What Meet the Mets Means to Me

As a Met fan, if Meet the Mets doesn't get you going, I don't know what will. I don't know how many times I sang this song in my life, but it has to be in the thousands. It is the greatest motivational baseball song.

'Bring your kiddies, bring your wife, guaranteed to have the time of your life" It's not Robert Frost, but those lyrics are poetry to me.

So lets get psyched, we are only a month away from spring training. Remember last year who picked the Cardinal to win the World Series (especially after Adam Wainwright got hurt) or had picked the Giants the year before. Lightning in a bottle could strike and we could be contenders, but win or lose, we still have the greatest motivational baseball song....'Meet the M.E.T.S Mets of New York Town"

Rusty Staub Quotes and Video

Loved Rusty Staub. He was one of the greatest hitters and slowest runners in Met history. I would say he would be the prototype DH, but he was actually a decent fielder for a player with  no speed.

Here are a few Rusty Staub quotes:

"Jack Daniels stock doesn't drop when I'm flying between baseball games."
--Rusty Staub, on his fear of flying

"As a first baseman, he's a good hitter."
--Joe Torre, on Rusty Staub

Some video clips of Le Grande Orange, Rusty Staub

Tug McGraw in Quotes and Video

One of the all-time great Mets is Tug McGraw. The man who started the You Gotta Believe Campaign in 1973 which helped lead them to their second World Series.More then that, he was a terrific relief pitcher and one of baseball's all-time great characters (on top of that he is the father of country singing legend, Tim McGraw).

Here are a few classic Tug McGraw Quotes:

"In high schools, colleges and some countries, there learning a game that's not baseball."
--Tug McGraw, on the DH rule

"I have no trouble with the 12 inches between my elbow and my palm. It's the seven inches between my ears that's bent."

"Root only for the winner. That way you won't be disappointed."

"90% of the money I'll spend on good times, women and Irish Whiskey. The other 10% I'll probably waste."

Check out this Tug McGraw, Willie Mays, Ed Kranepool and other player interviews before  The 1973 World Series.

Tribute to 1962 New York Mets: Quotes and Video

To honor the lovable losers known as the 1962 New York Mets, here are some great Casey Stengel quotes as well as insight from other Met players.

"You might not be, but your outfielders are."
--Casey Stengel, after Stengel went to take Bob Miller out of a game and Miller said he wasn't tired

"Not a bit, we lose at any altitude."
--Casey Stengel, asked if the altitude contributed to the Mets losing an exhibition game in Mexico

"I don't know if a team that lost so much was so loved. I don't know if that existed before or after."
--Bob Miller

Luis Castillo released by Mets

I have not blogged about the Mets in months but this is cause for celebration. At one time, I actually liked Luis Castillo and thought he was undeserving of all the criticism heaped on him. He was, I thought, a scapegoat in many ways. However, after watching many games last season, it was painful to watch him play. He couldn't hit a lick and his range was gone.For better or worse, he became a symbol of the Mets ineptitude. The topper for me was his inability to visit our returning vets at Walter Reed Hospital, and his quotes about how he didn't go because it was diifficult  for him to see people in such pain. He could have hit .360, but with an attitude like that, I don't want him within five hundred miles of my team.

Random Thoughts: Please don't tell me when you break from spring training that this is the best attitude we've seen coming from the Mets in years and how the clubhouse is filled with comradery and good cheer. That's the same crap we got last year. We heard about character guys like Rod Barajas and Jeff Francouer (both long gone). Don't waste our time this year, just put a good product on the field.

1969 World Series Amazing Mets

I have been at two great sporting events live. One was when Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes. Still waiting for those other horses to finish the race.

The other was Game 5 of the 1969 World Series. I still get goose bumps thinking about the game. I was a 6th grader living on Long Island. Just before the series started we had to go to Queens for a family event. Just as a fluke, we went to the Box Office to see if they had tickets to any of the Amazing Mets World Series games. As luck would have it, there were two tickets left for Game 5. Can you imagine today going to the box office and getting tickets to a World Series game the day before the Series started.?

My older brother and I went to the game and we probably had the worst seats in the place but who cared. All I could remember was the delirium that was bubbling up all around me as the innings went on and the Mets took the lead. After the game ended, we stormed on the field. Of course where we sat, it took us about two hours to get on the field. We grabbed some grass and my mother later framed the tickets and the grass and it still hangs in my office today.

My sixth grade teacher was a Met fanatic and after school, he set up his black and white tv in the office and we would watch the World Series games. Yes, as I tell my son, World Series games used to be played on weekdays during the day. Mr. Kirshner knew I missed class on Thursday (Game 5) but he didn't care---he just wanted me to come to school on Friday with the promise of a Met victory. I came through with that victory.

I have no idea why I am recounting this story now but it remains over forty years later my sports memory of a life-time. Please let me know if you were at the 1969 Amazing Mets World Series and what your recollections were of the series.

Shame on Oliver Perez

Everyone has beaten up Omar for signing Oliver Perez at the beginning of  last year for $36 million for three years. However, when he was signed  last year, very few Met fans were upset. Most fans wanted Perez back especially after his impressive, though inconsistent, 2008 season. I was one of them.

It is clear that it ended up being an awful signing and he has been nothing but a disappointment. Now, though he is not just a disappointment, he is even hurting the team by being on the 25 man roster. He has refused the Mets request to go to the minors.

There are many examples of greed in sports and this is a prime example. Shame on Ollie and his $12 million a year to refuse to go along with the Mets request to go to the minors. He hurt the team by pitching so badly for the last year and a half and now he hurts the team by not pitching. He is the gift that keeps giving....This is going to end very ugly and it's too bad because, at one time, I was an Ollie believer.