Bobby Valentine is about to write a paragraph in his obituary.

The date is June 9, 1999. Even by the standards set in the past two weeks, days of trial unprecedented in Met history, June 9 is packed with strife and intrigue. Valentine’s day at the office begins with an ugly confrontation with a reporter. A few days prior, during an interview on WFAN, the manager said Newsday reporter Marty Noble hadn’t spoken to him in over a year, thus calling his journalistic integrity in question in his oblique Valetinian way. Prior to the Mets’ final game hosting the Blue Jays, an unhappy Noble confronts the Met skipper before the collected press corps and proclaims that if indeed he hasn’t spoken to Valentine in over a year (a point he does not concede), it’s only because he doesn’t believe anything Valentine says. Valentine counters by calling Noble a “liar” for all to hear. A shouting match ensues. The two men are separated. Nothing is resolved.

The Mets have enjoyed few days without some kind of lineup issue lately, and this day is no exception. Benny Agbayani suffers a freak batting practice injury when a foul tip takes an unlucky hop into his right eye. The swollen-faced outfielder receives a CT scan and is listed as day-to-day. His injury means the Mets will play two men down, because the disgruntled Bobby Bonilla is also unavailable, for reasons no one will articulate. Reporters noticed Bonilla was not used in a pinch-hitting situation the night before and have begun to ask questions. Valentine knows more than he can say, and the strain of keeping silent is killing him. If you wish to torture Bobby Valentine, refuse to let him speak his mind.

“Yesterday, he was asked to pinch hit and he couldn’t,” Valentine says of Bonilla, then expands cryptically. “I was told today it was the same situation. I’m very confused.” I was told… A signal that he has received instructions from on high. Those who are on high refuse to reveal any more. General manager Steve Phillips has no comment. Bonilla, not inclined to make a reporter’s job easy even under the best of circumstances, tells the scribes he has nothing to say and makes good on his word.

Adding to the evening’s odd vibe is the presence of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, in town for a visit to the United Nations. Chávez throws out the ceremonial first pitch while draped in a billowy warmup jacket adorned with the colors of his nation’s flag. Beneath the jacket, he festoons himself in a full Met uniform—including pinstriped pants—and brings his own glove to the mound. In deference to this special guest, the Venezuelan national anthem is played prior to the start of the game, in addition to the standard “Star-Spangled Banner” and the “Oh Canada” necessitated by the visiting Toronto Blue Jays.

All this pregame finery conspires to push a scheduled 7:40 pm first pitch even later, in front of a sparse midweek crowd not entirely on the home team’s side. David Wells, the hard-living bear-sized lefty, takes the mound for Toronto to make his first start in New York since the Yankees shipped him north in the deal that netted them Roger Clemens. Wells brings many Yankees fans out to Shea, and they have no qualms about cheering for on of their team’s divisional rival at the expense of the Mets. Boomer’s return to the Big Apple coincides with his birthday, and a big post-game shindig awaits him at Veruka, a trendy Soho nightclub. The guest list includes a plethora of random celebrities like Penny Marshall, Lorne Michaels, and Ione Skye, among others. Club owner Noel Ashman patrols Shea’s Diamond Club throughout the game, checking in with his doorman via cell phone to decree who shall be permitted to enter and who shall be asked to wait.

Wells looks like a man ready to celebrate as he mows down the Met batting order with little effort through the first eight innings. When he strides to the mound in the bottom of the ninth inning, he holds a healthy 3-0 lead and has retired 18 of the last 19 batters he’s faced. A complete game is a seeming formality. Though Edgardo Alfonzo and Mike Piazza single in the inning, Wells logs two outs and corners Robin Ventura into a two-strike count. The third baseman fouls off a trio of tough pitches before bouncing a single up the middle. Both Alfonzo and Piazza score on the hit to shave the Blue Jays’ lead down to one slim run. The burly southpaw gives way to the Blue Jay closer and Long Island native Billy Koch, who allows a double down the left field line off the bat of Brian McRae. The tying run scores all the way from first. We have a whole new ballgame.

That brand new ballgame turns into a frustrating extra-inning slog. Each team takes turns teasing a lead, only to retreat each time. The stands thin out, leaving behind only the die-hardest of the die-hards and the constant roar of jets from LaGuardia. Beyond the right field fence, Shea’s looming scoreboard flashes periodic updates from game five of the NBA Eastern Conference finals, as the Knicks attempt to best their longtime rivals, the Indiana Pacers. The basketball game ends with New York victorious. The baseball game plods on with New York in limbo.

