50 Years in Cards: 1992

Part 31 of our 50-year Greasy Spoon...

What is it: 1992 Topps #590, Howard Johnson

What makes it interesting: The '92s are only slightly better than the '91s, design-wise, but still not an especially good issue. They stuck with the same annoying multi-colored patterns by team, often they became difficult to read if you were looking at the wrong team (say, the Phillies or the Twins).

Howard Johnson came to the Mets in a deal that was somewhat of an afterthought prior to the 1985 season. He came primarily to be part of a platoon at 3rd Base with Ray Knight. After playing a similar role on the 1984 World Series Champion Detroit Tigers, Johnson was benched following a slump, and became relegated to a bench role during the Tigers' postseason run and was deemed expendable following the season. Johnson did little to distinguish himself for the Mets in '85; both he and Knight spent a majority of the season hitting below the Mendoza line with little power. But, Johnson did make his hits count, coming up with some key late-season hits vs. the Cardinals, and finished at .242 with 11 HRs. In '86, Johnson was again stuck behind Knight, who had an excellent resurgent season, while Johnson was left to switch between 3rd and Shortstop. His numbers, at .245 with 10 HRs, were no better than the prior year, and although he did take home his 2nd World Series Championship in 3 seasons, both were accomplished with Johnson providing little more than reserve support.

But, when Ray Knight departed as a Free Agent following the '86 season, Johnson finally was given a chance to prove his worth as the full time starter at 3rd. Johnson responded with a career year, hitting .265 with an eye-popping 36 HRs and 99 RBIs, and even adding 32 Steals into the mix. He and Darryl Strawberry became the first teammates in Major League history to have 30-30 seasons. He even hit a Home Run in the 2nd inning of my first game on August 23rd. He accomplished all of this despite spending most of the season hitting 6th or 7th in the lineup. Johnson's power surge was so unexpected, that he even drew the ire of Cardinals Manager White Herzog, who confiscated Ho-Jo's bat during a July Game, suspecting Johnson of corking. The X-rays were negative.

1988 saw Johnson regress a bit, batting only .230 with 24 HRs, and began to hear boos from the crowd. But in '89, Johnson responded with another outstanding season, once again reaching the 30-30 plateau, batting .287 with 36 HRs, 101 RBIs and even leading the National League with 104 runs scored. Johnson also made the first of his two All Star teams with the Mets. 1990 was again an off year for Johnson, as position changes and inconsistency undercut his season, but in 1991, there he was again, carrying the Mets with a NL-leading 38 HRs, 117 RBIs, and another 30-30 season. But with the pieces around him gone, Johnson was left to bear the brunt of the team on his own, and alone, he couldn't do it all. With the Mets beginning to crumble into oblivion, Johnson fell off as well. Injuries would limit him in 1992 and 1993, and his numbers tumbled to 7 Home Runs in each of those years. Johnson would not be resigned following the '93 season, and left as a Free Agent. Nonetheless, his 192 Home Runs and 629 RBIs continue to rank among the best in club history.

Following his playing days, Johnson would resurface as a coach in the Mets Minor League system, mentoring many young players such as David Wright, who would eventually go on to surpass Johnson as the top 3rd Baseman in Club History. Johnson would become the hitting coach for the Mets in 2007, and although his performance was less than desirable (and often drew the ire of this blog's author), Johnson's reputation as a fan favorite could not be tarnished, and probably never will.

Card back:

The Horror...The Horror...

When Carlos Beltran speaks his mind, it gets people's attention. More often than not, he's 100% on the money.

Beltran's postgame statements this afternoon, calling out the Mets as an Embarrassment is, rather sadly, the truth right now. The Mets left town on Sunday looking pretty good, sitting at 28-21, right down the Phillies' necks in the standings. Three lifeless, miserable games later, the Mets are in complete and total disarray. I guess you can consider last night's rainout a blessing in disguise, because it's more than likely the Mets would have lost that game as well.

