Mets2Moon
April 25, 2005
1997 will be remembered as the season where the Mets, after years of misery and embarassment in the 1990s, finally turned it around and against all odds became contenders again.
I will always remember this game as the one where I finally believed that this team was going to do something.
The Mets had come home after a relatively successful road trip, and were hovering about .500, not great but perhaps getting better. In were the Astros, also a team on the rise.
Coming into the stadium this evening, I noticed, despite a relatively empty stadium on a cool, damp evening, there were two banners, one hanging in the left field corner, the other in the right field corner. The banners read simply:
NOW IT BEGINS!
I wondered what it meant.
Armando Reynoso started this game, pitched fairly well, and even hit a HR. He folded in the 7th, however, giving up a game-tying HR to Sean Berry, who was hitting a mighty .188 at the time.
In the bottom of the 7th, I saw one of the most gratifying Met HRs of my life.
(And I was at the Todd Pratt game, and the Mike Piazza game right after 9/11)
Butch Huskey, enjoying his finest season period, launched one of the longest and highest HRs I have ever seen, way off into the night, over the LF bullpen, giving the Mets a 4-3 lead, which they would hold on to, despite Franco pitching into a jam in the 9th.
The Mets would go on to win games like this one all season long, eventually driving into their first pennant race in nearly 10 seasons.
If one game was going to symbolize the Mets resurgence in 97 to greatness in the late 90s, it would have to be this one. NOW IT BEGINS held as a very apropos phrase for that evening and the 97 season.
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The Mets suck! They need to trade Smith and get somebody like
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Example Two
The Mets suck! Smith made three errors in this game, and hit into a
double play, and the Mets blew a 5-0 lead. They need to get rid of Smith
and get somebody like Jones.
See the difference? Here you're getting the same point across, but it's in
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