His 35-year-old voice was booming early yesterday morning in the Mets’ clubhouse after the NLCS clincher. Lenny Harris was thinking about all the seasons he had worked to get to the Series.
“For 11 years it was worth it,” said Harris, while celebrating being part of a league champion for the first time in his career. “It was like a heavyweight bout, it took me 11 rounds to get to the championship with a big knockout, but it will be even better if we won it all.”
So a lot of people will be talking about May 22, 1998 and Dec. 23, 1999 and rightfully so, because those are the respective dates GM Steve Phillips brought in the Mighty Mikes – Piazza and Hampton. But don’t forget the smaller dates like June 2, 2000.
That is the date the Mets gave up Bill Pulsipher to the Diamdonbacks for Harris and some cash. No matter how cliche it is to say: It takes 25 guys to win a championship.
Harris is the leader of a group of unsung Mets, which includes names like reliever Rick White, backup catcher Todd Pratt, utilityman Joe McEwing, pinch-hitter Bubba Trammell, infielders Matt Franco and Kurt Abbott and a guy like Pat Mahomes, who hasn’t even been on the playoff roster.
But the acquisition of Harris brought an energy to the clubhouse that wasn’t as potent beforehand. He came with a message for the younger players.
“I kind of get the young guys together and say, ‘We can do this. You never know if you are going to get this opportunity again,'” Harris said. “So it was a big plus. So it was a big plus with Timo [Perez,] [Jay] Payton and [Benny] Agbayani to come through, I said, ‘Hey, don’t wait for Mike Piazza to hit the three-run bomb all the time, but play like you are capable of playing and do the things you are capable of doing and we can go a long way. And those guys answered. They really answered.”
The burly-looking Harris has no trouble expressing himself. He is smooth with his words and able to crack as a joke with the lethal quickness as Dan Marino’s release.
He is not the only one who was unmistakenly ecstatic about his first World Series. White, brought over with Trammell on July 28 from Tampa went over to Phillips and put his arm around him and said “Thank you.”
The reliever, who had his parents in the victorious clubhouse, couldn’t believe his circumstances. A year that began with the destined for the cellar Devil Rays was still going in October.
“It is hard to describe what it really means, but you go from a last place team to a first place team and I was going to be going home 16 days ago,” White said. “To be here in the postseason in the World Series, it is kind of hard to explain what it means. It’s like a light buzz. I’m just going to try and enjoy it.”
White came in and, despite some struggles to end the year, solidified the Mets bullpen, giving Turk Wendell a complement in the pen and really allowing the Mets to take off during those late summer months.
So it is not just the headliners. That is not why the Mets are still going to be playing when all of baseball watches their dream, while the Mets get to live theirs.
For some guys, it is sooner than later, too.
“I can’t believe I am one of the leading guys,” the 23-year-old Perez said through an interpreter. “To be able to compete in a World Series at this moment is very emotional for me.”