Mets take season's first "Subway Series"

Going into the ninth inning of today's game at Citi Field, the Yankees had a 6-3 lead that, based on how the Mets had played in the previous innings, seemed likely to hold if not improve. Sean Manaea, he of the 6.56 ERA, managed to hold the Bombers scoreless in t, he top of the inning. In the bottom of the inning, facing Yankees closer David Bednar, the Mets scored three runs, tying the game. The decisive hit was a three run homer by Tyrone Taylor.

In the top of the tenth Devin Williams held the Yanks scoreless. In the bottom of the tenth Yankee pitcher Tim Hill allowed two hits and a fielder's choice to put runners on second (following a steal) and third. Carson Benge then hit a chopper that allowed Marcus Semien to score from third for a walk off 7-6 win.

At the season's beginning I tried reading the Mets' tea leaves based on their performance in an 11-7 win over the Pirates. Noting that five of the Mets' runs were scored in one inning against a pitcher who was having a very bad day, and that the Bucs outscored them over the rest of the game, I concluded that I could just be "cautiously optimistic." Things went well for the Mets until April 8, when they plunged into a twelve game losing streak. For a time, they had the worst record in the Majors. They are now out of the MLB basement, though still fifth in the National League East. Some young players, like Benge, are showing promise. We now have New York City bragging rights; at least until the next Subway Series, at Yankee Stadium in September.

Mets win opener 11-7; is this a good sign?

The Mets won their opening game from the Pittsburgh Pirates 11-7, at  Citi Field. One game is no way to predict how a season may go. What, if anything, can we conclude from this game?

 In the bottom of the first inning, down two runs, Mets batters jumped on the Bucs' starter, Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes, for five runs. Skenes was taken off the mound before the inning ended. What could this mean? Were the Mets batters really hot? Or, was Skenes just having a very bad day? I suspect it was more the latter than the former. 

What happened after Skenes' awful outing? In the top of the first Mets' starter Freddy Peralta had given up two runs. He then allowed one in the third and another in the fifth, when he was retired. The Mets' bullpen gave up one in the sixth and two in the top of the ninth. Over the post Skenes period Mets batters scored one in the fourth, three in the fifth, and two in the sixth. Not bad, but if we discount the five Mets' runs scored off Skenes in the first, which I consider a "black swan" event, the Bucs outscored the Mets 7-6.

So, what can I conclude from this game? Not much. I remain cautiously optimistic.

Goodbye, Mets (again)

Last year, at least they made it to the playoffs. This year they started hot, which prompted a long reminiscence of my history as a Mets fan. Summer produced a long period of mediocrity, but at the end of August, thanks to a series sweep of the division leading Phillies, I expressed some qualified optmism. Unfortunately, the Mets record from then until yesterday's season end was 11-18, including being swept in four games by the Phils. They still had a shot at the playoffs going into yesterday's game, which they lost to the Marlins 0-4. As a result, the Mets and Marlins ended the season with mirror image records, 83-79 and 79-83, respectively. I take some consolation in the Mets having finished second in their division, if only because of the woefulness of the Marlins, Braves, and Nationals. 

What went wrong? Tim Britton and Will Sammon of the New York Times tried to find an answer but couldn't find any decisive factor or factors. I'm left with the pre-1955 Brooklyn Dodgers fan's cry, "Wait'ill next year!"

Are the Mets back on track?

Back in April I posted that the Mets then sported the best record in the Majors, but added the question, "Can we stop the season now?" The reason for this bit of facetiousness was my observation, back in 2008, that the Mets have the "ability to raise hopes, then smash them like cheap china." Long time readers of this blog may recognize a recurrent theme here.

It seemed things were going that way again this year. On August 5 Will Sammon of the New York Times noted that the Mets had a "prolonged stretch of mediocrity" since June, with a record over that time of 27-28. He pointed to their weakness in all aspects of the game: pitching (both starters and bullpen), hitting, and fielding. Meanwhile their divisional rivals the Phillies went on a tear, holding as much as a seven game lead in the NL East. That was until this week, when the Mets swept a three game series with the Phils, reducing the deficit to four games.

Today Sammon wrote that the Mets are "clicking again" He attributes this in part to the performance of rookie pitcher Nolan McLean (photo: D. Benjamin Miller, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons) who baffled Phillies batters to seal the series sweep yesterday. Since being called up, McLean has started and won three games, and has an ERA of 0.89. Sammon also noted that Mets batters are hitting again. 

It seems then that the answer to the question I posted in the caption is, "Yes." At least it is for the moment, but I can't discount the possibility of a derailment. They have a challenging schedule for the remaining season: three games with the Tigers (78-57 as of now) next week; a four game series with the Phillies, which could be their make-or-break, September 8-11; three with the Padres (now 75-59) September 16-18; and three with the Cubs (now 76-57) September 23-25. Injuries, which seem to be a persistent problem for the Mets (I speculated why here), are always a worry. Still, I'm feeling better about our chances now.

Update: well, maybe no. Fresh off a sweep of the Phillies, the Mets lost to the Marlins 7-4, then pounded them 19-9 yesterday. That game featured the first major league start for Jonah Tong who, over six innings, allowed one run on six hits, no walks, and six strikeouts. Today the Mets suffered a very ugly loss. Starter David Peterson lasted only two innings, during which he allowed eight runs off eight hits and gave up three walks. At the end of the sixth the Mets had tied the game 8-8, but after that their bats went silent. The Marlins scored once again in the seventh, and the usually reliable Edwin Diaz gave up two more in the ninth. The Mets have one more game with the Marlins, and an opportunity to tie a four run series, tomorrow. After that, the mighty Tigers await.

The Mets have the best record in the Majors. Can we stop the season now? A fan's notes and remembrances.

 Last year the Mets had a slow start, but things improved. They went on to get a wild card slot, won the wild card playoff, then beat the Eastern Division leading Phils and so advanced to the NLCS, where they fell to the Dodgers. This set up a replay of the first World Series in which I'd taken a rooting interest, 1955, Dodgers versus Yankees, when I backed the underdog Dodgers, and they won. This time I wanted the Yanks to win.

I used to hate the Yanks. For years it was because, as I first saw them in '55, they were the Big Bad Bullies. I lost interest in the Dodgers when they left Brooklyn in 1957, and for some years I didn't follow baseball closely. As best I remember, for a time I had some liking for the then Milwaukee Braves, although I was living in Florida at the time and had no family connections to Wisconsin. I remember having a dream that a girl I had a crush on in ninth grade was actually Warren Spahn's daughter. In 1960 I got a brief thrill when a traditionally hard luck team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, with whom I could identify because my mother grew up and I was born about one hundred miles east of Steeltown, beat the Yanks in the World Series. 

