{"id":864,"date":"2008-03-12T01:03:43","date_gmt":"2008-03-12T01:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=864"},"modified":"2013-12-01T01:06:37","modified_gmt":"2013-12-01T01:06:37","slug":"whats-a-blog-the-greg-prince-interview-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=864","title":{"rendered":"What’s a Blog?: The Greg Prince Interview (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from\u00a0Part 1.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In part 2 of my exclusive, explosive conversation with Greg Prince of\u00a0Faith & Fear in Flushing<\/a>, Greg discusses some of his blog’s greatest hits while I vainly try and determine how he does it.<\/em><\/p>\n

What are your feelings on the Mets uniform?<\/strong>
\n\"\"They\u2019ve given us a lot more to think about over the years. haven’t they? I suppose I get used to all of them after a while. When they first showed up in 1998 in all this black and orange, I thought they looked like Orioles and needed to get back to emphasizing the blue. Plus it was obviously a craven attempt to make a buck. But, y’know what? Last April, the first time they put the black unis on for the first time, I viewed them as a throwback to the ’99 and 2000 teams. Now when I see the Mets in black, it gives me a warm feeling — nostalgia, I guess, for the Bobby Valentine era when they wore them more frequently. I guess that’s the power of the baseball uniform in general.<\/p>\n

That said, if they had to do only one uniform I guess I would hope they’d accurately recreate the 1969 jersey, perhaps without the 100th anniversary patch. But I\u2019ve gotten used to the idea they wear different ones. It bothers other people way more than it bothers me.<\/p>\n

Have you got a favorite uniform number?<\/strong>
\nI always wanted to wear\u00a041\u00a0<\/a>on my back\u00a0\u2013 no matter what an insult it may have been to Tom Seaver \u2013 because he was my first hero. I\u2019ve always been fond of\u00a024<\/a>, since it never fails to amaze me that Willie Mays was a Met. Today I like\u00a07\u00a0<\/a>for\u00a0Jose Reyes<\/a>\u00a0and I continue to hold a candle for26\u00a0<\/a>on account of\u00a0Rico Brogna.<\/a>\u00a0It seems like if I like the player, I like the number.<\/p>\n

\"44\"<\/a>Now and again when I need to fall asleep, instead of counting sheep I count uniform numbers: 1 for\u00a0Mookie<\/a>, 2 for\u00a0Valentine<\/a>, 3 for\u00a0Harrelson<\/a>. I always like to see who jumps to mind first. What\u2019s funny is that whenever I get to 44,\u00a0Bob Myrick<\/a>comes up. I’ve never been able to think of anyone else. And this was when Jason Isringhausen was hot stuff, when Jay Payton was here, right up to Lastings Milledge. 44 is Bob Myrick, and I barely remember Bob Myrick as a ballplayer. Just as 44 on the Mets.<\/p>\n

Tell me about\u00a0The Greg Commandments<\/a>.<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s just a bunch of things that had been stewing around in my mind as Mets fan. I\u2019m not big on telling people they have to do this or do that, or to use one of those phrases I hate, \u201cyou gotta respect that,\u201d but when it comes to the Mets I found a code of conduct, a way to comport yourself in the world as a Met fan and get the most of the Met experience. Things like not going too nuts when you lose or overboard when you win, and don\u2019t be one of those people who likes both New York teams. Some of it was to help the reader enjoy their experience and some was just picky stuff on my part.<\/p>\n

Was it something that came quickly or did you work on it a long time?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d actually been working on a list of things like that years earlier. And I found it one day after we started the blog, I stewed it in my head. It was the beginning of the second half of \u201905, it just seemed like a good time to put it out there. That post helped put us on the map a little. We weren\u2019t all that well-known before then. It was some thing I got emails about for a long time.<\/p>\n

