METS FANS SHARE THEIR MEMORIES OF THE JUNE 26, 2002 GAME:
Glenn
January 12, 2003
Another of the disappointing games from 2002 when the Mets simply couldn't pull it out when it mattered. In June, the Mets simply couldn't put wins together -- Burnitz completly fell apart offensively.As a fan, I never leave Mets games early -- I never want to miss anything, nor do I feel it's fair to the players to be denied the support of the fans, even in a bad loss (although if Ordonez is going to call me "stupid"...) That being said, I got up and left when Strickland gave up the grand slam to Sheffield in the top of the 8th. The homer was basically inevitable -- you just knew something bad was coming. What was missed, of course, was one of the biggest (in terms of distance) home runs in Mets history. I heard Gary Cohen call the Mo Vaughn homer while driving on the Whitestone Expressway. Vaughn hit a monster shot off the Budweiser advertisement in the middle of the scoreboard, at the level of the top of the teams' lineups that are on either side of the advertisement. This was Mo's first big offensive game for the Mets -- 2 HR and a double. That his numbers for 2002 actually appear (somewhat) decent is largely due to a late-season offensive surge, which really started with this game.
Jon
January 12, 2003
I was at this one too (Glenn's comments about the inevitability of a collapse that night are dead- on) but I'm glad I stuck around. My initial reaction to Mo's home run wasn't an exclamation like "Yeah!" but rather a question like: "WHAT THE F---?!?" There was no one on base and most of the fans had left. It was a humid night and very still. You could have heard a pin drop. Then, a crack on the bat and a ball that seemed to be traveling way too high in the air for a line drive. People saw where it landed and turned to one another and said, "Did I just see that?"
Jon
January 11, 2011
My scorecard says Vaughn's HR went 505 feet, and I believe it.
|