When the Mets arrived as an expansion team in 1962, they quickly became a laughingstock. I remember TV ads featuring their loveable old manager Casey Stengel extolling the efficacy of Rolaids as the Mets' blooper reel played in the background. They were custom made for my proclivity toward the downtrodden, but like many of my fellow Floridians I was more interested in football than in baseball. I was happy to see the Mets rise from the ashes - an apt metaphor as their home, Shea Stadium, stood on what had been the "valley of ashes" described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - and win the 1969 Series, but I was more thrilled by the 1970 Super Bowl victory by another upstart team, the New York Jets. I was in law school at the time, and about ten of us crowded Mike Vaccaro's dorm room, he having the only TV on our floor, to watch the game. The moment the final buzzer sounded Mike jumped up and turned the TV off. Asked why, he said, "I couldn't stand to hear Howard Cosell say, 'Broadway Joe Namath, the New York Jets, AND the American Football League, all came of age today.'"

I finally got to attend an MLB game after I moved to New York in 1970. My roommate, Mario Diaz-Cruz, was an associate at the law firm White & Case, which had a box of seats at Yankee Stadium. That summer I saw the Yanks lose to the Orioles largely by virtue of Boog Powell's bat. Powell went on to be the American League MVP, and the Orioles to win the World Series. For a while, thanks to Mario and to other friends, I became a Yankees fan and attended a fair number of games. I saw them, on TV, win the Series in '77 and in '78, beating the Dodgers twice. By the early '80s, though, I was losing my enthusiasm for the Bronx Bombers. In '81 they did something they hadn't done since '55, losing the World Series to the Dodgers. After that they had several disappointing seasons. I also developed a distate for their owner, George Steinbrenner. My father had instilled in me an aversion to people with "overinflated egos," and Steinbrenner's was up to near bursting point.

Sometime during the late summer of 1985 I was in my favorite Greenwich Village pub, the Lion's Head, sitting next to Pat Carroll, a Brooklyn native who had moved to London and was back for a visit. Pat said he had two tickets to a Mets game but his mother couldn't go, so would I be interested? "Sure," I said. The Mets won, beating the Cardinals thanks to a two run homer off what was then called the "unlikely bat" of  Howard Johnson. During the game Pat said, "What you have to know is that the Mets are really the Brooklyn Dodgers continued by other means." This was an "Aha!" moment for me; I could return to my first baseball love.  (I have some friends, like Dermot McEvoy, who consider the Mets to be the New York Giants continued by other means. I'm glad for their fellow fandom.)

1985 was a propitious year to become a Mets fan. Gary Carter, whom the Mets had acquired by trade from the Expos the previous winter, led the Mets in home runs and RBI and provided solid defense behind the plate. Dwight Gooden won 24 games, with an ERA of 1.03 and 268 strikeouts. Darryl Strawberry was out with an injury from May 11 to June 28, but still managed 29 homers and 79 RBI, along with sparkling defense in right field. The Mets finished three games behind the Cards in the NL East.

My reward for Mets fandom came the following year. The 1986 Mets were a juggernaut. Deftly managed by Davey Johnson, they won 108 games; twice as many as the 54 they lost. They finished 21 and a half games ahead of the Phillies in the NL East, then beat the Astros for the league championship. The World Series though, against the Red Sox, proved to be a seven game struggle. The Sox had a three games to two lead going into game six, which I was watching on TV at home. Boston had a 5-4 lead going into the bottom of the tenth and I felt convinced they would go on to win the game and the Series, so I decided to go to a local bar where I knew my friend Bill, a Springfield, Massachusetts native and Red Sox fan, would be, and congratulate him.  On the way I heard cheering coming from an apartment window. When I got to the bar I could see lots of people smiling and clapping, and Bill looking dejected.  I asked him what had happened and he gestured at the TV, which showed a replay of Mookie Wilson's grounder skittering past Bill Buckner's glove and between his legs. Earlier in Mookie's at bat, a wild pitch by Bob Stanley had allowed the tying run to score, which probably occasioned the cheering I'd heard on the way. Buckner's error allowed the winning run and a walk-off victory for the Mets, who went on to win game seven and their second MLB championship. Buckner, who otherwise had a long and distinguished baseball career, and Wilson became friends, and appeared together at fan events.

After 1986 came a long period of frustration for Mets fans. The remainder of the 80's, through 1990, were an "often a bridesmaid" period in which the Mets regularly finished second in their division. In '88 they finished first but lost to the Dodgers in a league chamopionship series from which I have memories of Davey Lopes rounding the bases with his right thumb pointed upward. The early 1990s were dismal, with the Mets often finishing at the bottom of their division. It was in 1991 that I got married, to a Red Sox fan, and in 1993 I became a father. This cut into the time I spent at the Lion's Head, which is where I watched Mets games. I did attend several games with Charlie McCrann, an executive at Marsh & McLennan, which had a private box at Shea. Despite this, Charlie was a Yankees fan. He was also a Republican. Despite our being on opposite sides of both baseball and politics, our friendship was strong, and lasted until the morning of September 11, 2001 when Charlie was in his office at One World Trade Center, an event memorialized here.

In 2000 the Mets won the NL title, which set up a longed for "subway series" against the Yankees. Unfortunately, it would not satisfy the longings of Mets fans, as the Bombers prevailed in five games. It's a Series best (or worst) remembered for when, in game two, Mike Piazza broke his bat fouling off a pitch from Roger Clemens. A piece of the bat flew toward the mound. Clemens grabbed it and threw it to his left, where it almost hit Piazza, who was trotting toward first. This incited a bench clearing brawl. Clemens denied having intended to hit Piazza. 

The Mets returned to the World Series in 2015, and the result was no better than in 2000. The Kansas City Royals, as had the Yanks, won in five. The following year the Mets made the playoffs, but were eliminated by the Giants. In 2019 they had an 86-76 record, but failed to make the playoffs. I characterized that season here. The 2020 season was shortened by COVID and the Mets had a sickly 26-34 record, finishing fourth. Before the 2021 season Steve Cohen became the Mets' principal owner (the Wilpon family retained a five percent stake). 

Cohen's first significant move was acquiring shortstop Francisco Lindor, who continues to be a vital part of the team. The Mets started the 2021 season hot, then collapsed, finishing third in the division. In 2022 they had a 101-61 record, their best other than 1986's, and tied with the Braves for the division lead. Since the Braves had a winning season against the Mets, they were awarded the division championship, and the Mets had a wild card playoff against the Padres, which they lost 3-0. 2023 saw the Mets reverting to losing ways, finishing fourth in the East. 2024; well, we've covered that.

