Saturday Seasons: Tokyo, Garth Brooks, and the Subway Series: The Mets’ Unforgettable 2000 Ride

The 2000 baseball season gave New York baseball fans something they wanted, if not the rest of the country: a true Subway Series, one played in October with a World Championship at stake. And while it didn’t end the way Mets fans would have liked, it did cap a year that by any other measure could be considered a success.

               Along the way, the team would play the first regular season series outside North America and the first Subway Day-Night doubleheader in 97 years. Their 94 wins would come one game short of winning the division but erase the bitter taste in fans’ mouths after Kenny Rogers ended the 1999 season by walking in Andrew Jones in the bottom of the 11^th inning to give the Atlanta Braves the pennant.

               Rogers was gone for 2000, parting ways with the Mets as a free agent. So was first baseman John Olerud, who had steadied what Sports Illustrated had billed as the best fielding infield in baseball history; free agent Olerud, wanting to play closer to his Seattle-area home, signed with the Mariners.

               To replace them, the Mets signed third baseman Todd Zeile and moved him over to first base, and they traded Roger Cedeno and Octavio Dotel to the Houston Astros for lefty Mike Hampton. While not as accomplished a fielder as Olerud, Zeile did provide punch in the lineup, smacking 22 home runs. Hampton won 15 games, one behind Al Leiter, and had a starting rotation-leading 3.14 ERA. No slouch with the bat Hampton also hit .274, with a .586 OPS – not bad for a pitcher.

               Mike Piazza batted .324, with 38 home runs, 113 RBI and one notable HBP (more about that later). Robin Ventura hit 24 homers, Edgardo Alfonzo smacked 25 while matching Piazza’s .324 average and the outfield of Benny Agbayani, Jay Payton and Derek Bell, while not all-star caliber, was acceptable.

               And to emphasize that this was a veteran team built to win, the annual award for best spring training rookie went to country singer Garth Brooks, who went 0-for-17 with four walks but raised considerable money for his Touch ‘Em All Foundation before returning to his day job.

Which is not to say that the season didn’t have its nervous moments, starting in March, when the Mets opened the season in Tokyo by playing two against the Cubs.

               As Newsday columnist Shaun Powell wrote, the Japanese didn’t quite know how to handle the cultural differences. “Being rookies at this, they weren’t sure how to treat Opening Day,” Powell wrote. “Do they go about it as Americans would or apply a foreigner’s touch? They spent the entire day locked in a cultural war, not wanting to disrespect tradition while at the same time willing to try a different twist. They ushered in the regular season with a preliminary show worthy of halftime at the Super Bowl, then conducted themselves during the game like an audience watching chess.”

               The Mets lost that first game, 5-3, as Hampton walked nine, conjuring images of Rogers’ 1999 season-ending meltdown. Newspapers covering the game speculated that Hampton (and Cubs starter Jon Lieber) were having trouble coping with the dirt on the mound packed softer than they were used to. (Maybe Hampton also was distracted by wondering about the quality of Japanese schools, should he think about moving there). The Daily News also pointed out that Hampton got off to a similar rocky start in his first 1999 outing, so it was not a cause for worry.

               Japanese fans were also treated to a classic Bobby Valentine exchange with the umpiring crew, when, just as the game was about to end, Valentine (at the prompting of general manager Steve Phillips) contended that the Cubs had inserted into the game a player not on their 25-man roster. Valentine’s protest was not upheld. But it did allow Japanese fans to see how an umpire signals the official scorer to indicate a game a being played under protest (making a “p” with his hands).

The second quirky game/games came on Saturday, July 8, which originally was only supposed to be a three-game series with the Yankees at Shea. But because one of the three games at Yankee Stadium had been rained out the month before, it was decided to play a day-night doubleheader, with the afternoon game at Shea and the evening game at Yankee Stadium. The last time that happened was in 1903, when the Brooklyn Superbas and the New York Giants played a regularly-scheduled home-and-home Labor Day twin bill.

Both games had their moments, even though the Yankees prevailed by identical 4-2 scores. The first game marked Dwight Gooden’s return to Shea Stadium, albeit in Yankee pinstripes. And the weirdness started with the first pitch, when Yankee second baseman Chuck Knoblauch lined into the right-centerfield gap. Mets centerfielder Payton tracked down the ball and fired to shortstop Melvin Mora to nail Knoblauch – until first-base umpire Robb Cook ruled that Zeile had obstructed Knoblauch’s path and he was awarded second base. Valentine, in rare form, charged from the dugout to argue, and demonstratively pointed to Knoblauch’s footprints to show that he went directly from point A (first base) to point B (second). All Valentine got for his troubles was the chance to beat the crowd to the Bronx for game two.