We lurch into the top of the twelfth inning. Toronto’s Shannon Stewart hits a one-out single against Pat Mahomes, the last man standing from the Met bullpen. Stewart soon takes off for second, believing he can take advantage of Mike Piazza’s questionable arm. Piazza fires a bullet to Edgardo Alfonzo at second. He appears to have thrown out the runner by a decent margin.

Home plate umpire Randy Marsh has a different opinion. He signals Piazza interfered with the batter, a ruling that awards Stewart second base and sends the batter to first base. Catcher’s interference is not a call one sees very often, particularly not in the top of the twelfth inning, and particularly not when the TV replay shows no clear evidence of the alleged offense.

Bobby Valentine storms out of the dugout and makes his displeasure known in no uncertain terms. Marsh does not appreciate the manager’s vocabulary and ejects him. The manager stalks off the field, drawing his exit out as long as possible for maximum umpire annoyance. The remaining crowd cheers his fire, but Valentine will have to watch the remainder of this game from the clubhouse. He will not be in the dugout to see Mahomes wriggle off the hook in this inning, nor will he be able to watch the Mets pull out a victory, and a series sweep, by means of a bloop RBI single from Rey Ordoñez in the bottom of the fourteenth. Or so it would seem.

Why Valentine does what he does after his ejection, no one can say. At first, Valentine will deny he did anything at all. On bad days, he will dismiss those who choose to obsess over it with withering sarcasm. On good days, he will cop to it with a twinkle in his eye. In the end, what Valentine does is so ridiculous that assigning reason to any of it is pointless. Much the same could be said of what he and the Mets did in the agonizing 11 days that precede this one.

* * *

The sense of doom surrounding the 1999 Mets is so constant that few notice when the doom arrives on the evening of May 28. The Mets are trailing by one run in the bottom of the ninth to the visiting Diamondbacks when Benny Agbayani hits a hard grounder to Arizona’s Jay Bell. The second baseman slings the ball past first, a miscue that should allow the tying run to score from second, even when that run is represented by the slow-footed Mike Piazza. But instead of rolling into oblivion, the ball clanks off of the photographer’s box and right into the waiting glove of Arizona’s first baseman. Piazza, who’d taken a long turn around third, scrambles back to the bag. Moments later, the bases now loaded, pinch hitter Luis Lopez finds himself ahead in the count, 3-1. He looks at a pitch that sails across the plate, ankle-high. It should be ball four, which would force in the tying run. Home plate umpire Gary Darling judges it strike two. Incredulous and rattled, Lopez watches another pitch for strike three, ending the threat and the game. The Mets lose by the excruciating score of 2-1.

Thus begins a week of tough luck, near misses, and bad blood, a dark period when no calls or bounces go the Mets’ way. Game two against the Diamondbacks is a 3 hour 40 minute trial in which their bullpen is roughed up. The day before, Arizona manager Buck Showalter rankled the Mets by insisting reliever Turk Wendell change his glove because it used more than one color,  a technically illegal fashion statement but one that rarely goes noticed, let alone punished. So when reliever Byung-hyung Kim enters this game in the bottom of the ninth, Bobby Valentine extracts retribution by asking the umps to check Kim’s leather as well. “A lot of guys thought Kim had an oversized glove,” Valentine says later, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And I figured this crew had a thing on gloves. But they said it was one color, so it was okay.” Diamondbacks third baseman Matt Williams screams at Valentine to “go back to the dugout,” and later calls it “a high school move.”  The gambit does not succeed in rattling the 20 year old who is making his major league debut. Kim’s submarine delivery—“Nintendo sliders” in his catcher’s description —baffles the heart of the Met order. The home team loses, again by one run.

Then, fearsome southpaw Randy Johnson carves up Met hitters in the series finale, pitching eight dominant innings while striking out 10. His counterpart, Masato Yoshii, watches his shuto get shuttled from one side of the park to the other as he cedes seven runs in less than three innings of work. Johnson, owner of a lifetime .114 batting average, raps two singles off of him. A sizeable crowd arrives at Shea for a Sunday matinee that also happens to be Beanie Baby Day, beanie babies being quite valuable giveaways in the year 1999, but few remain to see the conclusion of the 10-1 drubbing.