Now it's 2025 and the Mets are off to a blazing start. A day short of one month into the season they have a 19-8 record, the best in the majors. In their division they have a five game lead over the Phils. Turning to intracity rivalry, the Yankees' record is 15-11. MLB's Anthony DiComo thinks part of the Mets' early success stems from Tylor Megill's (photo at top) improvement of his "stuff." According to DiComo, "[t]he zip on a fastball, the snap on a slider, the tumble on a changeup -- these are all examples of stuff." It's done Megill well so far; despite a 3-2 win-loss record, he has a 1.09 ERA and thirty strikeouts. The starter in today's win over the Nationals, former Yankee Clay Holmes, showed some good stuff, allowing four hits and no runs over five innings, with two strikeouts. He could have gone seven innings but for his time on the mound having been interrupted by a rain delay. 

On the offensive side much optimism was engendered by the signing, for $765 million, the largest contract in baseball history, of the former Yankee star Juan Soto. It seemed worth it when he hit a home run in his first at bat of the season. Since then he has added only two more, and his average is a pallid .235 with twelve RBI. He also missed a catch in Friday's game that set the scene for the Nationals' ninth inning walk off victory. Mike Lupica, on MLB.com, writes of Pete Alonso, who was a free agent last year but stayed with the Mets with a lucrative two year contract, "[n]o one in the league has been more valuable so far than the Polar Bear [Alonso's nickname]." As of now he has a .333 average, with six homers and 26 RBI.

Can the Mets sustain this success? Is it 1986 again? Or will it be another 2021 in which they start flaming hot, then go freezing cold? Or perhaps another 2022, when a splendid regular season is followed by a playoff collapse? There are reasons, I believe, for optimism. Apart from Soto the core of the team has been together for a while, and the chemistry seems good. The unknown factor is how injuries may affect the team. I once speculated about why the Mets seem to suffer from this so much. Nevertheless, my hopes now are high.

I made "a fan's notes" part of the title of this post as an homage to Frederick Exley, whose first novel had that title, and with whom I once had a close encounter at the Lion's Head.

Photo: D. Benjamin Miller, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Goodbye, Mets.

I'll say the obvious comforting thing: they did better than expected. They started inauspiciously. At the time I noted that the pundits' consensus was for them to finish fourth in the National League East division. In fact, they finished the season in third place. They had an identical record, 89-73, with their frequent nemeses, the Braves, but the Braves were awarded second place because they had a winning record against the Mets for the season. On September 7 I was cautiously optimistic. I thought the worst they could do was finish third, which they did, though this still got them a wild card slot. They won their three game wild card playoff against the Brewers 2-1; then won the five game divisional playoff against the red hot Phillies 3-1. Some dramatic late inning scoring leading to victories in several games had "team of destiny" chatter going. 

It was not to be. The Mets' regular season record against the Dodgers was 2-4; that also proved to be their record in the National League Championship Series. The Dodgers will now be facing the Yankees in a World Series for the twelfth time, though the first since 1981. Their 1955 Series, when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, is memorable for me. This time, though, I'll be rooting for the Yankees.
 

How 'bout those Mets?

 The 2024 season started badly for the Mets. At the time, I noted that "most pundits" predicted they would finish fourth in the National League East. Things began to look better as the season progressed, and I was tempted to post some encouraging words, especially when they completed their four game season series with the Yankees with four wins, thereby securing New York City baseball bragging rights, however temporarily. Fans of the Bronx Bombers will remind me that their team has an 81-60 record while the Mets' is 77-64, that the Yanks are a mere half game behind the division leading Orioles, while the Mets are tied for second in the NL East with their often nemeses, the Braves, and are eight games behind the streaking Phillies.

So I've held off posting. With each bit of encouraging news, I've  remembered what I posted sixteen years ago, about the Mets' "ability to rouse hopes, then smash them like cheap china." Now, as I write this, the Mets are sitting on an eight game winning streak, which could end in what is now a rain delayed game against the Reds. Last night the Mets prolonged their streak with a 6-4 ten inning win over the Reds in an at home series opener. As so often, there's a dark side to this: second baseman and reliable slugger Jeff McNeil is lost for the season with a wrist injury. 

The other bad news is that the Mets now face a challenging schedule until the end of the season.  They have seven games against the division leading Phils, three against the Braves, and end the season, as they started it, with three games against the Brewers, the same team that swept them in their season opener.

What can I say now? The best I can anticipate is that the Mets overtake the Braves, finish second in the NL East, get a wild card slot, and Carlos Mendoza is named Manager of the Year. The worst is that they finish third in the division, at least a bit better than pre-season predictions. 

Update: it's now a nine game winning streak; the Mets beat the Reds 4-0 today. Also, it looks likely the Mets will go a full game ahead of the Braves, who trail the Blue Jays 6-1 in the bottom of the 6th.

Willie Mays, 1931-2024

In the summer of 1954 I was eight years old, and my parents and I returned from a three year sojourn in England, where my father, a U.S. Air Force officer, had been stationed. I had been the only American in an English school, so I had been thoroughly Anglicized. I knew of cricket, of what my schoolmates had called "football" but we call soccer, and of something called "rounders," which I later realized had some vague resemblance to baseball. Of baseball itself, though, I knew nothing. Neither of my parents were fans, so it hadn't been part of my acculturation. 

On September 29, 1954 my third grade classmates at the Eglin Air Force Base Elementary School and I were excused from our classrooms early in the afternoon to go to the "cafetorium," where a big black-and-white TV was set up on the stage for us to watch the opening game of the World Series, pitting the New York Giants against the Cleveland Indians. I don't recall having any rooting interest, though I may have favored the Giants since I had been to New York but never to Cleveland (I still haven't, unless you count the airport). One thing remains engraved on my memory from that game: Willie Mays of the Giants making "The Catch" (video above). That was enough to convince me that baseball was something worth watching, and knowing. Thank you, Mr. Mays. 

Willie Mays, considered by many the greatest all-around baseball player ever, died today at 93. I can't help adding that he ended his playing career with the Mets, and that his last hit was a run scoring single in game 3 of the 1973 World Series. Joan Whitney Payson, then the Mets' principal owner, had promised that his number would be retired, but she died in 1975 and her promise remained unfulfilled until Old Timers' Day in August of 2022.

Mets swept at home in season opening series

The Mets were swept by the Milwaukee Brewers in their season opening three game series at Citi Field. The last time the Mets began a season 0-3 was in 2014. That year they finished 79-83, tied for second in the NL East. Nothing great; but not disastrous. They did better than the fourth place finish that most pundits have predicted for the Mets this season. 

