Last week, we looked back at Frank Howard, the towering slugger who somehow made every bat look like a toothpick. If "Hondo" was baseball's version of Paul Bunyan, this week's Forgotten Face is almost his opposite—a man who never sought the spotlight but found himself standing directly under it. Meet Mike Cubbage. Let's be honest. When Mets fans think about managers, names like Gil Hodges, Davey Johnson, Bobby Valentine, and Terry Collins usually come to mind. Mike Cubbage? H

Last week in Sunday School, we continued our month-long look at one of baseball’s strangest job descriptions… Interim Manager. The man with the clipboard but no guarantee. The guy asked to steer the ship after someone else has already hit the iceberg. We first met Salty Parker, the original Mets emergency captain, who briefly grabbed the wheel during the franchise’s inaugural season. Then came Roy McMillan, the former “Mr. Shortstop” who went from Yogi Berra’s trusted coach t

Last week in Sunday School, we began our month-long look at one of baseball's most unusual job titles... Interim Manager. We started with Salty Parker, the first man ever asked to temporarily steer the Mets ship. This week, we move ahead eight years to the second. Roy McMillan. Unlike Salty, McMillan wasn't just another baseball lifer passing through Queens. Mets fans knew him first as a veteran infielder, then as one of Yogi Berra's most trusted coaches. Then, almost overnig

Last week in Sunday School, we wandered away from forgotten players altogether. Instead of forgotten faces... We remembered a forgotten piece of baseball theater. The bullpen cart. A giant rolling baseball that somehow made perfect sense in an era when baseball wasn't afraid to have a little fun. Which got me thinking. Sometimes you know exactly what this week's Forgotten Faces of Flushing will be. Sometimes an anniversary jumps off the calendar. Sometimes an old baseball car

Last week in Sunday School, we took a slight detour. Or perhaps more accurately, a detour around the outside of Shea Stadium. Instead of forgotten players, we talked about forgotten facades. The giant orange and blue squares. The wind. The ramps. And the strange truth that sometimes the things we remember most about being Mets fans aren't players at all. Sometimes they're pieces of a ballpark. Which brings us to this week. Because if last Sunday was about the outside of Shea…

Last week in Sunday School, we talked about Tim Tebow. The football superstar who spent five years chasing a baseball dream that never quite felt real—but somehow never felt impossible either. Because baseball has always had room for the unusual. Strange players. Strange moments. Strange experiments. And sometimes… Strange architecture . Because every once in a while, the things we remember most about being Mets fans aren’t the players at all. Sometimes it’s Bob Murphy’s voic

Last week in Sunday School, we talked about Andrés Galarraga. The Big Cat. A beloved baseball survivor who arrived in Port St. Lucie carrying one last dream, one home run short of 400, hoping baseball might grant him one final miracle before the curtain closed. For a few weeks, Mets fans bought into the possibility. Honestly, how could you not? Spring Training is where baseball manufactures hope by the gallon. Every radar gun reading becomes a prophecy. Every batting practice

Last week in Sunday School, we talked about Dae-Sung Koo and the beautiful insanity that makes baseball the only sport where a middle-aged relief pitcher can accidentally become Babe Ruth, Bo Jackson, and Evel Knievel all in the same inning. One swing. One headfirst slide. One Shea Stadium crowd screaming “KOOOOOOOOOO!” loud enough to register on nearby seismographs and probably wake up people waiting on line at Nathan’s in Coney Island. It was the kind of baseball story Mets

Last week in Forgotten Faces of Flushing, we talked about Grant Roberts and how quickly baseball can take things away. A live arm. A promising future. A career that looked like it was just beginning until shoulders, headlines, and bad timing stepped in like a seventh-inning rain delay nobody asked for. This week is different. Because sometimes baseball gives you one perfect afternoon instead. One ridiculous, impossible, beautiful baseball memory that somehow lasts longer than

