Sharing the Pain (John O’Hara)
Last night, the Phillies defeated the Dodgers to lock up a second straight World Series appearance, and tonight the New York Yankees are one game away from their first World Series since 2003. Not since Kenny Rodgers threw a 3-1 pitch well out of the strike zone in the 1999 NLCS have the Mets fans have to choose to root for the lesser of two extreme evils. The fact that it could be a former Mets farmhand sending the Yankees to the World Series makes it more difficult.
Mets fans are well aware of the recent pain inflicted upon them by the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies were the team that twice overcame late season leads by the Mets to win the NL East. The Phillies have created the type of team that the Mets fans wanted. Their prospects of Rollins, Utley, Howard, and Hamels have delivered three straight NL East Championships as well as the possibility of winning back-to-back World Series. Mets fans thought that it was going to be Wright, Reyes, and to a certain extent Pelfrey bringing them to the postseason and winning World Series.
As for the Yankees, since Dave Mlicki struck out Derek Jeter looking to end the first Subway Series game, the Yankees have dominated this series. The most humiliating part was in 2000 when the Mets couldn’t hold on in Game 1 and watching their hero, Mike Piazza, fly out to Bernie Williams in Game 5 to end the series. To add insult to injury, Derek Jeter was the MVP. In 2009, Jeter and Rollins are on the way to matching up in the World Series, and the Mets consistently misdiagnosing Jose Reyes, furthering injuring him, and having fans question if he was going to return to the dynamic leadoff hitter he was before the injuries.
As much as this hurts Mets fans, lets fast forward to next week for the Game 1 matchup of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. The projected starters will be C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee. In 2008, they were among the two best starting pitchers in baseball with Cliff Lee winning the AL Cy Young and C.C. Sabathia becoming a modern day Cy Young and pitching the Brewers to an unlikely postseason appearance (over the Mets on the last game of the season – thanks again for bringing Schoeneweis into that game Manuel). They were also on the Opening Day roster for the 2008 Cleveland Indians . . . only to be elsewhere and facing each other in the World Series. Like the Mets, the Indians were an emerging team with a genius GM in Mark Shapiro and a successful manager in Eric Wedge. After the injuries to Grady Sizemore and a disappointing performance from the rest of the team, the Indians no longer have a genius GM and fans are uncertain as to the direction of their franchise. I’m sure this sounds familiar to Mets fans.
So Mets fans should take heart. Pedro will pitch for the Phillies in the World Series, but he’s at the end of his career, and no one could have helped this 2009 team. We are watching A.J. Burnett pitch Game 2, but we have the memories of Al Leiter pitching the Mets into the postseason with a one hitter in the one game playoff against the Reds, and his tremendous, yet failed, Game 5 pitching performance against the Yankees The Indians are watching their two best pitchers against each other, and they have no cherished memories to show for it. At the very least, we will have Johan Santana pitching on Opening Day at Citi Field, and with Johan, Reyes, Wright, Beltran, and K-Rod, the Mets have a chance in 2010. The same can’t be said for the Indians.
Main Mets Police page
Follow us on twitter @metspolice
Facebook page
send ideas/guest columns to shannon at metspolice.com