Three rough losses in a row are enough to prompt murmurings of mutiny. First, mercurial shortstop Rey Ordoñez reveals he is dealing with a knee ailment. He reveals this ailment to the press before letting his manager know about it. “Rey’s unavailable. He said he couldn’t pinch hit or anything,” the manager admits after the last game against Arizona,  in a voice that sounds the way a roll of the eyes looks.

Then, an unnamed veteran complains to the Times about Bobby Valentine’s volatile lineup choices. “There are a lot of guys who are upset that there is no set lineup,” quoth The Mystery Man. “Look around at the other teams. They have the same lineup every day.”

Conspiracy theorists suppose the Mystery Man is either Rickey Henderson or Bobby Bonilla, both of whom have seen reduced playing time with the emergence of Benny Agbayani and Roger Cedeño. It could also be Brian McRae, another outfielder whose playing time has diminished thanks to Agbayani and Cedeño. On the record, McRae complains, “there ain’t no rhyme or reason to what goes on around here.”  Rhyme aside, the reason for McRae’s limited action is his mediocre .255 batting average and mere 10 extra base hits to this point in the season.

No matter where the accusation originates from, it leaves Valentine baffled. Recently, he watched the Yankees start three different lineups three different games in a row and garner no complaints whatsoever. He proffers statistics to show that, despite anonymous grumbling about the lineup, the team is hitting well.   When this does nothing to diminish the controversy, Valentine is forced to meet individually with all five of his outfielders. Roger Cedeño and Benny Agbayani receive the surprising news that they will see reduced playing time to soothe the higher-paid egos of the veterans. “The two young guys are, as they should be, a little confused,” Valentine reports to the press.  Using spite instead of stats to fill out his lineup card, Valentine starts Rickey Henderson and Bobby Bonilla in the outfield for two games straight, with lethargic results.

When the Reds come to Queens on May 31 and take the opener of their three-game series, Bobby Valentine chooses to see the glass half full and declares Al Leiter—making his first start in seven days due to a persistent knee issue—was “four or five pitches away from a complete game shutout.” The four or five pitches Valentine refers to include a two-run homer by Pokey Reese and a 423-foot bomb off the bat of Greg Vaughn.

Leiter also feels he pitched better than his line would indicate,  which comes as little surprise. His starts thus far have topped out at mediocre, but each time he has some convenient explanation as to why these performances weren’t as bad as they looked. His manager has parroted those excuses to the letter.

When Leiter struggled through five grueling innings in Miami on Opening Day, it was dismissed as a delayed reaction to being hit in the hip by a bat that flew out of Orel Hershiser’s hands during a spring training game. According to Leiter, his poor results that day were more bad luck than anything else, with the Marlins’ balls finding holes and clanking off of gloves. At the time Valentine averred, “If he could throw the ball that well all year long, I’ll be happy. He’s throwing great.”

Leiter sounded not the least bit worried when he lost to the Expos at Shea a week later. Again, it was all bad hops and the like that killed him, he said, not bad pitching. “I’d be a little more distraught and a little more concerned if I felt I had no clue,” Leiter insisted. “But my stuff is as good as it’s ever been in my career. I’m just not making that big pitch to get out of an inning. But I feel too good to get depressed about it yet.” He also implied weather had affected him worse than any other pitcher. So many of his starts had been delayed or threatened by precipitation that John Franco dubbed him The Rain Man.

Such excuses wouldn’t fly when Leiter insisted on remaining in a game against the Astros on May 4, even as it was clear he was flagging, hoping grit and elbow grease could will him to a win. He proceeded to cough up four runs and turn a tied game into a 6-1 loss. He then changed his self-defense strategy. “I’ve got to stop the negative thoughts,” he said after the game, as if bad vibes lost the game, not him. “I’ve got to stop listening to ‘What’s wrong with Al?’ There’s nothing wrong with Al….The difference between dominating and being mediocre, winning and losing. A handful of pitches out of 120 are creating that difference….I feel like I’m throwing the ball better than the results last night.” 

When he squandered several leads in an unsightly start against the Brewers on May 20, he all but blamed the local media for his current state of mind. “I happen to find playing in New York with the team I rooted for exciting, good or bad,” Leiter said. “And right now, it’s not that great. I just have to filter a lot of the exterior distraction out.” Valentine simply offered, “I think he’s trying too hard.”

So when Al Leiter follows his loss to the Reds on May 30 with excuses like I felt good, just a few pitches that didn’t go my way… the press can mouth along with every word. Leiter’s hefty new contract crowns him as the Mets’ ace, but his performances have been anything but ace-like. Valentine’s excuses on Leiter’s behalf now have the uncomfortable air of enabling.