It's absolutely baffling the way the Mets run. They go from hot to cold, players seem to get injured on a regular basis, injuries are understated, injuries are kept under wraps, guys get stomach viruses and miss a week, injured players are flown cross-country, guys replacing injured guys get injured...It never stops with this team. Two weeks ago, Jose Reyes was day-to-day. Now, with the revelation that he's got a hamstring tear, we're looking at him possibly being out the rest of the season!

It's very easy to knock the Mets fan while they're down, and right now, it's very easy to be down on the Mets. But just examine the way the past month or so has played out for the Mets, between the hot streak, all these players getting injured at once, injuries suddenly getting much worse than they originally appeared, Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya talking really quickly and not saying anything...Only the Mets. That's all you can say. This only happens to the Mets. And I'm not quite sure how or why this happens, but it does. Only to the Mets.

The collective Karma around this team right now is so putrid that it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Mets go into Yankee Stadium next weekend and get swept by a combined score of 44-3. The fans would probably commit ritual suicide off the 59th Street Bridge. El Guapo and I will probably end up shooting Maker's Mark by the bottle. But one good thing would probably happen: heads would finally start to roll.

A lot of times, the coaching staff has this safety net of the fact that their players need to execute, but you have to really be concerned about the general lack of fundamentals this team exhibits most of the time. I'm not sure how often it's happened this season, but it seems like it's just about a daily occurrence that Razor Shines has gotten a runner thrown out at home plate. I'll paraphrase an old Bill Simmons joke about former Boston 3rd base coach Dale Sveum, but if Razor Shines was a school crossing guard, kids would be getting pancaked all over Central Park West. Ho-Jo remains mostly clueless; nobody seems to point any fingers at him because he's a "True Met," but considering the way David Wright has run in and out of hot streaks, and Reyes getting homer happy, and players like Church, Murphy and Castillo being inconsistent, does he actually work with these guys, or does he just stand in the dugout in his shades doing his best Art Howe impression? I'd axe these two first, just to get the ball rolling.

Then, we have the guys at the top. Manuel is homing in on a year as the team's manager, and he's basically been no better or worse than he was last season, except that half his roster is on the DL and the other half has a difficult time picking up the slack. His in-game moves continue to often be baffling, and he's still way too by-the-book. He also gives you just an unsettling enough impression that the patients are running the asylum.

Then, there's Omar, the head of the clown car. Somehow, without any fanfare, Pittsburgh dealt their best player to Atlanta for some meager Minor Leaguers right under the Mets nose. And what I wondered more than anything else was why wasn't Omar on the horn making a deal for Nate McLouth? People seem far too consumed with the Mets need for pitching, but, as the case has been so often in the past, pitching isn't the problem here. Yes, Pelfrey was rather awful this afternoon, but he's also been flat-out excellent for a month prior to this, without a victory to show for it. Santana wasn't great the other night, but whether he finished the game or not, the Mets still weren't winning. Why? BECAUSE THE METS DON'T GENERATE ENOUGH OFFENSE! Nobody, or at least nobody who talks about the Mets in a public arena seems to realize this. You can bring in whatever stud pitcher you want. The Mets will just lose games 2-1 instead of 3-1. THE METS NEED ANOTHER BAT! It doesn't matter where he plays, just get someone. But whenever Omar makes an in-season deal like this, it's always for a guy who's not quite good enough to fill the gap he's supposed to fill. Atlanta goes out and trades with Pittsburgh for Nate McLouth. Omar will go out and trade with Pittsburgh for Craig Monroe. That's not going to cut it. The M.O. for the Mets the last two seasons has been a day late and a dollar short. I'm really starting to get tired of the act.

The Mets are going to Washington this weekend, to play a Nationals team that right now stands at 14-38, on pace to post 43.6 wins this season. The Mets themselves just got swept by a Pirates team that is just slightly better than the Nationals. I have a really bad feeling about just how embarrassing things are going to get for this team.

Statistical Bullshit

It's a good thing I wasn't watching the game last night.

