There were moments when this Mets season felt interminable — and they were not that long ago.
But at this moment, the Mets are among the talk of baseball, no longer to be laughed and pointed at for their failings on the field and their owners’ cheapness off it. The excitement can be felt around the team, its fans and even its broadcasters.
”You’re oblivious to your fatigue this time of year, your adrenaline flow is constant and acute and it is as exciting as it gets in this business,” Mets’ WOR 710 play-by-play man Howie Rose said. “Because baseball by its very nature is a daily production, a daily soap opera, and right now you just can’t wait for the next episode. At least I can’t.”
It was difficult to imagine that scenario during some of the more brutal games this season — the rain-delay debacle against the Padres (July 30) and even the 18-inning win against the Cardinals (July 19), during which it seemed SNY analyst Keith Hernandez would have tried everything short of a “Shawshank” escape to get out of the booth.
But the season started to turn when general manager Sandy Alderson finally upgraded the roster in late July — before and after that Padres game — adding Kelly Johnson, Juan Uribe, Yoenis Cespedes and Tyler Clippard in trades and calling up top prospect Michael Conforto. But perhaps it was the non-trade of Wilmer Flores that will stick with fans most. The shortstop cried on the field thinking he had been dealt to the Brewers only for the Mets to back out over Carlos Gomez health concerns.
“It was an enormous moment in so many different ways,” SNY play-by-play man Gary Cohen said. “Wilmer clearly connected with the fan base because of his very obvious wish to remain with the organization. The team has been on an incredible roll since, and I really think in many ways it all starts there.
“You never know what you’re going to see when you broadcast a game, but a player in tears on the field for me was unprecedented. I think it was a very relatable moment for everyone that was watching. I think it bonded the team to the fans and this particular player in a way that I’ve never seen before.”
And now in the booth, you have Ron Darling talking about how it feels as if “a new hero will emerge every night,” right before Juan Lagares delivered a clutch hit during last week’s series in Philadelphia.
“When we left the park the day after the rain-delayed Padres game, it was kind of hard to conceive that we would be where we are at just one month later,” Rose said. “That’s the most remarkable part of this whole thing. We are talking about as drastic a turnaround as I have ever seen — and that includes 1969 and 1973.”
Both Rose and Cohen did say no matter how bad things got for the Mets, their jobs of calling baseball would never get boring because there’s always the potential for something new to happen on the diamond whether a team is in first place or last.
But when the Mets travel to Miami, Washington and Atlanta —likely with some of their fan base in tow — over the next 10 days, there will be a lot more on the line than in recent Septembers.
“When you have big crowds who are energized, up on their feet and into every pitch I think that enhances the broadcast and makes it more compelling for the people watching at home,” Cohen said.