Mets Mix: Opening Day Ceremony Stirs Emotions and Memories of Carter

Article first published as Mets Mix: Opening Day Ceremony Stirs Emotions and Memories of Carter on Blogcritics.

Okay, let's get it out of the way: the Mets are 1-0, tied for first place. They beat the Atlanta Braves before an almost capacity crowd at Citi Field. In the spring sunshine you can't blame the hope springing eternal in the minds of Mets fans, holding their collective breaths to see if Johan Santana could pitch again. Pitch he did - five scoreless innings- and there was a feeling like all was possible, even if it was only for just one day.


There is something about returning to the park on Opening Day, kind of like the first day of school with the smell of newly sharpened pencils, the new clean notebooks, and the bright clothes for another year. There is the smell of spring, the freshly cut grass, the odor of hot dogs, the crunch of the Crackerjacks, and the soda that tastes better than the stuff from a can. There is the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, and the feeling that you're home again, sitting in that blue seat in an ocean of orange and blue shirts cheering for the team you love. What could be better than that?

Before the game there was the usual pomp and circumstance befitting Opening Day. Everyone looked good in new uniforms, and young and old Mets were on hand for the occasion and to honor Gary Carter. There was a feeling that the Kid was there, hovering over the stadium as a presence almost as powerful as his smile once had been in the clubhouse so long ago.

The Mets wore Carter's Number 8 on their batting practice jerseys as a tribute to Carter, and then would wear the black home plate "Kid 8" icon that they will wear on their right sleeve all season. Current Mets "kids" like Lucas Duda, Dillon Gee, Justin Turner, and Josh Thole may not have ever played with Carter (or were even born before that great 1986 season), but they all know how much Carter meant here and they honored him as much as guys like Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez, and Bobby Ojeda who played with him.


It was hard to keep a dry eye when Carter's family stood in the outfield against the wall when the tribute in center field was revealed. That home plate icon will be there where it should be, reminding everyone of the true "center" of that 1986 team, the guy who kept things together when they could easily have fallen apart. It was a fitting tribute to a great guy, and the Mets and their fans showed the reverence that was deserved on this day.

So in the spring sunshine we Mets fans had our day. Despite predictions of the team losing 100 games this year and being abysmal to watch, this day proved that there is hope. Santana threw those five innings, David Wright knocked in the only run, and fans had something to cheer about. Carter was honored and the fans went home happy. There's a long season ahead, but Mets fans are smiling today and they have a right to enjoy it. It was a great day to be a Mets fan.

Photo Credits - Daily News

Gary Carter Dies - Remembering One of the Good Guys

Article first published as Gary Carter Dies - Remembering One of the Good Guys on Blogcritics.

As a Mets fan I am mourning the loss of Hall of Famer Gary Carter as many others are, and they are not just Mets fans. Gary was one of those great players you just had to admire even when he was on the other team. I can remember when he was a Montreal Expo, and I always appreciated the way he played the game, the obvious excitement for the game itself, and an enthusiasm that transcended the sport and seemed to just be part of his daily life.

Gary Carter was one of the good guys. On the World Series Champion 1986 New York Mets, a great team with many demons hidden and otherwise, Gary stood out as just a good man. It seems implausible now that the most important player on that team was not the hardest partying, not the meanest one, or perhaps even the most talented. What Gary represented was a moral compass in a clubhouse sometimes lost at sea. You had bad influences all around in those days, and it was hard most of all for the young players, but in the center of it all was the rock that was Gary Carter.

During his career his good guy-white hat stuff annoyed some people. Carter was also extremely genial with the press, always ready for the microphone or the reporter, prompting some of his teammates to razz him for seeking out the question before it was even asked, but Gary was always Gary: honest, unapologetic for being so, and ready to accept blame when the fault was his own for losing.

As I look back at those 1986 Mets (and now it seems like a more and more distant dream for me and my fellow Mets fans), everything seemed to click into place, and most of us know that only happened when Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez came into town. Keith was sort of an urban legend, the guy with the black hat and the cigarette dangling from his mouth (sometimes inadvertently caught by a dugout camera). Gary was the opposite, with the white hat with the silver spurs and the golden smile. Together, something like the sheriff and the former gunslinger who becomes his deputy, they brought order to the clubhouse and started the team on its winning trajectory.

If you hear the former Mets now, even those who were the "bad" boys to be sure, they all had a great respect for Gary Carter. They admire him as a player and a family man. Those seemingly trite descriptions of "Kid" living a clean life and loving his wife and children do not seem that way to his former mates or to most of his fans either. So we remember Gary Carter for everything he was and the things he was not - and maybe that is what hurts most of all now.

Gary Carter is gone at 57. He left us much too quickly, but he will always be remembered as one of the great New York players, and I can picture him up there in heaven shaking hands with Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roy Campenella, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, and so many others welcoming him to the club. It is just hard to accept that he has to be a member so soon.

Rest in peace, Gary Carter!

Photo Credit- NY Daily News

The Prognosis Is Grim for Gary Carter

Article first published as The Prognosis Is Grim for Gary Carter on Blogcritics.

