You wish you were a Rumble Pony
Minor league rehab can feel like going in circles... maybe that's why Max Scherzer wants out of Binghamton ASAP? Roger Cormier ponders that, and Jesse Spector looks at Mets-Marlins pitching matchups
Trivia question: On this day in 1982, the Mets beat the Expos, 3-1, in a game at Shea that featured Charlie Puleo nearly going the distance, with one run allowed on seven hits in 8.1 innings.
Montreal’s only run came on a ninth-inning homer, and after the tying runs got on base, Mets skipper George Bamberger called to the bullpen for the pitcher who got Tim Raines to ground into a game-ending double play.
Who hit the homer for Montreal, who got the save for the Mets, and what other two 1986 NLCS participants played in the game for the correct team?
Mad Max in the literal Twilight Zone
By Roger Cormier
"I want to be in the big leagues, not be a Rumble Pony," Max Scherzer said on Tuesday while wearing a Binghamton Rumble Ponies hat and a Mets shirt, as if his physical appearance was meant to perfectly convey the limbo he was in at that moment. The future Hall of Famer didn't pout like Jerry Seinfeld with the puffy pirate shirt, sadly. He was just speaking his truth in his usual way. The emphasis was supposed to be on the first part of the sentiment. I want to be in the big leagues. Instead, it was the utterance of the Double-A team's nickname passing the three-time Cy Young winner’s lips that caught people's attention. It was kind of silly but also an insult toward a city. Scherzer just spent time in Binghamton and then said he didn't want to be in Binghamton. That could be taken personally, if you let it.
Outside of Binghamton, a question resurfaced: What the hell is a 'Rumble Pony'? Even Mets skipper Buck Showalter, in one of his trademark Stengel-lite tangents, asked. The answer to this question might help explain why Scherzer so badly does not want to be one.
It's possible Max read the Urban Dictionary's definition of "Rumble Pony" and did not like what he read. It should be noted the entry, from Louminator69, was entered into the record in November of 2018, two years after the Binghamton Mets were renamed the Rumble Ponies. It's very possible the naming of the sexual activity involving the reverse cowboy was reverse engineered.
The same goes for the character Rumble in My Little Pony. While Rumble debuted in an episode that originally aired in 2012, he did not factor into any plot at all and possibly did not even have a speaking role until a 2017 installment titled "Marks and Recreation" (Rumble rebelled against getting his cutie mark.)
In fact, the term "rumble pony" did not come up in a newspapers.com search from before that fateful Thursday morning, November 3, 2016, at Benjamin Franklin Elementary in Binghamton.
There were other options in the fan-voted nickname naming contest. The Bullheads and Gobblers and Stud Muffins had no chance. The Rocking Horses and the Timber Jockies and the Rumble Ponies did, because they were all carousel related, and Binghamton is the carousel capital of the world. In 1988 there was a couple, Duane and Carol Perron, who made it their mission to make Portland, Oregon the carousel capital of the known universe. They were never heard from again after 1993, when Brian Morgan, President of the National Carousel Association wrote a letter to the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin, thanking Binghamton and Broome County for hosting their 20th Anniversary convention, calling their "unique carousel heritage unsurpassed in any other area of the world."
There are six merry-go-rounds in the county, all free to ride, forever, thanks to the philanthropist George F. Johnson. The one in Recreation Park, the one with the Wurlitzer organ, influenced a Twilight Zone episode, from the mind of Binghamton's own Rod Serling.
The area is so saturated with carousels that a group of freed rapists and child molesters filed a test case against Binghamton because "residing in or entering within" a 500-meter radius of a playground covers the entire city.
Anyway, that fateful morning in the elementary school, it came down to the Rumble Ponies and Stud Muffins. Each name was in an envelope. Both were opened at the same time. The Stud Muffins one had an X on it, of course. Confetti followed. Then came a "Rum-ble Ponies! Rum-ble Ponies!” chant.