There are many reasons why the above rings true. Watching the first Grand Slam by an American League pitcher in 37 years hit off of the $20,000,000 ace pitcher actually isn't so high up on that list. There's a lot that can be said about that, however I'll come back to that later.

The larger problem is, once again, the surfacing of the Impotent Offense that has plagued this team on a continuing basis.

In the 4th inning, Jose Reyes led off with a single. Luis Castillo followed by grounding into a Fielders Choice. David Wright followed that by hitting into a Double Play.

In the 5th inning, Carlos Beltran stole 3rd with Trot Nixon batting and 1 out. With Beltran on 3rd, Nixon struck out. Beltran scored on a dumb-luck Wild Pitch.

In the 6th inning, Luis Castillo walked. David Wright then struck out looking.

With the tying runs on base in the 9th inning, Carlos Delgado and Damion Easley struck out to end the ballgame.

When Hernandez's HR sailed over the wall, and it really did sail, it basically nailed the Mets coffin closed right there. There was no way they were going to score 4 runs, against Hernandez or whoever Seattle was throwing at them. After rolling through Colorado and scoring 11 runs in 3 games in a hitter's paradise (7 in one game, mind you), there was little reason for optimism. And, as the results above indicate, the feelings were well-justified.

It once again makes me ask the question: Why, then, when the starting pitching has been doing well, and the offense has been horrible, did it make sense for the Mets to fire the Pitching Coach and not the Hitting Coach?

I'd like someone to give me a good reason, and I mean a good reason, not, "Well, he's the Great Ho-Jo, he's a True Met, an organizational guy!" why this joker still has a job. I'd love to hear anyone's explanation. Please, feel free to comment with this. If someone can present me with an even halfway convincing argument, I will shut up about this. Otherwise, I'll continue to bitch about the offense and how a Good At Bat does not equate to scoring runs in the clutch.

While I'm on the topic of Bullshit, let's re-visit that Grand Slam. With 2 on and 2 out in the 3rd, David Wright, as he does sometimes, made an error, kicking the ball around at his feet and allowing the Mariners to load the bases. The photo on the left, I believe, is pretty self-explanatory. Johan Santana subsequently threw an absolute Meatball to the pitcher, Felix Hernandez, who took a Whac-a-Mole swing and hit the ball over the fence.

That is what it is. What really gets me is that the runs were unearned. So, you could argue, Santana pitched a great game. Only 1 earned run in however many innings he pitched, just a victim of bad luck.

Is it bad luck that he basically set the ball on a TEE for Hernandez to hit it out of the ballpark? Is that the biggest crock of shit you've ever heard? It's the pitching equivalent of a Good At Bat. This drives me nuts. The fact remains that Johan threw a sucker pitch and got burned, and instead of getting an out, he gave up 4 runs. That David Wright made the error was academic. Santana is supposed to be a good enough pitcher to get the opposing pitcher, especially an American League pitcher, out.

My co-worker called me after the game and asked if I was going to wear a bag over my head to the Sunday afternoon Mets/Yankees game. The more I think about it, the less crazy it sounds.

Hope Dies Last

In the midst of processing the 3AM Massacre Tuesday morning, my hastily thrown-up post might have seemed a bit too sympathetic towards Willie Randolph. That's not to say that Willie isn't deserving of sympathy. Lord knows I've been raking him over the coals for the past however long it was. But, as has been the feeling echoing through Metsdom over the past 20 or so hours, only the Mets could manage to fuck up a move that needed to be made.

I don't know what exactly transpired in that postgame meeting with Willie and Omar, although suffice it to say that it doesn't matter at this point. The situation was too far out of hand to play out any different than it did. There was, in reality, no logical reason to maintain Willie as Manager. But why, then, at this particular moment? Why, after flying cross country and winning? Why, if Peterson, clearly an organizational guy and not one of Willie's guys was fired, was Ho-Jo maintained, particularly when the offense has been an equal, if not a far greater, problem with this team than the pitching. There are many questions on this night that is vastly different from all other nights. Most of them probably won't be answered. That, perhaps, is what is most maddening about this whole saga.