 

There's some reason for hope. Starter Kodai Senga is back to throwing in a recovery program that is said to be "making progress" and closer Edwin Diaz is back and has pitched one inning, allowing no runs and getting one strikeout. Still, injury problems keep cropping up. Tylor Megill, who is taking Senga's place in the starting rotation, was taken out of today's game after four innings, having struggled with control and feeling shoulder tenderness. He will get an MRI.

Along with problems on the mound, the Mets were weak at the plate. They were outscored 14-9, and had twenty hits to the Brewers' thirty one. In one respect the Mets were better: Mets batters struck out twenty one times to the Brewers' thirty. 

A reason to be upbeat is that so many times I've seen a hot start devolve into a "meh" season. My wife is a Red Sox fan. She believes it's a good sign if the Fenway lads struggle as the season begins. They're 2-2 now, in a three way tie for last in the AL East.  I guess she can feel cautiously optimistic, as do I about the Mets.

A bold prediction; a chastened update.

 The Mets will be a better than .500 team for the rest of the season; this despite what appears to be a daunting schedule. It won't be enough to make the playoffs, but may at least lift them to third in the Eastern Division.

Why? Because of something I suggested in a post seven years ago. They will no longer be burdened by expectations. I've seen them display this sort of resilience in the past when, say, a key player suffered an injury, and the rest of the team responded with better play.

Update: call me a cock-eyed optimist. Since I posted this, and since the departures of Scherzer, Verlander, and Canha, the Mets are 0-6 with a combined score of 14-39. So much for resilience. Coming up is a three game series with the Cubs, followed by four with the Braves; hardly encouraging. It would be like the Mets to confound me and suddenly get hot, unlikely as that seems. Please, let me be confounded.

I can't give up on the Mets

 

The All Star Break is a traditional time to assess a team's performance and its prospects for the rest of the season. On May 21 I expressed optimism based on the Mets' seeming to have recovered from a deep slump that, in typical fashion, followed a hot start. That optimism was quickly proved unfounded as the Mets went into a vertiginous tailspin that included a three game sweep by their divisional archrivals, the Braves. 

Recently, they showed some improvement. Their record over the last ten games before the break is 6-4. Still, at the break they are in fourth place in their division, six games under .500, and 18.5 games behind the NL East leading Braves. They are also ten games behind the second place Marlins and six behind the third place Phillies. There is still a miniscule chance they could be a wild card team but, "Ya gotta believe!" aside, it stretches credulity.

Nevertheless, I'm yet to be in a funk as bad as I was in June of 2008. The presence of a very deep pocketed owner who is happy to sign checks but by and large willing to let the baseball pros make decisions, even if they're not always the best decisions, helps. I also took some cheer from this New York Times column by David Brooks. No doubt I'll take some brickbats from my compatriots on the left for this, but I've long liked David Brooks. Knowing he's a fellow Mets fan confirms and strengthens my liking him. We disagree on some very important things, principally that described by David Coates here:

"David Brooks’ recent essay on 'The Character Factory' would have us believe that 'nearly every parent on earth operates on the assumption that character matters a lot to the life outcomes of their children' while 'nearly every government anti-poverty program operates on the assumption that it doesn’t.'”

It's the statement about anti-poverty or, as I think of them, "safety net" policies, not that about parents, with which I disagree. I'll have more to say about that in a future, non-baseball post. I must also note that there are some things, other than Mets fandom, about which I agree strongly with Brooks; for example, I believe in, and identify with, his notion of a "second mountain," on which I find myself now.

I've ascribed my Mets fandom to a penchant for supporting underdogs, one that, in baseball, was first manifest in my decision to cheer for the Brooklyn Dodgers -- I lived nowhere near Brooklyn at the time -- in the 1955 World Series against the Yankees. It was re-awakened in 1985 when I attended my first Mets game with my friend Pat Carroll, who said, "What you have to know about the Mets is that they're the Brooklyn Dodgers continued by other means." (I have friends who were New York Giants fans in their childhood who would dispute that claim.)  My timing was impeccable; the following year I got to see the Mets win their second, and to date last, World Series. 

At 77, I think I have a fair chance of living long enough to see another Mets championship. If I do, it's likely to come about in a way that can be described by the adjective used by their first manager, Casey Stengel, to describe a first season expansion team that set new records for futility, "Amazin'."

 

The Mets are showing some life ... Updated!

Update

... as are the bats of Pete Alonso and of Francisco Lindor (photo). True to form, the Mets started the season hot, but this year the collapse was quick in coming. They were doing well through most of April. Despite being swept by the Brewers in their second series of the season, they came off a California trip, usually Death Valley for the Mets, with a sweep of the As, two of three from the Dodgers, and a two-two split with the Giants, in which the Giants won the last two. From the loss to the Giants on April 22 through that to the Rays on May 16, the Mets' record was 7-17.

They're now sitting on a scorching three game winning streak. The first two were over the Rays, who now hold the best record in the Majors. On May 17 Kodai Senga held the Rays to one run while striking out 1welve. Unfortunately, and characteristically for most of this season, the Mets' batters gave him no support. so he left the mound at the end of the sixth with the score 1-0 Rays. It then became a question of which bullpen would do the least damage. Four Mets releivers gave up six runs, but the Rays' pen yielded eight. the last being a walk off homer in the bottom of the tenth by Alonso, so the Mets won 8-7.

In the last game of the Rays series, starter Tylor Megill allowed two runs over six innings, but the Mets batters supplied three and the bullpen held firm for a 3-2 Mets win. Friday's game with the Cleveland Guardians was another nail biter. Mets starter Carlos Carrasco gave up five runs in five innings, continuing what for him has been a difficult season, notching his ERA up to 8.68 and leaving the mound with the score Cleveland 5, Mets 2. In the bottom of the sixth a Brett Baty homer made it 5-3, but in the top of seventh, Mets reliever Dominic Leone allowed another two runs. In the bottom of the seventh a grand slam by Alonso tied the game. In the top of the tenth Cleveland scored two runs, but in the bottom of the tenth the Mets scored three runs to win, all on RBI singles, the last by Lindor.

The Mets are now a .500 team, third in the NL East. The game Saturday was postponed by rain, so there will be a double header with Cleveland today. It's possible the Mets will revert to the mean and lose both games. As I noted in a post some years ago, the Mets have "the ability to rouse hopes, then smash them like cheap china." 

Update: the Mets swept today's doubleheader with the Guardians, so have now won five straight. The really good news is that Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander both were in good form, so the top of the order, at least for now, may be solid.

Photo: All-Pro Reels, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons 

Twelve days until Opening Day and things are looking bad for the Mets.

