearing the Red Sox uniform during the 1986 World Series. It should have never come to that.

8. Has any team had 2 back-to-back rookies with more potential than Straw & Gooden? They should have retired as Mets with 600 hrs. and 300 wins between them. They should have had their own Rotunda at the new stadium. But it certainly did not work out that way, no?

9. We win the World Series, and it turns out the MVP, Ray Knight played his last game with the Mets.

10. The 1986 World Series parade: Gooden missed it because he "overslept". Oh oh.

11. In the 1988 playoffs, we run into Orel Hersheiser in the middle of his 1,000,000 straight innings without a allowing a run.

12. We revamp the team and get Vince Coleman. Coleman shows his love of being a Met by throwing fireworks at fans-and it wasn't fireworks night.

13. Generation X or K- Wilson, Pulsipher and Isringhausen. What a crock.

14. Art Howe did I get this job?

15. The collapse of the last two seasons.

16. Bernie Madoff rips off Fred Wilpon.

17. Reyes, Delgado & Beltran go into Witness Protection.

18. Wright gets hit in the head. Remember Ellis Valentine? I hope David Wright does not.

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