It Was Not A Good Day
Roger Cormier sees the lights of the Goodyear blimp, and they don’t say “the Mets are pimps” in California; Colleen Sullivan is still laughing at Frank McCourt
LFGM: Now available at the Willets Pen shop… Pride and Rocky hats and shirts and stickers, and of course we’ve still got the rad Willets Pen logo merch that definitely does get people to ask “what’s Willets Pen?”
Half of the money we get from the Pride sales will go to the Ali Forney Center, which helps queer teens and young adults experiencing homelessness in New York. Even if you don’t want rainbow LFGM stuff, go check out what they do and support them!
Trivia question: The Mets are in Los Angeles, where number 4 is retired for Duke Snider. What other number did Snider wear when he hit his 400th home run in 1963, wearing a Mets uniform?
Californication
By Roger Cormier
Last night, the Mets began a three-city, 10-game California road trip. They haven't played three consecutive series in The Golden State since 1998, a.k.a. The Year of the Furby. They started by getting shut out for the first time this season, 2-0, by the Dodgers, and from Chavez Ravine will go south to face the Padres and Angels, a cavalcade of stars on every opposing roster. It is going to be a fun test, if you want to get all Buck Showalter about it. For the rest of us, we know it is going to be something more like the AP physics exam.
It's weird — there have been some wonderful Mets memories up and down the coast. Bartolo Colon's homer. Game 5 of the 2015 NLDS. The 8th inning of the Giants game last Monday. But the Mets are 55-58 in consecutive series in California since 20021, and it feels like they went 0-118.
The disquieting aura of those games, so far away from home base, does not help. Gary Cohen is usually a comfort, but he says things in California he doesn't typically say elsewhere. He is guaranteed to bring up the Los Angeles band X for one thing, because over the years he has grown comfortable revealing to the world he is James Murphy in "Losing My Edge." He will most nights say, "It's midnight in Manhattan, no time to get cute," a Springsteen paraphrase. It was in San Diego where Keith Hernandez freaked out over a woman in a dugout. Cohen made it into the second inning of the first game of the trip before describing Tony Gonsolin against Eduardo Escobar as “the cat versus the … anti-cat,” because of the Mets third baseman’s ailurophobia, which led Keith to suggest Hadji come to the clubhouse to help solve that issue.
I'm sure I'm not alone in having the living room lights off by the 4th inning. The volume is lower than usual to appease roommates, and to leave neighbors unburdened with the thought they might miss something good. It's basically the only scenario where I am agreeing to watch a horror flick (life is scary enough, thanks). The images flicker, changing the light patterns on the wall facing the television every second. Walked off in extras, it's almost two in the morning, and you can't scream.
I tried living in California. I lasted two months. It was the dead of winter but I sweated every day. I developed a nasty toothache out of nowhere. Someone told me I had good vibes without a trace of irony. Things disappear out there. I lost myself. I was okay with this — I wanted to become different. Instead I was only less so. There were nights I sat on the grassy embankment next to the Pacific Coast Highway, trying to let myself go to the so-called good vibes, only to find nothing. Other things vanish. Time. Energy. Money. Water.
Managers. At 3:14 a.m. Eastern. After a win.
Then there's Ryan Church (that’s right, that’s who was in that picture, sorry you remember now). The incident went down in California in 2009. In the 11th inning of a tie game at Dodger Stadium. Church seemingly scored on Angel Pagan’s triple. Dodgers third baseman Mark Loretta implored his team to appeal at third base. The umpires ruled that Church never touched third. In 2017, eight years after the fact, Church was asked about it because I am not the only one haunted by it. He insisted he touched it.
“I didn’t round and step on the corner of the bag properly, but I felt the right side of my cleat touch it. It was unfortunate that we lost the game, but we were really screwed on that call.”
Of course they lost the game. I was out with a friend. We were at a bar that wanted desperately to close, but two schmucks wanted to see the end of the game. There was no sound from the television, and we didn't know yet how to access Twitter on our phones, so we had no idea why the Mets had a run taken off the board. A silent horror flick. It still hurts to watch.
Just a few minutes later, Vin Scully on the L.A. broadcast was comparing Jeremy Reed’s walk-off E3 to Marv Throneberry and the hapless '62 Mets. When the game mercifully ended on that fifth New York error of the night, the bartender laughed at us.
That was part of a sweep that ended the Mets’ two-week run atop the NL East. Their weaknesses laid bare, it didn’t matter that Omir Santos blasted his miracle homer upon returning back east, to Boston. The 2009 Mets finished the season 23 gamss out.
The 2010 schedule proved to be cruel too. The Mets were 48-41 going into the All-Star Break. They returned to face the Giants, Diamondbacks, then the Dodgers on the road. They went 2-9. Another season lost, out there.
Even if the Mets go 0-9 over the next 10 days in California, they’ll still be in first place. That doesn't mean their spirit is safe.
Behind Enemy (Base)Lines: Dodgers of Los Angeles
By Colleen Sullivan
The Mets swept another series and have made another trip west to face off against the every-few-decades World Series champs, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers have a pretty interesting history as of late, at least for those of us who like ownership drama that doesn’t involve the team we’re fans of. Prior to Mark Walter and Guggenheim Baseball Management, the consortium that includes Magic Johnson and some other rich people, the Dodgers were owned by Frank McCourt.
McCourt purchased the team in 2004 from the Fox Entertainment Group (one day kids may not know how much stuff Rupert Murdoch actually owned), and the Dodgers were somehow his Plan B. Prior to 2004, McCourt was trying to buy the Red Sox and move them to an old parking lot on the waterfront. I mean, I assume he was going to build a stadium there but we’ll never actually know. When McCourt was in charge, the Dodgers had their failed relationship with Paul DePodesta building the team, which ended up proving once and for all that you can’t use sabermetrics for everything, you nerds.