Rey Ordoñez returns for the second game against the Reds. His presence, combined with an outfield of Rickey Henderson, Bobby Bonilla, and Brian McRae, makes this the first time since early April that the injury-plagued Mets have their projected Opening Day lineup on the field at the same time. The glorious return of consistency is shut out 4-0 by Pete Harnisch, the ex-Met who once called up WFAN to tell the world that no one in the Shea clubhouse could stand playing for Bobby Valentine. Two balls hit into the right field corner go for triples when Bonilla proves unequal to the task of tracking them down. Chants of BOBBY SUCKS! resound throughout the stands, and are replaced by cheers when Roger Cedeño jogs out to take Bonilla’s place for defense in the ninth inning.

Why start the struggling, hated Bonilla at all? “We’re kind of into the set-lineup mode,” Valentine says through gritted teeth. “We’ll see how that works. I’ve been criticized a lot for changing my lineup lately.”  Valentine’s sense of irony does nothing to cut the tension within the ranks. Mike Piazza confesses he is “trying to put the ball over the scoreboard” with every pitch. A players-only meeting is called after the game to try to clear the air,  adding more voices to the rumblings that Valentine is losing the respect and attention of his charges. 

In a back-and-forth series finale, the Mets rally for four runs in the bottom of the seventh and carry a 7-6 lead into the top of the ninth, putting them in line for a morale boosting come-from-behind victory, the kind this struggling team needs desperately. Two quick outs from John Franco bring the Mets to within inches of that victory. But Franco walks Greg Vaughn, and the crowd begins to stir. Then, Barry Larkin hits a ball near the shortstop hole, the kind of ball Robin Ventura normally puts in his pocket, if only Ventura wasn’t playing the line against the threat of a double. If Rey Ordoñez was playing shortstop, he might have been able to work his wizardry on this ball. But the shortstop position is being manned by backup Luis Lopez. All Lopez can do is smother the ball on the infield. The stirring gives way to groans. Vaughn and Larkin then execute a double steal. All the fans who stood in anticipation of the final out feel nervously for their seats.

Mets fans have seen this act before. They’ve seen it every year of this decade. It is the classic John Franco Cardiac Special the closer has served up at Shea since 1990. He has always been surrounded by an aura of difficulty, possessed of a preternatural inability to do anything the easy way. This year, he’s endured a few near misses but as yet has not blown any save opportunity. This only means his number is due to come up.

The Met closer comes within a hair’s breadth of escaping by backing Reds centerfielder Mike Cameron into an 0-2 hole, but Cameron rebounds to even the count, then slaps a single right up the middle. Franco spins around like a top, watching it skip into the outfield as Vaughn and Larkin score the tying and go-ahead runs behind his back. A fan at field level expresses his disgust by hurling a softball in Franco’s general direction. No one on the field notices, least of all Franco.  The shellshocked Met batters go quietly in the bottom of the ninth. The home team falls yet again, 8-7.

Thus concludes a miserable 0-6 homestand, the first time the Mets have been swept in back-to-back three-game series at home since 1962. Those were the inaugural Mets of Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Choo-Choo Coleman, lovable losers, hilariously inept. No one is laughing now. 

With the Mets’ season hanging in the balance, the pitchforks emerge from the mob, and most point their sharpened tines at Bobby Valentine. In the Times, Murray Chass tsks “The Mets once again have promised more than they can deliver. They have fooled their fans and themselves before, and here they have gone and done it again.” Chass is far from Valentine’s only nemesis in the press, but he may be his most relentless, and he ascribes the Mets’ slide to their manager because “Valentine has more people in baseball pulling against him than any other individual.” He rehashes memories of the dismal, overpaid wreckage of the Worst Team Money Could Buy, an overpaid train wreck that cost manager Jeff Torborg his job. “No one has suggested that a repeat of that act is being contemplated this season,” Chass cautions as he suggests just that, “but Bobby Valentine is in the classic dismissal position.”

What a team in the Mets’ position could use is a low-key series against a soft opponent, preferably some place far away from New York. What the Mets will get is the exact opposite: The Subway Series.