Former Mets player and Hall of Famer Gary Carter has been battling brain cancer, and the news this week is not what baseball fans wanted to hear: a recent MRI has revealed new tumors and his doctors at Duke University are deciding whether or not to stop treating him. Carter, known as "The Kid" for his youthful effervescence and love of the game, has seen his condition worsen as he is undergoing treatments, not a good sign for him, his family, and his many fans.

If you go to the official Gary Carter web site, fans are instructed not to send items to be signed by The Kid due to his condition. Instead, fans are asked to send him good wishes or messages at this address:
The Gary Carter Foundation, 580 Village Blvd., Suite 315, West Palm Beach, FL 33409. Hopefully, he will be flooded with messages to cheer him during this difficult time.

Here in New York stories have run in the New York Daily News about Carter's worsening condition, and on sports radio talk shows the fans have been calling in with their thoughts about Carter. What is interesting to me as a Mets fan is to hear so many Yankees fans calling in and sending their best to Carter. I tip my hat to them and thank them, for I know I felt the same way when some of their great players were ill or passed on.

A player like Gary Carter transcends time and place. His enthusiasm for the game is appreciated and respected by all fans because he played the game the right way, and his personality was such that he was liked by everyone.

Mets fans certainly remember the trade that brought him to New York in 1985. Although third baseman Hubie Brooks (a fan favorite) and three other players were traded for Carter, it was immediately understood what his presence on the team meant. He solidified the team along with Keith Hernandez, Darryl Strawberry, and Doc Gooden. His clubhouse presence was as essential as was his play on the field.

Of course, young players like Lenny Dykstra, Strawberry, and Gooden did look up to him during the 1986 season, and I recall times when the camera would catch Carter in the dugout talking to them. It never seemed that he was lecturing them, rather it appeared to be mentoring, and you could tell by the expressions on the younger players' faces that they valued what they were hearing.

1986 seems a long way away now, and as a Mets fan I still recall the joy of watching Gary Carter play, of seeing him running out and grabbing Jesse Orosco and then watching them both get smothered by the rest of the team as they celebrated that last out of the 1986 World Series. It is something I will never forget, and Carter's infectious smile is burned into my mind. I think that's the way we all want to remember him.

So one of the good guys is down but not yet out. Let's pull for him every way we can in the days ahead, and by all means send him good wishes and anything else that can cheer him up. Gary Carter, you are forever young in our hearts and minds; hang in there, Kid.

Photo Credit - Daily News

Jerry Seinfeld's SNY Booth Visit Was Refreshing

Article first published as jerry-seinfelds-sny-booth-visit-was on Blogcritics.


Most Mets fans know that comedian Jerry Seinfeld is a longtime fan of the team, but on Wednesday, June 23, 2010, they got to hear him enter the television broadcast booth armed with more than jokes. He actually displayed a nice flair for talking about the intricacies of the game, could do a little play-by-play, and came off like a regular guy from Queens who happens to be a comedy legend.

Jerry made it clear early on that he was there as a fan and what his focus was to be. He said he didn't like celebrities coming into the booth and chatting about everything but baseball. He told booth regulars Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen, "So let's just talk about the game."

And Jerry did just that. He proved to be knowledgeable about the players, about the team, and stuck to his word, more or less. Of course, it was inevitable that the entertainer Lady Gaga (who recently attended a Mets-Yankees game at Citi Field, had a problem with the fans, flipped photographers the bird, and eventually landed herself in Seinfeld's private suite) would come into the mix. Seinfeld brought her up first and joked, "That's why I'm here."

Jerry didn't mince words about Gaga's strange antics. He said, "I did not like the finger." One can only imagine what kind of episode could have evolved out of this kind of thing on the classic comedy Seinfeld, especially if Kramer and Newman were in the mix. Needless to say, Seinfeld was a bit annoyed that to soothe the obviously disturbed Gaga that she was placed in his suite, but he went on to say, "She should make a nice apology to the Mets fans and I'm willing to forget the whole thing."

During the game the Mets showed they too had a sense of humor, with a Go Gaga for Wright promotion involving foam fingers given away to fans. The intention of this good natured gimmick was to inspire fans to use their appropriate digits to vote for third baseman David Wright for a place on the NL All-Star Team. Once again, Seinfeld must have been thinking how those twenty thousand foam fingers could have worked in an episode, or perhaps he'll reserve it for use in his stand-up routine.

Fans of the classic comedy should remember when Keith Hernandez, playing himself, was a guest star on Seinfeld and started dating Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Seinfeld and Hernandez engaged in a light-hearted banter about that time, when the Mets and their fans were glowing after winning the 1986 World Series. As they spoke, you could hear how much Seinfeld admired the former Mets first baseman. Of when Hernandez came on the set to start filming, Seinfeld said, "I was most excited to meet Keith Hernandez of anyone I ever met on the show."

Over all, it was a pleasant experience that Mets fans will long remember. In the end, the broadcast was more about Jerry Seinfeld than the game (the Mets did win 5-0 over the Detroit Tigers), even with his coming in with the best intentions. Not that there is anything wrong with that.