Behold! A gateway to your own past if you wish. All that you knew has been altered.
On the evening of May 9, 2018 Mets owner Fred Wilpon had had enough. Earlier that day, rookie manager Mickey Callaway handed in the wrong lineup card and cost the Mets at least a run and probably a game. The day before, the Mets had traded away Matt Harvey, one of the Five Aces that the so-called pitching guru had promised to fix. The Mets hot start had now quickly turned into a three game deficit.
This time, Fred Wilpon was determined not to let a season slip away and he pulled a page from the book of George Steinbrenner and fired his rookie manager just 35 games into the season.
His replacement? Back to the Future. Terry Collins, still in the organization and still on the payroll.
That Thursday was an off-day. A feeding frenzy.
The media howled. How could Fred do this? Bloggers complained. Boycotters boycotted. How could the Mets be so short-sighted? And cheap, don’t forget cheap.
Terry Collins’ 2018 New York Mets headed to Philadelphia for a weekend series.
Steven Matz was good enough, and the Mets won 3-1. But there was something about this Nimmo kid. Maybe it was the small-town charm. Maybe it was the hustle. In his first tenure with the Mets, Terry had learned from his mistakes in previous gigs and become a better manager. This time, it seemed like Terry had learned from his over-reliance on veterans and started playing the kid every day.
Terry worried about the back end of the rotation. The Mets were wasting every 5th day, and it was time for Vargas Day to become Gsellman Day. It was a small move that didn’t seem like much, but by the time September rolled around, Gsellman’s 7-1 run in May and June may have been the difference maker.
Terry also asked why the hell Dom Smith was buried in AAA.
54 games into the season the Mets released first-baseman Adrian Gonzales and Terry starting writing Smith-3 in the lineup every day. He told the kid to relax, the job was his. This was New Terry. New Terry had seen the light.
Dom started slow, but a 7th inning home run on July 13th helped the Mets beat the Phillies 3-2 and let Jacob deGrom to his 5th win against only one loss.
The joke in the Mets clubhouse had been that Dom had become “woke.” He had “heard the alarm.” If there was a joke to be made about the infamous Hodges Moment of the previous manager, it was made.
Then July 11th happened. JDG on the hill, scoreless through 8 with no run support. In the bottom of the 8th, “The Alarm” as he was now called, hit a clutch home run. One run was all JDG would need to raise his record to 6-1. The headline the next day: “Jake and Wake.” The Alarm had arrived in New York City. The Mets would head into the All Star Break four games back. Not what they wanted, not enough to make the fanbase happy, but plenty close with the second half to come.
Terry had preached about The Math. “We’re chasing the Phillies, not the 27 Yankees” and reminded the Mets about their 11-1 start under the previous regime, and some long winning streaks in the World Series year of 2015. Sure, they had lost Cespedes for the year, but even .500 ball from May to October would get them to 10 games over at the end of the year…and any manager would take his chances with an 86 win team in the era of the Wild Card.
There seemed to be magic in Jake & Wake. Every 5th day, deGrom would hand in a masterpiece, and more often than not it was Dom Smith with the clutch hit, usually knocking in Nimmo. Also not to be undersold was Asdrubal Cabrera, quietly having a nice 23 HR season.
On July 31, the Mets sent prospect Peter Alonso to the Rays for catcher Wilson Ramos. Ramos would hit .336 for the Mets and be a major cog in their late season run. Mets Twitter loved the deal. The Mets had The Alarm at first for the next 15 years and trading some kid nobody had ever heard of for Ramos? Great deal. Ricco was good at this.
The Phillies turned out to be a fraud, and it was the Braves who would challenge the Mets for the NL East. The numbers showed a Wild Card wasn’t going to do it, but this was a season where 88 wins could steal a division.
Then the unthinkable happened. David Wright announced he was coming back to play.
When asked about it, Terry messed up. “I’m trying to make the playoffs here.” That was all he said, but it came across that Terry didn’t think David would help the cause.
The Mets had announced that David would be activated for the last homestead of the year. That homestand included a huge three games series against the Braves. The circus was back in town.
On Tuesday, the bullpen (Vargas) blew a Syndergaard gem. A crushing loss this late in the season. Wright sat and watched. Had Terry lost the team with the Wright comment?
The One True Ace did his thing on Wednesday, winning his 19th game, and getting the Mets to two games back. Wright watched. The media calmed down. A little.
On Thursday, Gsellman Day and a gem. One back, three to play….against the Marlins. Terry was back to being a genius.
However, the Mets fans were getting ornery. They wanted David Wright to be part of that. On the radio, Mike Francesa chided the Mets for not allowing Wright in the lineup.
The word came down from Fred Wilpon. Wright was to start on Sunday.
Both the Mets and Braves won on Friday. On Saturday, the Braves lost. The Mets pulled even. All tied up, one game to go.
And on Sunday, David Wright started at third base for the Mets for the first time in two years. Game 162 for all the marbles. Citi Field rocked like Shea. Tickets on the secondary market went for over $1000. This was Mets Town.
Noah Syndergaard on the hill. The Marlins looking like they wanted to just go home. Wright left after five innings to the loudest celebration in Queens in 30 years.
And then it happened. You know what happened.
“Game 162.”
Game 162 is forever etched in the minds of all Mets fans. It was 1986 all over again, but gone wrong.
Top of the 9th. Derek Dietrich on second. Pete O’Brien at the plate. Syndergaard deals.
A little roller up along first. Behind the bag. It gets through Smith. Here comes Dietrich.
4 innings later Dom Smith is booed off the field, as he makes the third out. THAT Dom Smith. The one that made “The Error.”
The bell had rung, the clock said midnight.
Twenty minutes of silent scoreboard watching in Citi Field, and 47,000 Mets fans gasped as they saw Braves 3, Phillies 1 (F).
Time has resumed its shape. All is as it was before. Many such journeys are possible….let me be your guide.