Edwin Diaz, arguably the best closer in Major League Baseball last season, has been lost for the entire 2023 season because of a knee injury he incurred in the celebration of Puerto Rico's victory over the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic. This comes shortly after starting left handed pitcher Jose Quintana, whom the Mets acquired off free agency during the off season, was sidelined until at least July by a rib lesion. This leaves the Mets likely with an entirely right handed starting lineup until Quintana's return. Since the injury to Diaz, centerfielder and lefty slugger Brandon Nimmo has been put on the DL with an ankle injury and is considered unlikely for the start of the season. 

Spring training still has some days to go, and already the Mets' injury list, in addition to the players mentioned above, includes relief pitchers Sam Coonrod, Brooks Raley, and Bryce Montes de Oca. In one bit of heartening news, the Mets have acquired reliever Dennis Santana off waiver from the Twins.

As spring training continues and as the regular season unfolds, the Mets are bound to suffer more injuries; some to key players. Of particular concern are the aging starting pitchers Max Scherzer (38) and Justin Verlander (40), and outfielder/slugger Starling Marte (34).

Am I ready, this early, to give up on my hopes for the Mets this year? In June of 2008 I wrote a diatribe in which I gave up hope for that year's Mets. A month later I walked back that prediction. As it turned out, the Mets kept winning until near the end of the season, and had they won the final regular season game, would have had a one game playoff against the Brewers for the last NL post-season spot. Instead they lost that last game to the Marlins. Last year proved similar to 2008 except that the Mets were consistent winners through the season until September, when the Braves overtook them to win the NL East. This left them facing the Padres in a playoff for the wild card, which the Mets lost in three straight. 

Despite all, I'm sticking with the old saw, "Ya gotta believe!" 

Edwin Diaz photo: D. Benjamin Miller, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Our return to the Glimmerglass Opera Festival put us close to Cooperstown, New York, best known for being the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame (photo above: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons). It is also reputed to be the birthplace of the game, though that claim is disputed. Regarding Mr. Chadwick's claim, I can say that during the three years of my childhood spent in an English school, I learned the game of rounders. On returning to the U.S. and learning about baseball (along with re-learning how to be American), I thought it had a strong similarity to rounders.

Martha had a strong reason to visit the HOF. She was celebrating the induction of David "Big Papi" Ortiz, of her beloved Red Sox. Here she is with his induction display.

And here I am, surgical boot and all (Thanks to which Martha was able to get Marc's car a handicapped permit that allowed us close in parking at Glimmerglass) with Gil Hodges' induction display. I'm wearing my Brooklyn Dodgers cap, they having been my first love in Baseball. Hodges later managed the Mets, to whom I owe my present loyalty, to their victory in the 1969 World Series. (Photo by Martha).

Our next stop was the art gallery. I've long thought of LeRoy Neiman (1921-2012) as America's, and perhaps the world's, pre-eminent sports artist. He was that, but also more. A graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where his schoolmates included Leon Golub and Robert Clark, who became better known as Robert Indiana. Mr. Neiman developed a neo-expressionist style, well suited to paintings of action, whether it be sports or the action at P.J. Clarke's bar. The painting above, displayed in the Hall of Fame gallery, is "The Hall of Famer", his notion of a generic HOF honoree, or perhaps two.

Another painting that got my attention was Joel Libby's portrait of the pitcher Christy Mathewson, whose Major League career lasted from 1901 through 1916, mostly with the New York Giants. He was known for his precise control. Chicago Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers, part of the Tinker to Evers to Chance double play combination, said of Mathewson, "He could pitch into a tin cup." 

Moving on to Monument Hall, I stopped to pay my respects to Gary "The Kid" Carter, the catcher who came to the Mets from Montreal in 1985, the year I became a Mets fan. In 1986 he was an important contributor to the Mets' National League championship and to their second World Series victory, both on defense and with his bat.

Looking out a window I saw this sculpture, by Stanley Bleifield, of Johnny Podres pitching to Roy Campanella, my first baseball hero. This was the battery that lasted the complete Game Seven of the 1955 World Series, won by the Brooklyn Dodgers over the New York Yankees.

“'Millennium,' yes; 'pandemonium'!

Roy Campanella leaps high. Dodgerdom crowned

had Johnny Podres on the mound."

Marianne Moore, "Hometown Piece for Messers Alston and Reese"

The Mets are 20-10; should I be worried?

My wife is a Red Sox fan. I've dealt with this by declaring them my favorite American League team (I can no longer call it the "Phony Baseball League" now that the National League has adopted the execrable Designated Hitter Rule). For my Tampa friends: my excuse is that the Rays didn't exist when I lived there. I root for the Rays when they play anyone except the Mets or -- well, when they play the Red Sox I keep very quiet.

Anyway, Martha believes that when the lads from Fenway get off to a hot start, they are doomed to a late season collapse. Last year at this time I posted that the Mets were first in the NL East. They managed to cling to that position until early August, largely because they were in a weak division. I recall some pundit writing, while the Mets were still cruising, something like "until the inevitable implosion." He was right; they finished third in the division, with a 77-85 record.

This year I again decided to wait until a month had passed since the season opener before trying to get a sense of how good the team is and what its weaknesses might be. As it stands, things are looking good. Two months from now I may regret these words; after all, these are the Mets, a team I once described as having the "ability to rouse hopes, then smash them like cheap china."

I had some trepidation as the Mets opened their season on the road against Washington. Ace starter Jacob deGrom was recovering from surgery and unlikely to pitch until June. New manager Buck Showalter called on Tylor Megill (photo), who began his career in the majors with the Mets last year when he was called up on June 21. He pitched eighteen games in 2021 and had a season record of four wins to six losses, with an earned run average of 4.52, and 99 strikeouts over 89 2/3 innings pitched. Not stellar stats, but he did pitch six scoreless innings in a game against the Blue Jays. Showalter's decision proved good when Megill pitched five scoreless innings in a 5-1 Mets win over the Nationals in the 2022 opener. On April 29, at Citi, Megill would pitch five hitless innings against the Phillies, and the bullpen would continue for a combined no hitter and a 3-0 Mets win.

Looking at the Mets' record to date several things stand out. They have yet to lose a series, although they were tied in a four game series with Atlanta at Citi. They have also not yet swept a series. Their longest winning streaks, of which they have had three, were for three games. They have only once lost two in a row; that was the final game of their season opening series at Washington followed by the opener of their series at Philadelphia. 

Statistically, they look good on all fronts. Mets pitchers have an average ERA of 3.24, second best in the National League. Their starters so far look very good with the exception of Taijuan Walker, whose 4.91 ERA is the result of six earned runs allowed over four innings in a game against the Phils at Citizens Bank Park that the Mets, trailing 7-1 going into the ninth, won 8-7. 

