This day in baseball: Nolan Ryan joins the Rangers
Posted: December 7, 2019 Filed under: 20th Century, This day in baseball | Tags: Baseball, California Angels, Houston Astros, Houston Colt .45s, Major League Baseball, MLB, New York Mets, Nolan Ryan, sports, Texas Rangers, Washington Senators Leave a commentFree agent Nolan Ryan signed with the Texas Rangers on December 7, 1988, making him the first major leaguer to play for all four original expansion teams. (The Rangers organization had played their first 11 seasons as the Senators in Washington, D.C.) Ryan first broke into the big leagues with the Mets in 1966, then went to the Angels in a trade in 1972 before signing with the Astros, who were originally known as the Colt .45s.

Brittanica.com
This day in baseball: MVP Jeter
Posted: October 26, 2019 Filed under: 21st Century, This day in baseball | Tags: All-Star Game, Baseball, Derek Jeter, history, Major League Baseball, MLB, New York Mets, New York Yankees, sports, World Series Leave a commentOn October 26, 2000, Derek Jeter was named World Series MVP, making him the first player to win both All-Star Game MVP and World Series MVP in the same season. Jeter hit .409 in the World Series that year, including two doubles, a triple, and a couple of home runs to help the Yankees win four games to one over the New York Mets.

Wikimedia Commons
Quote of the day
Posted: October 4, 2019 Filed under: Quote of the day | Tags: Baseball, Jimmy Breslin, life, Major League Baseball, MLB, New York Mets, quotes, sports Leave a commentThe Mets lose an awful lot?
Listen, mister. Think a little bit.
When was the last time you won anything out of life?
~Jimmy Breslin

Wikipedia
Quote of the day
Posted: April 29, 2019 Filed under: Quote of the day | Tags: Baseball, Major League Baseball, MLB, New York Mets, quotes, sports, Tom Seaver Leave a commentA good professional athlete must have the love of a little boy. And the good players feel the kind of love for the game that they did when they were Little Leaguers.
~Tom Seaver

Wikimedia Commons
“When My Buckner Moment Comes,” by Dan Bern
Posted: April 23, 2019 Filed under: 20th Century, Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, Bill Buckner, Boston Red Sox, Dan Bern, Major League Baseball, MLB, music, New York Mets, sports 6 CommentsThis song is amusing in a way that almost hits too close to home. Even though we know it is okay not to be perfect, we all worry that our own “Buckner moment” will come at the most inopportune and humiliating time.
Backwards bases
Posted: March 11, 2019 Filed under: 20th Century, This day in baseball | Tags: Baseball, Dallas Green, Duke Snider, Jimmy Piersall, Major League Baseball, MLB, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, sports 3 CommentsOn June 23, 1963, Mets outfielder Jimmy Piersall faced Phillies pitcher Dallas Green to lead off the top of the fifth. Piersall swung on Green’s offering and blasted what was career homer number 100.
To celebrate the milestone, Piersall then decided to take Duke Snider up on his clubhouse bet and ran around the bases backward. He completed his trip around the bases in the correct order: first, second, third, and home — he just faced backwards. Piersall essentially backpedaled all the way around the infield.

complex.com
“A Perfect Game,” by Yesenia Montilla
Posted: February 15, 2019 Filed under: 21st Century, Pop culture | Tags: Baseball, New York Mets, New York Yankees, poetry, Sammy Sosa, sports, Yesenia Montilla Leave a commentThis poem starts out nostalgic, and then becomes very serious very quickly. It points to some uncomfortable issues, including Sammy Sosa’s skin bleaching. This poem was originally published in the Winter 2015 issue of Prairie Schooner.
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To this day I still remember sitting
on my abuelo’s lap watching the Yankees hit,
then run, a soft wind rounding the bases
every foot tap to the white pad gentle as a kiss.
How I loved those afternoons languidly
eating jamón sandwiches & drinking root beer.
Later, when I knew something about the blue collar
man—my father who worked with his hands & tumbled
into the house exhausted like heat in a rainstorm—
I became a Mets fan.
Something about their unclean faces
their mustaches seemed rough
to the touch. They had names like Wally & Dyskstra.
I was certain I would marry a man just like them
that is until Sammy Sosa came along
with his smile a reptile that only knew about lying in the sun.
His arms were cannons and his skin burnt cinnamon
that glistened in my dreams.
Everyone said he was not beautiful.
Out on the streets where the men set up shop playing dominoes
I’d hear them say between the yelling of capicu
“como juega, pero feo como el diablo.”
I knew nothing of my history
of the infighting on an island on which one side swore
it was only one thing: pallid, pristine. & I didn’t know
that Sammy carried this history like a tattoo.
That he wished everyday to be white.
It is a perfect game this race war, it is everywhere, living
in the American bayou as much as
the Dominican dirt roads.
It makes a man do something to his skin that seems unholy.
It makes that same man change eye color like a soft
summer dress slipped on slowly.
It makes a grandmother ask her granddaughter
if she’s suffering
from something feverish
because that could be the only excuse why
her hair has not been straightened
like a ballerina’s back dyed the color of wild
daffodils growing in an outfield.
Sammy hit 66 home runs one year
& that was still not enough
to make him feel handsome
or worthy of that blackness that I believe a gift
even today while black churches burn & black bodies
disappear from one day to the next the same as old
pennies.
I think of him often barely remember what he looked like
but I can recall his hunched shoulders in the
dugout his perfect swing
& how maybe he spit out something black
from his mouth after
every single strike—