It was 25 years ago this week (the 22nd actually) that the Mets by the Numbers project first published on the Internet. The earliest versions of the site seem to have vanished but here’s an archived page from 2001 where I discuss the arrival of Jerrod Riggan and the demotion of Donne Wall. And then the return of Donne Wall. It was riveting stuff.
When I started this project I was single; today I’m married almost 20 years and my son is picking a college. I was anxious back then to participate in this new internet thing and was full of energy from the excitement of falling back in love baseball again after taking much of the 90s off.
I had been turned off by the fall of the Mets would-be dynasty. I was living outside the Sportschannel/WOR belt, and I was angry about the strike. When I moved to NYC, the Mets helped me find my way in the city and I fell hard for Bobby Valentine. I’d spent a few months combing through yearbooks and scorecards with the idea I could find the uni number of every one of the roughly 600 guys who played for the Mets through then. I badly missed that goal when I first published but it was better than what else existed at the time, which was nothing.
Against every rule of writing a blog, I’ve gone through period of frequent updates and months of nothing, then again “blogs” didn’t really exist in 1999. Purely by coincidence this site launched within weeks of the Ultimate Mets Database and when Paul Lukas started writing about sports uniforms for the Village Voice. Countless websites have come and gone since then, all three survive (although Paul is planning to retire).
Happy birthday to all of us.
Jon-I appreciate that you have kept this site going all these years! I still check in whenever there is a new guy called up or traded for.
Congratulations and thanks!
Loved reading the archived page.
It took me right back to the time after the 2000 Subway World Series loss seemingly took the wind out of the Mets’ sails, partly because Fred Wilpon was too cheap, arrogant, or both to pursue Alex Rodriguez to put a charge into the offense.
But I loved reading names like Todd Pratt (I was at Shea on 7/4/97 for his Mets debut and first dinger off the Marlins’ Al Leiter as well as on 10/9/99 for his famous walkoff blast that sank Buck Showalter’s Dbacks), Tsuyoshi Shinjo, Timo Perez, Turk Wendell, and Dennis Cook again!
The 98-00 Mets were a lot of fun, even if they disappointed a lot. I was also at the Pratt Home run game, all the way up in the upper deck right field corner. Explosive moment.
If anything I was too kind to the Wilpons over the years, always giving them the benefit of the doubt until 2008 when they broke me, gleefully tearing down Shea even before the last game was played (had we made the playoffs we’d be doing so in front of a fake center field fence) and then getting their financial shenanigans exposed.
Jon, congratulations on 25 years. Thank you for this great site.
By the way, here is someone who has not been paying attention the past 25 years:
https://twitter.com/SNY_Mets/status/1767592341961949373
To be fair to Keith, the last time he wore a Mets road uniform, it was the one with the block “NEW YORK” and no number.
Thank you for doing this – I enjoy the site very much!