Their team batting average of .255 is also second in the NL. Of their regular starters, second baseman Jeff McNeil has the best average, .323, with ten RBIs and one homer. First baseman Pete Alonso has a .276 average and seven homers. The Mets' total of 25 homers is seventh in the NL, but they're second overall in runs scored, with 136. They haven't been overly reliant on the long ball.

The Mets' stats on defense aren't as reassuring as those for pitching and for offense, but still aren't bad. Twelve errors, four charged to shortstop Lindor, puts them fourth in the NL, but their fielding percentage of .989 ranks third. 

On the upside, we look forward to the return of deGrom to what is already a very effective starting rotation. What's not to like? There is some stiff competition. In the Mets' division there are the defending world champions, the Atlanta Braves, who at present have a 14-16 record and are six games behind the Mets. However, things were similar at this time last year. Then the Braves got hot and the Mets collapsed. On the West Coast are all the pundits' favorites to win the NL crown and perhaps the World Series, the Dodgers. Their 19-8 record is better than the Mets'. Then we can't forget the crosstown rivalry. The Yankees today sport the best record in the majors, 20-8. The Mets have two two game series against the Yanks: at Citi on July 26 and 27, and at Yankee Stadium on August 22 and 23. For some of us Mets fans -- maybe for most -- having a winning record against the Yanks is almost as important as the overall season record. Then there's the prospect, not entirely unlikely, of another Subway Series, in which victory for the Mets would assuage the lingering pain of 2000, but a loss would be unspeakably depressing.

The big question mark hanging over any Mets season is what the pundits call the "injury bug." I once speculated as to why the Mets seemed, season after season, to be plagued by injuries. At the close of my post, I asked if it could be shown statistically that they are more injury prone than most teams. In 2019 a writer for the Lineups website claimed that it's true, but cited anecdotal rather than statistical evidence. In any event, I can only hope it's not a factor this year.

Remembrances and appreciations, 2021

A year ago I did a separate post to show 2020 the door. I'm sure we can all agree that 2021 has, on balance, been less than delightful. There were many good things that happened, including in our neighborhood. Still, the emergence of Omicron, some severe weather disasters, and inflation driven by, in my view, a combination of manufacturers' misestimation of demand, supply chain problems largely caused by COVID, and concentration of economic power in some important industries, have made it a trying year indeed.

There are plenty of remembrances. Those most personal to me include Ron Jones, who was a valued mentor during my early years of law practice and a friend for years after; Wally Brewer, friend and fellow Grace Church parishioner; friend Leonard Ryan; and Martha's cousin and our friend Alice McFarlane.

2021 saw the passing of many people prominent in matters of government and statecraft; local, national and international. I remembered Colin Powell and Desmond Tutu on this blog. They were joined by F.W. de Klerk, Bob Dole, Frances "Sissy" Farenthold, Vernon Jordan, Walter Mondale, Harry Reid, George Shultz, and John Warner. Special mention goes to Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who, at the age of 26, successfully argued for appellant "Jane Roe" before the U.S. Supreme Court, and who went on to serve as a Texas legislator and, later, advisor to President Jimmy Carter, in which roles she continued to be an effective advocate for women's rights. There are others I've failed to mention, for which I trust you'll forgive me.

Music suffered many losses. Those most keenly felt by me are Don Everly, who joined younger brother Phil among the departed; Maestro James Levine; Mary Wilson of the Supremes; Nanci Griffith; Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains; Stones drummer Charlie Watts; Michael Nesmith, best known for having been one of the Monkees but who had a fruitful solo career as a singer and songwriter; and Chick Corea. One musician we lost whom I wish I had known better is the rapper DMX. 

Straddling the worlds of music and the stage was the magnificent Stephen Sondheim. The worlds of stage and screen lost, among many, Ed Asner, Ned Beatty, Olympia Dukakis, Hal Holbrook, Cloris Leachman, Christopher Plummer, Cicely Tyson, Melvin Van Peebles, and Michael K. Williams. I wasn't a Betty White fan, not because I disliked her (who could?), but because I rarely watched the TV sitcoms and game shows on which she made many of her appearances. If anything, I associated her with commercials. I'm now delighted to learn that in 1954 she defied demands from Southern viewers that she remove Arthur Duncan, a Black dancer from her variety show. 

The literary world had its share of losses. Those the impact of which I feel most are novelist, essayist, and social critic Joan Didion, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (whom I once saw, bent over his manual typewriter, during a visit to his City Lights bookstore in San Francisco), and Larry McMurtry, realistic chronicler of the old and contemporary West.

Space exploration lost Michael Collins. As pilot of the Apollo 11 command module, "Iron Mike" remained aboard while crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took the Lunar Excursion Module to the moon's surface and back.

Among baseball's losses were Hank Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth's long standing career home run record in 1974 and held it for thirty years; Jim "Mudcat" Grant, the first Black twenty game winning pitcher who enjoyed a post-baseball career as an R&B singer; and Tommy Lasorda, who began as a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers and went on to manage the L.A. Dodgers for twenty years, winning four league championships and two World Series. 

True to form in recent years, the Mets started hot but soon cooled off, again largely thanks to their injury proneness.  Owner Steve Cohen, looking for a quick turnaround next season, said "Fie to you, luxury tax; I'll pay" and opened his wallet to acquire ace pitcher Max Scherzer. The Mets also have a new manager, veteran Buck Showalter, three time American League Manager of the Year: once with the Yankees (1994); once with the Rangers (2004), and once with the Orioles (2014). The best I can say now is, I'm cautiously optimistic.

As always, I must begin my list of appreciations with my wife, Martha Foley, now not just for her encouragement of and suggestions for my blogging, but also for her self sacrificing help as I recover, slowly but surely, from my ankle injury. I also thank our daughter, Liz, and her boyfriend, Drew Rodke, for summoning help to deal with my injury, caring for me for two days - including a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner - and driving me home to Brooklyn. Thanks to the physicians and nurses at Riddle Hospital in Media, Pennsylvania for stabilizing my fractures, and to the physicians, nurses, and physical therapists at NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital for surgery, post operative care, and therapy. Finally, thanks to all my friends, too numerous to mention individually, who have provided support and encouragement, either in person, on the phone, or in writing.

The World Series is underway; I'm casting my lot with the Braves

 It didn't turn out the way I wanted. My Mets had a promising start, then, as has long been their wont, imploded. That left me with two possibilities: my old home town's team (although it didn't exist until long after I left there), the Rays; and my wife's team, the Red Sox. The Sox knocked the Rays out of contention, then were knocked out by the Astros. Meanwhile the Braves won the National League pennant. 

How do I choose? Atlanta and Houston are both cities in which I've spent some time, and like. They're both islands of progressivism in otherwise mostly conservative states, although Texas has a proud liberal tradition (I remember Governor Ann Richards giving the keynote address at a convention I attended in Houston in which she suggested the insurance industry needed more effective regulation and, when only one man clapped, said, "You're a lo-o-onely feller!"). I also remember hearing some great blues at a little place called the Reddi Room on White Oak in Houston. 