What other events helped put you on the map?<\/strong>
\n\"\"One of the things that drew people to us is we were able to do a lot on\u00a0Mike Piazza<\/a>\u2019s last year. Jason wrote a great post about the 10 greatest home runs Piazza had hit as a Met and I had written something that got good response.<\/p>\n

I had been to the ballet, of all things, a few weeks before, and it so happened there was a ballet dancer, the male primary dancer, named Jock Soto. And two women sitting behind me were going on and on about how it was Jock Soto\u2019s last year in the ballet and how awful it was going to be to have to replace him. Can you imagine the New York City Ballet without Jock Soto? That kind of thing. And I\u2019m sitting there just riveted to this conversation, thinking,\u00a0this is exactly what I\u2019m thinking about Mike Piazza<\/em>. He\u2019s our Jock Soto; and Jock Soto is their Mike Piazza. I wrote something about that and it turned out Jock Soto\u2019s mother read it. She was very excited, saying they compared my son to a big baseball player.<\/p>\n

Also at the time, we got a celebrity email from one of the team\u2019s announcers, who\u2019d actually read us, in response my saying I\u2019d turned down the TV and listened to the radio when Gary and Howie were working together. He basically wanted to know what was wrong with them. That was one of several things we had going on in about a two-week period in July of \u201905 when it just seemed like we achieved critical mass. We went from\u00a0being a voice in the wilderness to something people knew about. If there was some way of calculating the percentage of all Met fans who know any bloggers beyond\u00a0Metsblog<\/a>, it\u2019s probably infinitesimal. But among people who know computers can lead them to information and insight on your favorite team we established a foothold.<\/p>\n

What particular things have you enjoyed accomplishing?<\/strong>
\nThere are times where you think you\u2019ve written something amazing and you get only two comments. I wrote about the 20th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the\u00a0Terry Pendeleton game<\/a>\u00a0and everything that went wrong in the 1987 pennant race and I braced for a great reaction, but there was one comment. It felt lonely. It\u2019s tough to write flashbacks in the middle of pennant race.<\/p>\n

The definitive post for me was the\u00a0day they announced the new ballpark.<\/a>\u00a0I didn\u2019t know they were even doing it that day but I flipped on SNY and there they were in the Diamond Club showing off the drawings and the model for the first time and how great it\u2019s going to be, and it struck me \u2013 isn\u2019t this so odd they\u2019re doing this inside Shea Stadium? They\u2019re going to obliterate Shea Stadium. And it crossed my mind it must be a bad day to be Shea Stadium. It was one of those things that just took off. Fortunately I work at home and had the flexibility to put everything else aside and write it right then.<\/p>\n

It started as a straightforward piece where I was just going to state my opinions and instead I started write it as a conversation between a ballpark that had no idea it was going to be replaced \u2013 a loyal employee but a little slow on the uptake \u2013 and Fred Wilpon giving him his notice. It takes him a while to get it and then he\u2019s very disturbed by it. Shea finally stands up to him, and is speaking for me toward the end.<\/p>\n

\"\"That was also a touchstone in how I view Shea and how I write about it. Because until then, I was ready to throw Shea away. I\u2019d been to 30 ballparks and wanted our own Camden Yards in my lifetime. I recall writing something on opening day \u201905 how they had all winter and couldn\u2019t get the escalators to work. Jason was thrilled because for years he was like \u201cWhere\u2019s the detonator?\u201d But I\u2019d come over to the dark side.<\/p>\n

Then I realized, this was it. It was a stadium we\u2019d grown up with and grown older in. I did a 180. I was like those superdelegates changing from Hilary to Obama. I went from \u201cLet\u2019s get the new ballpark in here!\u201d to \u201cHow dare you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I worry about turning into a caricature of myself. I don\u2019t want to be a good-old-days blogger. I don\u2019t want to dwell on the idea of \u201cWasn\u2019t it great when Jane Jarvis played the organ and Karl Erhardt held up the signs and box seats were $4.50 and Tommie Agee led off every game with a home run?\u201d I want the 2008 season to start. But defender-of-Shea-to-the-end has become a sort of calling card for me. And Jason is laying low on the point because he knows I\u2019m sensitive to it. I can feel him rolling his eyes.<\/p>\n

