Craig Mitchell - The Mettle of the Mets

I have been watching the wash of negativity spreading over the internet about the Mets this offseason. Mostly this comes from Met fans, but also from other fans and the media. The one universal note that I see, is that the Mets will stink, and what follows is an undeniable film of negativity that the Mets are akin to the old St. Louis Browns, or even from their own legacy team, the 1962 Mets.  I happen to be a fan of synergy and that all things go through cycles. Last year with the prominence of Matt Harvey, the promise of Ike Davis and the approaching debut of Zach Wheeler, I dubbed the 2013 Mets akin to the 1983 model of the team.  They were a team that was laden with the dead wood.  With all due respect to George Foster, Brian Giles, Dave Kingman and Bob Bailor that’s how I saw it. 

On the 2013 squad, the “dead wood” wasn’t as apparent. In my mind I’m sure I was expecting John Buck, and Marlin Byrd to bust. I was hoping that Ike Davis and Lucas Duda would breakthrough.  With the emergence of Harvey as the heir apparent to the Seaver/Gooden throne and Wheeler coming up and the resurrection of Dillon Gee,  2013 had many bright spots and….more low spots if you include injuries, Ike Davis and Lucas Duda’s struggles and Miguel Tejada pulling a total 180.  The 1983 Mets finished 68-94. Then in 1984 with the addition of Doc Gooden, Ron Darling and full seasons out of Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez a contender was born.  Could 2014 be a mirror of 30 years ago? It’s doubtful. There's just too many question marks. Harvey is for all intents and purposes out till April 2015. Can the ancient rubber arm of Bartolo Colon hold up? Will Ike Davis and Curtis Granderson thrive in cavernous City Field? What about Juan Legares? Chris Young? Travis d’Arnaud? If Bobby Parnell’s neck isn’t ready who’s closing? So,no 2014 doesn’t look like a break out year.  But will it be disastrous?  No, it won’t. Don’t trust me? I’ll give you disastrous. Take the year 1979. I lived through it, and I for one hope never to see it come again.

The 1979 Mets resound in my memory like a thorn.  I mean it. When I think back to then, or when I look up their stats I get a dull ache in my brain as if a small hot needle was being pushed through my cerebellum.  The team finished 63-99 under the hand of future hall of famer Joe Torre. I remember at the time Torre showed EXTREME patience with the younger players on the team.  The Mets had one legitimate superstar to hang their hopes on. That was native born Italian star Lee Mazzilli.

  Mazzilli was the glimmer of hope. He was the Mickey Mantle of Grant’s Tomb. In 1979 Mazz put it all together and made the all-star team.  On the year Mazzilli batted .303 with 16 homers and 79 rbi and he stole 34 bags.  There was really only one highlight of the season. It came at the all-star game. In the top of the 8^th Mazzilli, batting left handed hit an opposite field homer off Jim Kern and then later walked against crosstown rival Ron Guidry (who was in the midst of his Cy Young year)with the bases juiced bringing home Joe Morgan with the eventual winning run. I remember jumping up and down and cheering. I surely thought Mazzilli was going to be named the game’s MVP. But no. that honor went to Dave Parker. A decision I strongly disagree with to this day.

Now for the rest of the 1979 season……there’s that dull ache again, we had  Pete Falcone, Kevin Kobel, Craig Swan (who lead the team with 14 wins) and Doc Ellis with this 6.04 era. Skip Lockwood, Neil Allen, Dale Murray, Andy Hassler, Tom Hausman, Ed Glynn and newbie Jeff Reardon all garnered saves.  On the whole, the team era for the season seems pretty good standing at 3.84 (2013 was 3.78) but it was different game then.  Each ball that Joel Youngblood, John Stearns or Elliott Maddox hit in the gaps seemed to echo as they clanged off the green walls within the empty Shea confines. The few super diehard fans stood in random bunches hoping with each hit, with each extra base hit that the magic was back.  It wasn’t.  Not yet.  That was next year, officially.  As bad as 1979 felt, as bad as the dull pain in my head got.  There was one thing the 79’ Mets didn’t have. That was METTLE THE MULE.  In 1976, the regime of M. Donald Grant in an effort to compete with….the San Diego Chickens and Phillie Phanatics of MLB gave the Mets a LIVING mascot. A mule. Yes, a mule! What better animal to embody what baseball is to itself and its fan but a mule. What living creature represents baseball in NEW YORK. Of course, a slow moving, hay eating, apple chomping mule. Perhaps the biggest stroke of genius was to have a contest where the fans would get a chance to name it. I was 16 and I was totally disinterested in chiming in. Now, Bob Murphy, Lindsay Nelson and Ralph Kiner kept us abreast of some of the contending submissions. None of it seemed right. The eventualy winning name. "Mettle" get it? Met-tle. Even today I hear a rim shot when I say his name. Mettle was kept in a pen near the bullpen and during a quiet moment in a game, I would imagine you could hear him bray his support for the Amazins!  Little did we know at the time, a year later Tom Seaver, Rusty Staub, Cleon Jones, and Dave Kingman would all be gone. Mettle the Mule ushered in an era in Mets baseball that probably had Bill Veeck laughing in ridicule.

From 1977 to 1981 Shea was a no man’s land. The Mets were a lost franchise in a game that was just beginning to change. The strike of 1981 forever changed the money that baseball was to start throwing around and the rag tag Mets where way out of style.  Romantically, older Met fans remember the 62-67 Mets as a happily inept bunch of cast off second stringers fighting for respectability. This Mets of the late 70’s were an island on to themselves.  Hell, the expansion Mariners had the same record as the 77 Mets.  I’m sorry, eight years after winning a World Series and four years after facing the mighty A’s in the fall classic made a 99 loss season awfully sad, not charming.

That said, things are looking up.  The 2014 edition of the Mets are thankfully 38 years removed from Mettle the mule and 35 years distant from 1979. They are nowhere near as hopeless as those lost Met teams of the late 70’s and actually resemble the 1984 Mets a lot more than most of us realize.  Today’s fans are starved for a winner. I get that. I’m starved too. But, chill out. I could be so much worse! We have one of the best mascots in the game now with Mr. Met. We have a very possible future hall of famer at 3^rd  base and a young pitching staff about to crest in the majors that bodes for some very good seasons ahead.  So chin up.  2014 is not going to be a dismal as you think. Oh, by the way, the runner up name to “Mettle” the mule? …..It was Ed Krane”mule.”  I always found that hysterical. I’m sure Eddie didn’t. So…it’s almost time for the 2014 season to start!! Yes…..and ahhh…the pain in my head is going away. Finally!