I'll forgive Atlanta for having, at the height of the civil rights struggle in the 1960s adopted the most tone-deaf slogan imaginable - "The city too busy to hate." (Sorry, can't make it to the Klan rally; my company has to file a 10-K.) I have fond memories of an "Ecumenical Conference on Urbanization and Technology" I attended in 1966 at the Emory University campus, during which I met and had a short but inspiring conversation with the then head of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, a young firebrand named John Lewis. Years later, I had my blues experience at Blues Harbor in Underground Atlanta, where I heard Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and got to meet and talk with him after his set.

So, who do I pick to win the Series? I'm a Mets fan, and they're a National League team, so, despite the Braves' often having been the Mets' nemesis, I'm going with the Braves. For what it's worth (probably not much), as I write this they have a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the third in game one. Oh, and since the Braves started as a Boston team, my wife has some skin in this game, too.

Whoever wins, though, I won't be that disappointed.

The Mets are no longer first in their division.

 I started to write this when they were only a half game behind the Phillies. Now, with a second loss to the Phils, they are a full game and a half behind, and tied with the Braves for second place.

The Mets showed tenacity in holding on to first place through most of the season to date, although for most of the season this has been enabled by their being the only team in the NL Eastern Division with a winning record. The Phils and Braves now have records in the winning column, both thanks in part to the Mets, and the Mets are now a mere two games over .500.

As the All Star Break ended, it was widely believed that the Mets were facing bleak prospects, as both ace pitcher Jacob deGrom and hard hitting shortstop Francisco Lindor had gone onto the disabled list. Coming off the break, they lost two of three to the Pirates, then won two of three from the Reds and two of three from the Blue Jays. Things weren't looking so bad. Then they lost three out of a five game series with the Braves, two out of three to the Reds, then three out of four to the Division's bottom dwellers, the Marlins. During this unhappy period, Taijuan Walker, the pitcher who had shown early promise with seven wins, was tagged with two losses. This brought them to the series with the Phils, in which they have now lost two straight.

Mike Petriello analyzes the Mets' stats for the year, and gets rid of some theories about why they underperform on offense. I've long thought they are particularly bad in "clutch" batting situations, but he shows they aren't especially so compared to other teams this season. What he brings it down to is something that has bedeviled the Mets over the years: injuries. Why are the Mets so prone to injuries? I attempted an answer here.

What are the Mets' chances now? I think they're pretty slim. Things may improve a little when de Grom and Lindor come back. If the Braves and Phils both fade, there's even a possibility the Mets could be divisional winners. If they don't win the division, there's hardly any chance of their being a wild card team, given the records in the other divisions. If they do get to the first round of the playoffs, they will be up against a team, whoever it is, with far better statistics. Do statistics tell all? Not always. 

That all said, I gotta believe!

Update: the Mets are down 3-0 to the Phils in the bottom of the 7th, while the Braves are leading the Nats 5-1 at the top of the 7th. Barring late inning magic in both games, the Mets will be relegated to sole possession of third place in the NL East.

Image: Meet the Matts

Mets First in NL East!

 I used this headline last July 24, at the start of 2020's shortened season, in a jocular way to note that the Mets' 1-0 opening game victory over their frequent nemeses, the Braves, put them in first place in their division although tied with the Marlins for that distinction. I ended the post with a cautionary "We'll see how this goes." Just a week later I posted with a headline that begins "Mets flounder." This year the Mets again won their opener, but I decided to be more cautious and wait a month or so before trying to assess whether pundits' optimistic pre-season predictions for the Amazins are likely to prove accurate. 

As of now, I'll give a qualified "Yes." A five game winning streak, including two wins in St. Louis over the Cards, who sport the NL's best record now, and a sweep at Citi of the Diamondbacks, a team whose number the Mets seem to have had for some time, have vaulted the team from Queens, spiritual heirs to my first love in baseball, the Brooklyn Dodgers, back into first place, although with a flimsy half game lead over the surprisingly strong Phillies.

As, it seems, always, there's some drama. Starter Jacob deGrom was taken out of yesterday's game complaining of muscle tightness on his right side. Although an MRI showed "no structural damage" he has been put on the ten day injury list out of caution. This season deGrom has an ERA of 0.68 and 65 strikeouts and only seven walks. Nevertheless, his won-lost record is 3-2, largely because of the Mets' anemic hitting -- the team batting average is .233, 15th in the NL, with 101 runs scored, 30th in the league. This seems to be improving, as shortstop Francisco Lindor shows signs of getting over his  batting slump. As for the bizarre incident involving Lindor and second baseman Jeff McNeil in Friday's game with the Diamondbacks, it had no effect on the outcome of that game or the two since, in all of which hits by Lindor and McNeil were important to the Mets' victories.

May 12 update: I'm glad the fans at Citi "showed class" by giving Matt Harvey "the ovation of a returning hero" when he took the mound for the visiting Orioles this afternoon. I'm also glad the Mets went on to win their seventh straight.

Remembrances and appreciations, 2020

I gave 2020 the bum's rush in my last post, but promised to follow up with my annual post offering remembrances of those lost the previous year, along with appreciations of those who have helped or inspired me. Here it is.

The year 2020 saw a grievous loss to the Hamill family, to Brooklyn, to New York City, to literature and journalism, and to the alumni of the Lion's Head, including me, in the deaths, in unseemly quick succession, of the brothers Pete Hamill and the much younger John Hamill. Pete had been in poor health for some years, so his death was not unexpected, but still felt deeply. I first met Pete in 1995, when I went to a midtown Barnes & Noble to buy a copy of his autobiography A Drinking Life and have it signed. As I handed him the book, I told him I'd started drinking at the Lion's Head about a year after he'd quit drinking, and that I knew his brothers John and Denis Hamill. This got a necessarily short conversation going - there were others in line to get their books signed - and Pete wrote in mine, "For Claude, who keeps the flame alive." About nine years later, having had no further personal contact with Pete. I saw that he would be on a panel discussion at Brooklyn Borough Hall, and I went because whatever they were discussing interested me and because Pete would be there. When the discussion ended, I went up to Pete, sure that I would have to re-introduce myself. Before I could say anything Pete held out his hand and said, "Claude, how are you?" I saw him again twice before he died. The first was at a memorial gathering for the late Lion's Head bartender Paul Schiffman, during which we had a longer conversation than we'd had at Barnes & Noble; one that left me laughing appreciatively. The last was at a panel discussion at the Brooklyn Historical Society (now the Center for Brooklyn History) about the Brooklyn Dodgers, roughly ten years ago. After this, he had to be helped off stage and put into a wheelchair. This done, I went to him and mentioned my name. He seemed to remember, and we simply exchanged best wishes. 