My favorite part of McCourt’s ownership was the role the Dodgers played in his divorce. Frank was divorcing Jamie (later the ambassador to France and Monaco from… let’s see… 2017-21, okay, she sucks, too) and he fired her as Dodgers CEO. Later on, the divorce court judge voided a postnuptial marital property agreement that Frank was trying to use to claim sole ownership of the Dodgers. I’m not a lawyer or a billionaire but I think we can all agree that you can’t do that. When the McCourts finally got closer to the finish line of the divorce, the settlement agreement hinged on MLB approving a 17-year TV deal between the Dodgers and Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket. Spoiler: the deal was rejected and Jamie McCourt eventually relinquished her claim to the team.
But that wasn’t the end!
Bud Selig got involved, declaring that MLB would appoint someone to oversee the day-to-day operations of the Dodgers because of concerns about the finances and operations of the team. This came after McCourt got a loan from Fox (the prior owners) to cover payroll. Despite disputing the allegations from Selig, the Dodgers eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, from which we learned the Dodgers were a Delaware corporation. After all the legal drama of bankruptcy court, it was agreed that McCourt would put the team up for sale. This ushered in the Guggenheim (not museum) Era and thus, the wildly successful team you see nowadays, the ho-hum juggernaut that’s the best in baseball for about 162-to-170 games every year.
2021 Dodgers: 106-54 (2nd in the NL West)
Prior to the 2021 season, the Dodgers saw some big departures from their sunny beach. Joc Pederson and his terrible haircut moved over to the Cubs (he’s now been on two more teams since then) while Enrique Hernandez was off to the Red Sox (for only two years and $14 million).
We can’t talk about the Dodgers without talking about the massive elephant in the room: Trevor Bauer2. After winning the 2020 Cy Young while pitching for the Reds, Bauer got himself a three-year $102 million contract, and then he went 8-5 with a 2.59 ERA in 17 starts for the Dodgers. Aside from that, I’m not going to say anything here around Bauer’s 2021 season because I don’t feel like getting sued by a litigious, sentient 4chan post. Justin Turner was eligible for free agency but remained with the Dodgers. Turner, who was pulled from Game 6 in the 8th inning of 2020 for testing positive for COVID, only to return to the field for the celebration, is a notable member of the Team Do My Own Research.
He also lost a bunch of weight from the Whole30 Diet because Atkins is too mainstream, and keto makes your pee a weird color.
Despite high hopes and expectations for a World Series repeat, 106 regular-season wins, and the addition of Max Scherzer, the Dodgers fizzled out by the NLCS. Still, it wasn’t all bad. They got to go to the White House to meet a president who didn’t make Jamie McCourt an ambassador.
So how are things going?
The usual. The Dodgers were already mega-favorites, and then went out and added Freddie Freeman. They also have Trea Turner for the whole year. Guess who’s four games up in the NL West after their 2-0 series opening win over the Mets on Friday night?
No one will be shocked that Mookie Betts is leading in all things offense. It still blows my mind that the Red Sox let him go. And it’s not like they lost him in free agency, they traded him for Alex Verdugo and two other guys, because they, the Red Sox, weren’t willing to even try to pay Mookie Betts what he was worth.
What to do in the meantime
These games are gonna come on late, so watch the Women’s College World Series and get good and high strung before you turn to playoff-caliber professional baseball.
Pitchers: John Cena edition
The aces that these teams boast? You can’t see them. Not the Mets’ ones anyway, because Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer are on the IL. Considering Francisco Lindor’s run-in with a Los Angeles door, it almost feels set up for the ol’ “the Dodgers didn’t see them at full strength” line the next time around, because even if Clayton Kershaw is out, he’s arguably the least effective starter on a brilliant L.A. staff.
Then again, Chris Bassitt vs. undefeated Tyler Anderson is a worthy follow-up to Taijuan Walker vs. Tony Gonsolin. Saturday, it’s David Peterson and Walker Buehler, while the Mets have TBD listed for Sunday against Julio Urias. Unless things go haywire in the next couple of days, it’s hard to see that starter in the finale as anyone but Trevor Williams, as Tylor Megill still needs a rehab start.
Trivia answer: Snider wore 11 for his first three months with the Mets, including on the June night in Cincinnati when he joined the 400 home run club.
The milestone homer was more of a poke than it looked like, given the 366 feet to the right field foul pole at Crosley Field — about the only place that it was tough to hit one out at the park that was Snider’s most frequent road yard for dingers.
And no, it wasn’t a case of a misplaced jersey, as Snider also wore 11 at home, like when he hit his 399th homer, a walk-off.
The reason Snider couldn’t get 4 with the Mets? It was being worn by his former Dodgers teammate, Charlie Neal. Later in the 1963 season, Neal was traded to the reds for Jesse Gonder, and Snider took back his number.
The following season, Snider was going to return to the Mets for one more season, but they sold him to the Giants, and unlike Jackie Robinson, Snider was a Flatbush legend who did suit up in orange and black…. wearing number 28, because 4 has been retired by the Giants for Mel Ott since New York.
One more Snider clip from his Mets season: his 2,000th career hit, also in Cincinnati, off Jim Maloney, whom you might remember being mentioned during an SNY broadcast earlier this season, and who threw a 10-inning no-hitter for the Reds at Wrigley Field.
Sure we could. We absolutely could go without talking about him ever again. That would be just fine, quite honestly. He goes away forever, we don’t talk about him, and unlike Bruno Madrigal, we are damn sure that he has no redeeming qualities or intent to help people.