Week 6 of Franchise Fridays returned us to Citi Field, where the All-Time Mets Greats hosted the All-Time Giants Greats in what has become our favorite winter pastime: using Strat-O-Matic All-Time Great teams to give Mets fans something glorious to stare at when the real box scores are frozen solid. Dice were rolled. Cards were flipped. Legends were unleashed. Looking for back-to-back wins, the Mets entered play hoping to gain their first bit of momentum all season. After ope

Week 5 of Franchise Fridays brought the All-Time Mets Greats back into action, this time facing the All-Time Giants at the breezy confines of virtual Candlestick Park. After dropping their first four games—three to their Dodgers cousins and one to the Giants—the Mets were desperate to get off the schnied and remind everyone that New York baseball can, in fact, be victorious. As always, these games are more than just numbers on a Strat-O-Matic board. By pitting all-time greats

Week 4 of Franchise Fridays at Citi Field kicked off with a battle between two branches of the National League family tree: the All-Time Mets and the All-Time Giants. After getting swept by their Dodgers cousins, the Mets hoped to finally get off the schnied against New York’s other historic NL powerhouse. And in this Strat-O-Matic showdown, Hall of Famer Tom Seaver took the mound for the Mets against Christy Mathewson for the Giants at the virtual Polo Grounds—a duel that pr

If you’ve read any of my stuff over the last three years, first of all thank you, and second of all my condolences. You already know I am dangerously prone to falling down Mets rabbit holes on the internet. One minute I’m innocently looking for a Gary Carter highlight to avoid doing something productive, and the next thing I know I’ve lost three hours, three 20 ounce bottles of Diet Pepsi, and any grip on the space-time continuum while watching pixelated footage of long-forgo

Week 3 of Franchise Fridays at Citi Field had all the tension of a playoff game, even if it was really just a Strat-O-Matic showdown between Mets All-Time Greats and Dodgers All-Time Greats. After the Mets dropped the first two games of the series—Tom Seaver outpitched by Sandy Koufax at Shea, Doc Gooden outmatched by Don Drysdale at Ebbets—the spotlight fell on Jacob deGrom. He was tasked with keeping the Mets competitive, while Fernando Valenzuela, with his hypnotic screwba

Back in 1986, the Mets were so big, so loud, so unapologetically Mets that even 20/20—the same show that once spent an hour investigating whether your salad bar was trying to kill you—decided to devote a full segment to them. And why not? On Thursday night, August 21st, 1986, ABC rolled out the red carpet for the Amazin’s, even as the competition (Trapper John, M.D. on one channel and Hill Street Blues on another) politely stepped aside and let the Mets suck all the oxygen ou

If you want to understand just how big Dwight Gooden was in 1985 how he went from Tampa teenager to the most unhittable pitcher on planet Earth you don’t have to watch a highlight reel, or read a stat sheet, or listen to your Mets-fan uncle explain that he “hasn’t been the same since Doc left.” All you have to do is go back to Sunday, August 18, 1985, when one of the most powerful institutions in American journalism, 60 Minutes, showed up and said: Yep. This kid belongs her

The 1991 season marked a return to the bad old days for the New York Mets: their first losing record since 1983, the departure of a hero,...

Today was one of those raw, gray October mornings, the kind that makes you reach for an old Mets yearbook instead of the remote, because...

If you’re a Mets fan of a certain age (translation: you still have VHS tapes labeled “Family BBQ” that are actually Game 6 of the ’86...

If you’re a Mets fan of a certain age (read: old enough to know that “streaming” isn’t Netflix, it’s what happens when your doctor frowns...

It’s a strange thing when history and heartbreak collide. Davey Johnson, who once stood at second base for the Orioles and lofted the fly...

If you’re a Mets fan, you already know how 1986 ends: a team that manager Davey Johnson declared during spring training would dominate...

There was much optimism in the air around Shea Stadium when the 1985 season began. The expectations had risen after a 1984 season that...

The 1982 season that began with much optimism ended in another disastrous finish: the sixth consecutive season that the team finished...

A lot of good things happened to the Mets in 1980. Almost none of them occurred on the field. The team lost 95 games and finished in...