I got to know John when he became a bartender at the Lion's Head. Mixology was just one of John's many talents. As his obituary notes, he was a reporter for the New York Daily News, as was brother Pete, who later became its editor. Brother Denis is a Daily News columnist. Like Denis, John was also a screenwriter, co-authoring two Hollywood screenplays. Despite his having opposed the war in Vietnam, John served there as a combat medic, was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, and is credited with having saved the lives of at least two fellow soldiers.

John and I quickly became friends when he started his Lion's Head gig. We shared two loves: the Mets and Irish music. We also had similar views on social, political, and economic issues. (At the time I was probably more "conservative," which is to say "liberal" in the classical sense, on the economic stuff.) We lost touch for a while after John moved to California, but re-connected through Facebook, where we became avid readers of, and commenters on, each other's posts. Our last Facebook exchange was a few days before his death from COVID-19, which must have come quite quickly. Before I started writing this, I looked at his Facebook page, which is still lively with reminiscences by family and friends. It was there that I found the image that I put at the head of this post, the Irish toast, "May we be alive at this time next year." It was posted there by his friend Chris Tracy.

Along with the one-two punch of the deaths of the Hamill brothers, there was another death that hit me hard, that of Judy Dyble. Like that of Pete Hamill, hers was not entirely unexpected. In my Remembrances and appreciations, 2018 and '19 I told of how I had fallen in love with her voice in 1970, when I acquired the first Fairport Convention album, how we had met, if only electronically, in 2008, and how this blossomed into a trans-Atlantic Facebook friendship that led to my learning of her lung cancer diagnosis in 2019. We stayed in touch through the first half of 2020, with her delighting me with news of the British music scene, photos of her rescued greyhound Jessie, and zany recipes that usually culminated in a kitchen-destroying explosion. There were few mentions of medical problems; nothing that seemed immediately dire. In early July she posted that Jessie had gone for a visit to her daughter's; this should have been a warning. After a few days silence came the announcement of her death.Above is a video of Judy, with Songs from the Blue House, doing Joni Mitchell's "I Don't Know Where I Stand." This is the song she sang on Fairport's first album that made me fall in love with her voice. Many years later, that voice was still lovely.

In earlier posts I've noted, ruefully, that with advancing age each year brings increasing numbers of losses of family and friends, as well as of people I've admired in various realms, such as art, literature, music, theater, politics, and sports. 2020 unsurprisingly proved no exception to this sad rule. Certainly the most consequential loss was that of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I consider the loss of singer and songwriter John Prine, for the beauty, incisiveness, and influence of his writing and singing, very significant. Others from the music world I mourn are Bob Shane, the last surviving founding member of the Kingston Trio; Bonnie Pointer of the Pointer Sisters; Rush drummer Neil Peart; Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green; and bluegrass guitar ace Tony Rice. From showbiz, Sir Sean Connery left us shaken, if not stirred; Alex Trebek, game to the end, gave his final answer; and Terry Jones has made his last foray into medieval history. Baseball lost three great pitchers: Whitey Ford, the Yankees' "Chairman of the Board"; Cardinals' fireballer Bob Gibson; and Tom Seaver, "Tom Terrific" or "The Franchise" to long time Mets fans. Oh, yes; the Mets had a lousy season, but more about them in the "appreciations" below. Ailurophiles and existentialists mourned to loss of Henri, le Chat Noir.

In addition to the loss of the two Hamill brothers, the ranks of former Lion's Head regulars continued to be thinned. Those we mourn include jazz critic and "combative cultural gadfly" Stanley Crouch; Pulitzer winning journalist Jim Dwyer, poet Derek Mahon, and raconteurs par excellence Arthur Friedlander and Jerry Schindlinger. I'm sure to have missed a few; my apologies. My thanks to Dermot McEvoy for keeping us informed.

2020 was an unusually violent year. New York City suffered a large increase in homicides, though other serious crimes declined. The deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd led to protests nationwide.

It was a very trying year for friend and fellow Robinson High alum Cheryle Cerezo-Gardiner, who had to witness the ravages of cancer on her oldest son, Martin Jacinto Cerezo, who finally succumbed in January. 

On, now, to the positive side of this long screed. In my remembrances and appreciations for 2019 and 2018 I paid my respects to two women whose courage I had found inspiring: Jennifer Garam and Lauren Jonik. Both are still well and flourishing. As a cancer survivor, Jennifer recently had a check-up to assure the cancer was not recurring. Everything proved OK. I'm sorry to know that, with the onset of the pandemic, she decided to leave Brooklyn. I regret no longer having her as a neighbor, though even before COVID our face-to-face, as opposed to on line, encounters were rare. Perennial optimist that I am, I don't share her outlook for the city's future, though I realize some things will never be the same. In any event, I respect her reasons for leaving.

Lauren, who lives with the ongoing effects of Lyme disease and who survived sexual assault, is continuing her work toward a master's in media management at The New School, and with her writing and photography. 

About those Mets: When Steve Cohen was announced as the new principal owner, I had some trepidation. I worried that, as a successful finance guy, he would assume he knew all he needed to know to get top performance from a baseball team, and would staff the baseball operations with sycophants. I was encouraged when he said he would make my fellow Harvard Law alum Sandy Alderson (we didn't overlap; I was class of 1970, he was of '76, but I got to meet him at an alumni gathering when he was the Mets' General Manager) as the team's President. During his tenure as GM (2010-18), which was cut short by a bout with cancer, many players who are mainstays of the current roster were acquired, and the Mets went to their fourth World Series (2015). I know little about Alderson's choice for GM, Jared Porter, but his record seems encouraging. I can't quibble with retaining Luis Rojas as manager; the Mets recent woes seem not to stem from inept field generalship but rather from uninspired, and sometimes inept, play. The trade that brought Francisco Lindor to the Mets has scribes wondering if this could make them at least divisional title contenders next season. As a long suffering Mets fan who once remarked on the team's "ability to rouse hopes, then smash them like cheap china," I'm leery of being too optimistic. Still, it's new ownership and management, and reason for hope. Update: Hardly had I written this than the news came out that Porter has been fired as GM after confessing to sending an "explicit" photo to a woman reporter several years ago. Trust the Mets to come up with some last minute drama.

There are many others I could praise for the encouragement they have given me along the way, including, as always, my wife, Martha Foley and my daughter, Cordelia Scales. (For those familiar with her as Elizabeth or Liz, she has decided to be known by her middle name. I think it's a fine name - ask Shakespeare - and I approve.)