John Hughes, the primary owner of the team, said that day that the fan vote was "overwhelmingly weighted" to Rumble Ponies. A Binghamton mother named Nicole Schneider first suggested "Rumble Ponies", and because her suggestion won the contest she has tickets for life. Schneider rode the carousels when she was a kid. According to Hughes, Schneider "remembers going to sleep and dreaming of the ponies rumbling right off of the carousel."
He added that a Rumble Pony is a "fierce horse that no carousel can contain."
Sound like any pitcher you know?
Oh, you again
By Jesse Spector
The Mets played the Marlins a week ago, so Colleen Sullivan’s Behind Enemy (Base)Lines will return next series, when the Trashstros, who are much more interesting than the Fishies (whom we’ll see about 47 more times the rest of the season) come to Queens.
Major League Baseball’s schedule being made by idiots, the Mets aren’t just facing the Marlins, they’re facing pitchers they just saw, too.
Friday night, that means Miami ace Sandy Alcantara, who was brilliant in Flushing, allowing only two runs on six hits over eight innings on Sunday — the Mets’ only loss of the four-game set. And if you thought Alcantara was sharp in New York, he’s 3-1 with a 2.14 ERA on the road… and 4-1 with a 1.36 ERA in seven starts at home, with only 35 hits allowed in 53 innings. Jeff McNeil went 1-for-2 with a double against Alcantara in the first matchup, moving to 8-for-25 with three walks and only one strikeout in his career facing the righty.
Saturday, the Mets get another look at Trevor Rogers, whom they beat with four runs (three earned) in five innings on Monday. That performance was a little strange, as the Mets didn’t have any RBI hits off Rogers, scoring on a walk, a wild pitch, and sacrifice flies by Eduardo Escobar and Brandon Nimmo. Rogers hasn’t seen the sixth inning of a start since May 14, and in his last six trips to the mound is 1-2 with a 7.52 ERA, opponents hitting .303 against him, and 17 walks in only 26.1 innings.
The actual pitching matchups are a little different this time because the Mets had Thursday off, so Chris Bassitt will get to face Rogers this time instead of Alcantara. Bassitt pitched tremendously for six innings against the Fish last weekend, but couldn’t get an out in the seventh, and then Seth Lugo came in and gave up the game-changing grand slam to Jerar Encarnacion. Because of that, Bassitt is now 1-3 with a 4.94 ERA for the month, but with a .233/.289/.322 slash line against him and a 30-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio for the month. He’s fine.
Facing Alcantara this time will be Taijuan Walker, who held the Marlins to one run on two hits in 6.2 dominant innings last Saturday, moving to 5-2 with a 2.88 ERA for the year. That was Walker’s second straight excellent start after his disaster in San Diego, and the righty has struck out 19 hitters in his last 12.2 innings, with only two walks. Walker took the loss in his one career start in Miami, last season.
Sunday’s pitchers are TBD for both teams. The Mets’ rotation lines up for David Peterson to start after his gem against Miami in his last start, but paternity leave awaits. Daniel Castano followed Rogers the last time around for Miami, in what was really a bullpen game at home against the Rockies. Castano went 3.1 innings, allowing four runs in a game the Marlins won, 9-8.
Trivia answer: Not a trick question at all, it was Gary Carter who went deep to try to spark a Montreal rally in the ninth. Did you remember that Mike Scott was on the 1982 Mets, having been their second-round pick in 1976? Scott was traded after the 1982 season for Danny Heep, who went on to drive in the Mets’ only run of Game 4 of the 1986 NLCS against Scott (that year’s Cy Young winner) with a sacrifice fly.
The two players from that 1982 game who were still with the Mets four-plus years later? Wally Backman and Mookie Wilson collected a hit apiece against the Expos, with Wilson adding a stolen base and scoring on a Bob Bailor single for the game’s first run, in the sixth inning.