Last week in Forgotten Faces of Flushing, we took a detour. No player. No box score. No forgotten middle reliever who once wore #47 for six weeks and later sold insurance in Tampa. Just the escalator at Shea Stadium — that sacred conveyor belt to baseball heaven, where scorecards, tiny pencils, and childhood joy all waited at the top. Funny thing about memory: you never know what opens the door. Sometimes it’s an old scorecard. Sometimes it’s the smell of a stadium concourse

Last week in Forgotten Faces of Flushing, we talked about Derek Bell, a man who once famously said baseball “is a business” and somehow managed to make Mets fans simultaneously laugh, groan, and reach for antacids. This week’s Forgotten Face isn’t a face at all. It’s a place. And for me, beginning sometime around 1968, it was sacred ground. Long before the first pitch. Long before I understood batting averages, earned run averages, or why my father occasionally yelled things

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly wander through the Mets attic, where last week we bumped into Rick Anderson, a man who waited nearly a decade for his shot… and made the most of every second once the door finally cracked open. This week, we stay in that same neighborhood of “brief but memorable,” but instead of quiet persistence, we turn to something a little louder… a little flashier… and, because this is Mets history, just a little bit

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly wander through the Mets attic where the air is a little musty, the cardboard baseball cards are slightly curled, and every so often you find a story that makes you stop mid-sip of coffee and say, “Wait… that actually happened?” Last week we spent time with Vern Hoscheit, one of the true behind-the-scenes faces of the 1986 Mets, a man who collected World Series rings the way some people collect airline mile

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, where every week we climb back into the Mets attic, brush off a little dust, and see what kind of baseball story is hiding behind the old scorecards. Last week, we wandered into the outer edges of the statistical universe. We talked about extremes. A Mets ERA so high it looked like a typo, courtesy of Garrett Olson, and an ERA that didn’t exist at all, thanks to Stephen Tarpley. One number you couldn’t believe, and o

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly stroll through the Mets attic, the place where the yearbooks are a little dusty, the bubble gum cards stick together, and every once in a while you stumble across something that makes you stop and say, “Wait… I remember that.” Last week, we took a detour down to Florida and spent some time with the St. Lucie Legends, a team that felt like a baseball reunion wrapped in sunshine, nostalgia, and just enough p

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly stroll through the Mets attic the place where the yearbooks are a little dusty, the bubble gum cards stick together, and every once in a while you stumble across something that makes you stop and say, “Wait… I remember that.” Last week, we sorted out the tale of the two Bob Millers, a pair of pitchers who shared not only a name, but a spot on the same 1962 Mets roster forcing Casey Stengel to rename one of

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly stroll through the Mets attic the place where the yearbooks are a little dusty, the bubble gum cards stick together, and every once in a while you stumble across a name that makes you stop and say, “Wait… I remember that guy.” Last week we untangled the curious case of the two Bobby Joneses two pitchers, same name, overlapping in the larger orbit of baseball history, and enough confusion to make even a sco

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly stroll through the Mets attic — the place where the yearbooks are a little dusty, the bubble gum cards stick together, and every once in a while you stumble across a name that makes you stop and say, “Wait… I remember that guy.” Last week we tangled with the curious case of the two Mike Marshalls — yes, two Mike Marshalls, both on the roster at different times, both leaving fans scratching their heads and

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly stroll through the Mets attic — the place where the yearbooks are a little dusty, the bubble gum cards stick together, and every once in a while you stumble across a name that makes you stop and say, “Wait… I remember that guy.” Last week we dusted off the file on John Buck, the catcher who spent most of his career being a solid, dependable big league backstop — until April of 2013, when he briefly turned

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly stroll through the Mets attic where the yearbooks are a little worn, the bubble gum cards stick together, and every once in a while you come across a name that makes you stop and say, “Wait a second… how did we forget that guy?” Last week we opened the attic door and found a man who spent nearly two decades quietly standing in the background of Mets history. The traveling secretary who appeared in every of