All spring, Mets fans have been whining that their glorious Metsian tradition is not being sufficiently honored at the new ballpark in Flushing. Tradition? You want tradition? The Mets’ long lineage of bumbling seems to be having a major renaissance out in California in recent days.
On successive days, the Mets lost games, first because a pitcher, Mike Pelfrey, committed three balks in San Francisco, then when a runner, Ryan Church, forgot to touch third base while scoring the apparent go-ahead run in Los Angeles. It didn’t stop there — Daniel Murphy was picked off in the first inning Tuesday night and then made an error in left field in the bottom of the inning.
No less an observer than Vin Scully watched the Mets fumble away Monday’s game and chortled that the Mets had reverted to the bad old days of Marvelous Marv Throneberry.
Monday’s blunder seemed reassuringly retro. Church seemed to have scored on Angel Pagan’s hit but was called out for missing third — a throwback to that magical day in 1962 when Marvin Eugene Throneberry appeared to have lashed a triple, only to be called out for missing second base. When Casey Stengel hopped out to complain to the umpires, his trusted first-base coach, Cookie Lavagetto, whispered not to make too big a fuss, because Throneberry had also missed first. This one play was probably the essential Marv, who gave his initials and his bumbling soul to the first-year expansion franchise.
Marvelous Mets nostalgia also kicked in Sunday, when Pelfrey was called for the three balks. My wife and I were driving back to New York, and Howie Rose on the radio said no Met had been called for three balks in a game since 1963. I turned to my wife and said, “Al Barlick.”
I was there. It was an April night, and Barlick, one of the best umpires in the league, was seething about early-season instructions from the home office to enforce the balk rule, the kind of bureaucratic interference that umpires loathe. Barlick diligently called three balks on Don Rowe, the starting pitcher, and he later gigged Tracy Stallard for a balk.
After the game, Casey ranted and raved, reminding us of the Mets’ awful karma with umpires. “They get us because we’re rotten,” Casey sort of said.
California was always a special place for the wandering Mets. One day, Rod Kanehl called for the ball in windswept left field at Candlestick Park, only to chase it all the way to right field, where it dropped at the feet of a giggling Duke Snider. One night in Los Angeles, Jerry Grote got himself thrown out for yapping at the ump, forgetting that he was the only catcher left. Tommie Reynolds, a spare fielder, had to catch for the first time in his career. The Mets lost — on a passed ball, naturally.
Those hideous days and nights made the franchise so lovable, so human, so flawed. Mets fans used to get it, but I am not sure they do nowadays. All that cable swag has raised expectations, gone to their heads. They think like Yankees fans, for goodness’ sakes.
Besides, other teams make mistakes. Only the other day, Joe Maddon, the manager of the Rays, gave himself two third basemen on his official lineup card and lost the use of the designated hitter, which forced the pitcher to hit. But the Rays won anyway.
The Oakland Athletics still have not recovered from the ghastly moment in the 2001 postseason when Jeremy Giambi chose to saunter home standing up, only to have Derek Jeter acrobatically retrieve the ball and toss out Giambi. The A’s had a two-game lead on the Yanks — and lost the next three games.
The 2006 Dodgers lost a postseason game to the Mets after two runners were tagged out at home on the same play. But that has happened before. Yankees fans still fume about the day Carlton Fisk tagged out Bobby Meacham and Dale Berra on the same play. But I bet Yankees fans don’t know it also happened to them in 1933 — and the two runners were none other than Lou Gehrig and Dixie Walker.
Current Mets fans grumble because the open space behind home plate at New Shea is named the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, after the American hero. The new breed of upscale Mets fan does not like to be reminded of the wonderful Brooklyn blood in the franchise’s veins — like the time Dazzy Vance, Chick Fewster and Babe Herman were all caught on third base on the same play, which is not easy.
Old New York Giants fans say their team is not given a fair shake by the Mets. They have a point. Look at the grand heritage the Giants left behind at the rusty old Polo Grounds when the Mets were shocked to some semblance of life in 1962: Fred Merkle’s monumental failure to touch second base on an apparent game-winning single turned into a force play that effectively cost the Giants the 1908 pennant.
Grand moments from Marvelous Marv and Babe Herman and Fred Merkle are in the Mets’ DNA, and they impel them to commit balks, to neglect to touch bases, to muff fly balls and to make wild throws home. The players cannot help themselves.
The sooner the new breed of Mets fan acknowledges the inner Marv, the sooner the players can get back to producing that one glorious and unexpected miracle every generation or so, at the new place, which should, of course, be called Throneberry Field Forever.