mek@rruxu.UUCP (M Kaufman) (12/13/84)
[I take it back, mr. bow-tie. Great move!] Well, it's good to see that the Mets management had a bazooka up its sleeve when they traded for Howard Johnson. Getting Gary Carter into a Mets uniform is the most significant event of the off-season in baseball (Rickey who? That guy that strikes out all the time when Gossage pitched to him?) and will help the Mets in many ways. One of the most important ways is in the handling of basically a young pitching staff. After a while, I got tired of hearing Tim McCarver whine about Mike Fitzgerald's pitch selection. It's true, he didn't always make the best decisions behind the plate. Heck, he was a rookie! Carter should help the non-awesome members of the staff (Darling, Berenyi, Fernandez, etc.) immensely, and certainly won't hurt Gooden. Carter will take a lot of the offensive pressure off of the other hitters in what basically is one of the worst hitters parks in the NL, surely in the bottom 3 - the wind really swirls around in the outfield some days. He carries a BIG bat. As for the anemic lineup in Chicago, I seem to remember that last year's big games at Wrigley were relatively high-scoring on both sides. The Mets were a young team then, and grew up a lot during those series. Lastly, Carter was a Met killer extraordinaire, and perhaps a few more victories over the Expos will help in what now figures to be a tight pennant race. Can you imagine if Sutcliffe gets away from the Cubs? The Cardinals are out of it, the Expos don't figure to contend - Hubie Brooks will fold under the pressure in Montreal, I predict. The Phillies looked pretty good towards the end of last season, and now that we have a catcher who can throw people out (he's still better than 90% of the rest of the league, even during an off year) I think we may do it all. I hope so. I haven't been to a playoff game at Shea in 11 years! Let's go Mets!