               After the last pitch of game one, the Mets retreated to the Diamond Club for a between-games meal, giving the clubhouse staff the opportunity to launder the clothing the team would need for game two. Then they dressed in their road grays and boarded a bus for a police-escorted drive to the Bronx. “It will be like American Legion [baseball} again, pitcher Glendon Rusch commented to Newsday. “It’s not too often you see a big league team get off the bus in uniform.”

               The Seven Line Army was able to board special Seven trains to Grand Central and switch to express Four trains to Yankee Stadium.

               Game two: Its seminal moment came in the top of the second, with Roger Clemens facing – and beaning – Mets designated hitter Mike Piazza – a moment that would rear its ugly head again in the World Series in one of the most bizarre moments in both Mets and Yankee history (again, we’ll get to it later). Rusch retaliated by plunking Tino Martinez, but other than that, a good time was had by all, except maybe Piazza.

               And, also, perhaps, the trainer. Injuries continued to mount, especially among that great starting infield. Shortstop Rey Ordonez broke his arm May 29, and third baseman Robin Ventura went on the DL in July. Their replacements – Melvin Mora and Lenny Randle – were nowhere near as talented defensively, prompting general manager Phillips to trade for the Orioles’ shortstop Mike Bordick. While not the same offensive threat as Mora (who went to Baltimore in the deal), he was much better defensively, and the move was greeted warmly by a Mets pitching staff that produced a lot of ground balls.

               After a hot August, the team began September with a half-game lead over the Atlanta Braves in the eastern division. But they basically treaded water in the final full month of the season, a 14-14 record, and when it was all over, they were one game behind the Braves, still good for the wild card. They cruised through the playoffs, defeating the San Francisco Giants in four games and the St. Louis Cardinals (who ousted the braves) in five.

               All of which set up the first true Subway Series since 1956, before the Dodgers left for Los Angeles and the Giants for San Francisco. And what a series it was – starting with a 12-inning opener that featured a Timo Perez baserunning gaffe, an Armando Benitez meltdown to blow a save and a Jose Vizcaino walkoff single off Turk Wendell that gave the Yanks they victory.

               The second game? The Yankees won, 6-5, as Yankees jumped on Hampton in the first, built up a 6-0 lead and almost lost it when the Mets rallied for five in the top of the ninth. But nobody remembers much about the game past the top of the second, when Piazza faced Clemens for the first time since the beanball incident in the day-night, two stadium doubleheader.

               Clemens shattered Piazza’s bat, with a large piece heading toward the mound. Piazza broke from the box and ran toward first on what was eventually called a foul ball. Clemens picked up the piece of the bat and tossed it toward the baseline, almost hitting Piazza.

Whether Clemens was intentionally trying to hit Piazza is one of those questions that will forever remain unresolved, along who was on the grassy knoll and whether there was a second gunman in the Kennedy assassination. Clemens denied it. The Mets were unconvinced.

               “I think he knew what he was doing all along and is coming up with excuses,” legendary Mets reliever John Franco was quoted as saying in the next day’s Daily News.

               “I was just as confused and shocked as anybody,” Piazza said.” “I was trying to figure out if it was intentional or not. I didn’t get a response. I didn’t know what to think.”

               With the series moving to Shea, the Mers continued late-inning lighting, and this time it worked. Two runs in the bottom of the eighth broke a 2-2 tie, and Benitez retired the last three after allowing a leadoff Knoblauch single. But whatever momentum the Mets might have gained from that win disappeared instantly in game four, when Derek Jeter hit a leadoff home run against Bobby Jones and the Yankees eventually won, 3-2.

               With their backs against the wall, the Mets and Bobby Valentine turned to their ace, Al Leiter, and Valentine stuck with Leiter as the game was tied entering the ninth – even though Leiter’s pitch count was a now-unfathomable 140. Leiter did strike out Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill before walking Jorge Posada and allowing a single to Scott Brosius. Luis Soto then hit a seeing-eye single to center. Jay Payton’s throw hit Posada in the back as he was sliding into home, allowing both him and Brosius to score. Piazza made it interesting with a long fly ball in the bottom of the inning with Benny Agbayani on third, but Bernie Williams fielded it on the warning track to end the game and the series.

               Five games – one, an extra inning affair; two others decided in the winning team’s last at-bat; another a one-game, and the fifth, one in which the losing team nearly tied it up in its last at-bat.

               New York baseball fans got the type of Subway Series they wanted, and the television ratings reflected that. In New York, the first game garnered the highest viewership since the final episode of the sitcom Seinfeld.

               The rest of the country? Let’s just say the Subway Series didn’t play in Peoria. It was a broadcast executive’s nightmare. A 22 percent drop from the previous year and, at the time, the lowest-rated World Series in history, by a solid margin.

               One more statistic to prove anti-New York bias. And one more stat to prove the rest of the country doesn’t know what it's talking about.