It brought out in our readers a lot of the same feelings. They\u2019d bought that line that it was time for Shea to go. I think they saw someone saying what they had been suppressing: Hold on a second. I like this place too. It\u2019s all going to amount to nothing because Shea is going away but this wasn\u2019t a movement like STOP CITI FIELD. This is not like the Tiger Stadium Fan Club grasping hands around the ballpark. Nobody is doing that Shea.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s distinguished about the site is your ability to bring your own personal self into it whether you\u2019re talking about meeting your wife or your mother dying and things that, I imagine, would be difficult to write about and send to an unknown audience. Do you struggle with that at all?<\/strong>
\nNot that much. In June of \u201805 when the Mets played their first series with Oakland since the World Series of \u201873\u00a0I had this reaction to it I wasn\u2019t expecting.<\/a>\u00a0I put it on the TV and it suddenly brought me back to 1973 and specifically, a suppressed memory that I\u2019d had a fight with my mother who told me, you can\u2019t watch the last two games of the 1973 World Series.<\/p>\n

Yeow.<\/strong>
\nI mean, come on! How often do the Mets get into the World Series? I hadn\u2019t thought of that much. But I think today maybe one of the reasons I indulge myself as a fan is because I didn\u2019t indulge enough as a child. Anyway, I had just begun to write a simple expository post of how this had reminded me of the 1973 World Series, blah blah blah, and it became one of those dialogs, me talking to a psychiatrist, and I recall bringing up really intense feelings I\u2019d had about my mother,\u00a0why the hell wouldn\u2019t you let me watch the godamn world series?<\/em>\u00a0I was angry writing it!<\/p>\n

There were some from our limited audience had a good response to that, it was a hill to get over. Because up until then, I was going for a tone, thinking, this is what a blog is supposed to sound like. It took me a few months to write the way I wanted to write. I don\u2019t know if anyone who reads that could tell but I can.<\/p>\n

But as for writing the personal stuff, it just seemed very natural to go there. The\u00a01990 flashback<\/a>was an interesting one for me to write because that was the year my mother died. It was an area I\u2019d never really explored before. In my mind, it was a stressful year. But at the moment where somebody else would have said, \u201cOh, I can\u2019t follow the Mets,\u201d I\u2019d followed them more closely than I\u2019d had since 1986. They deepened for me. They were my anchor.<\/p>\n

I wrote something a few weeks ago about\u00a0the one game I went to with my father<\/a>, who\u2019s not a baseball fan. My parents sort of fell into them when they were good, from 1985 to 89, but after my mother died, they just fell away from him. It was like, I don\u2019t do that any more. And it took me some time to realize it. The point was, thank god there\u2019s football because without it my father and I wouldn\u2019t have much to talk about. But going to a game with him as a terrible experience. The comments you get from that tend to be incidental. If I wrote a foul ball landed near me a reader might write, \u201cHey, I once caught a foul ball.\u2019 Maybe we\u2019re intruding here. Maybe we shouldn\u2019t be reading this on a baseball blog.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not hard for you to reveal to people?<\/strong>
\nNot really. If I can use an incongruous word here, I\u2019m brave enough to do it since I know my father and my sister don\u2019t read it. My father\u2019s like, \u201cWhat\u2019s a blog?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from\u00a0Part 1. In part 2 of my exclusive, explosive conversation with Greg Prince of\u00a0Faith & Fear in Flushing, Greg discusses some of his blog’s greatest hits while I vainly try and determine how he does it. What are your feelings on the Mets uniform? They\u2019ve given us a lot more to think about over … Continue reading “What’s a Blog?: The Greg Prince Interview (Part 2)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864\/revisions\/865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}