I'm not going to do an about face and defend Willie at all. There's nothing to defend. When a change needs to be made, you look to the top, but, much the same way that Art Howe got a raw deal, Willie got a raw deal. I've mentioned that before as well. It's not necessarily his fault that he was given a team built to win now two years ago. And it's not his fault that when the flaws of the team began to show themselves in repeated fashion, very little was done to fix it. But with that said, Willie's moves often left a lot to be questioned. From Kaz Ishii's 16 starts, to Cliff Floyd, to Schoeneweis and Feliciano, to Philip Humber, to Mike Pelfrey and Wagner. But such is the peril of being a Big League manager operating in a Media vacuum that seems hell bent on imposing their will on whomever will listen.

It doesn't help, then, that the Mets, at the top, seem all too willing to read and absorb what is said about their team. It also doesn't help that someone within the Mets organization, with a cool ear to the inner machinations, is also the owner of lips far too loose for his or her own good. It's one thing to have this go on in silence. Once it becomes public knowledge, once the Media gets a hold of it, there's no stopping the firestorm as it gains power and blazes out of control.

So, then, we are led to Tuesday, June 17, 2008. One of those days that could live up there with June 15, 1977, October 20, 1999 and October 19, 2006 as days that will live in Met Infamy. In his press conference, which I didn't see and only read about much later in the day, Omar was all too willing to point his finger at the press. He's right to do so, but then again, the onus is now clearly on him for the remainder of the season. If Fabulous Freddie and Ruprecht the Idiot Manchild are conscious at this point, and not polishing off their second bottle of Black Label, they'd say something and make this clear. But we don't hear anything out of them.

It's funny, because it seems like it's always been this way with Fred. On the Bonus Disc of the 1986 World Series box set, there's an interview with Wilpon on the podium. It was Wilpon who cajoled Nelson Doubleday into providing him the muscle with which to purchase the team in the first place. Yet, here he is, at the pinnacle of his reign as owner, referring to the team, his team, as "Frank Cashen and his Mets team." Not "our team." Their team. As though he's somehow detached from all this, save for signing the checks. Perhaps he prefers to shrink from the spotlight. That's one thing. But to provide us with an air of seeming disinterested, or uninvolved, particularly when things are spiraling out of control, and leaving his Houseboy in charge to his personal interests, which appear to be an A-Ball team and a new Stadium, is right on the border of complete and total insanity. I guess my point is that the owner of a team should care about what's going on with his team, right? I'm not seeing that out of Right Said Fred.

I'd like to see Omar get his head spun a little bit here. He seems awfully comfortable right now. Again, he's made the necessary move in a rather ass-backwards fashion. He's built a team that consists of two young stars, two outstanding veterans who are signed to insanely large contracts, and a horrendous cadre of Has-beens and never-will-bes. Last year, he dismissed the hitting coach, and replaced him with a hitting coach who has managed to fix absolutely none of the existing offensive problems, and has even served to create new problems where none existed in the first place! And yet, when Omar has decided to cut off the head and hack the limbs, HE LET THIS GUY KEEP HIS JOB!

I refused to listen to Mike & The Mad Dog Tuesday. I wasn't particularly in the mood to listen to those jokers cackling away about what an absolute joke the Mets allowed this situation to become. I avoided it most of the day, aside from a few comments here and there, and a call from my co-worker, out of the office for the day. I missed the early part of the game, but it seems that Jerry Manuel only needed about 5 or so minutes to attain his first controversy, with Jose Reyes at first, stomping off and throwing his helmet after being removed from the game. Manuel, apparently, then spent the better part of the inning lecturing Reyes on growing up. Reyes sounded mostly contrite after the game, which I suppose is a plus. On the field, blah, blah, blah. The games are still scenery, and everyone seemed to be in a fog after this truly bizarre day in what has been a complete train wreck of a season. I know the right move was made. I know it wasn't made well. I also don't know if it's going to make anything better.

I guess there's still hope, right? Hope dies last.