* * *

The ongoing disaster for the Mets is a godsend for the media. Anticipating bloodshed, reporters flock to the Subway Series in the Bronx, demanding 250 press passes for the three games at Yankee Stadium.  And yet, despite the ill will between the two teams and the current misfortunes befalling the Mets, all members of the fourth estate echo the sentiments of Tim McCarver, longtime Met broadcaster who now calls games for the Yankees (canned by the team after the 1998 season, rumor has it, because he was too critical of Valentine). “It doesn’t get any better than this as far as regular season baseball,” McCarver swoons. “It titillates the whole city.”  The Post calls the Subway Series “the best three days in New York sports.” This assertion is the lede to an article with a headline comparing the matchup to Armageddon.

Some of the players involved put up a front of good-natured bipartisanship by participating in a charity stickball game the day before the first battle of Armageddon, emceed by Met legend Keith Hernandez.  Most feel less playful. During the first two years of Subway Series action, the Mets toed the narrative of how good these games were for the city, even proclaiming to be happy after losing two of three to the Yankees on each occasion because they put up a good fight. This year, high profile games coming at the nadir of their season make the Mets less gung-ho about the whole affair. Following his blown save against the Reds, John Franco is asked a few questions about the Subway Series. Each query receives a terse “I don’t care” in response.  For the first time, the Mets make noise about the hardship of playing six games against the Yankees (a new wrinkle this year; the two teams only played one series against each other in 1997 and 1998), while their closest divisional rivals will play the Yankees a mere three times, if at all. “It’s not an equitable schedule,” Bobby Valentine grumbles.

For their part, the Yankees maintain their annoyance at the artificial hype surrounding the affair. Treating the games against the Mets as a mini-World Series holds no water for a team that believes baseball is played for the sole purpose of winning the real World Series. Lest anyone forget this, George Steinbrenner reminds everyone when expressing his disdain for the event. “It takes the focus away from where it belongs,” The Boss says, “and that’s on the pennant races.” To further demonstrate his disapproval, Steinbrenner will not attend any of the games, citing prior commitments, even though they will be played in the Bronx. 

Under this directive, the Yankees do their best to pretend these games are no more special than any of the 159 others they must play to reach October. Paul O’Neill, veteran outfielder and the team’s cantankerous spiritual leader, speaks for the entire Yankee clubhouse when he contends the Subway Series “isn’t that big of a deal.” This was the same man who belted a dramatic home run at Shea in 1998, a moonshot that won a game and took reliever Mel Rojas’ career in Queens along with it (and caused many to wonder why on earth Bobby Valentine allowed the righty Rojas to face such a dangerous left-handed batter in the first place). The home run is indelibly printed in fans’ memories, recalled with fondness or anger depending on which team they favor. Because the homer was hit in a Subway Series game, however, O’Neill must downplay the memory as much as possible. So when a reporter recalls the shot he hit off of Rojas, O’Neill contends, “I remember a lot of other games more than that one. It didn’t mean that much. They didn’t lose by one game, did they?”

One reporter reminds O’Neill that yes, the Mets did in fact miss out on the playoffs by one game in 1998.

“Oh,” the outfielder mutters. 

As an ex-Met, Yankee hurler David Cone is hounded more than most. Members of the press ask him the same tired questions about how the two teams compare, year after year. Fans treat him no better. The day before the first Subway Series game, while participating in a charity softball game run by comedian Billy Crystal, he is introduced to a blind teenager from the Bronx. As Cone shakes his hand, the young man reveals he is a Mets fan and predicts he will get roughed up in the opener. Piazza’s gonna hit a three-run homer, top of the first, he says. Normally quick with a comeback, a stunned Cone can’t get a word out.  “I know after playing three games at Shea last year, our players were glad to see it was over,” Cone sighs. “There was intense scrutiny, high stress and high drama at a time of the season when you’re trying to play it day by day.”

Deep though it may run, Yankee players’ dislike of the Subway Series pales in comparison to that of their manager. “I hate it,” Joe Torre tells one reporter.  “It’s a nightmare for us,” he groans to another. “The fans love it, the whole city is charged and that part is great, but the outcome of the game is torture. There’s so much made out of winning and losing. I’ve got to pick up my dry cleaning. Those are the guys that torture you.”  

At the risk of upsetting his dry cleaner, Torre and the Yankees reluctantly welcome the Mets on the evening of June 4. As the media arrives in the Bronx, reports circulate that the Mets have placed both Bobby Bonilla and Brian McRae on waivers, with an eye toward dealing both of them. Early birds looking for juicy quotes from the visiting clubhouse find only Al Leiter, who clearly has no clue about possible roster moves, if his state of undress is any indication.  When McRae and Bonilla do arrive, neither player claims awareness of their reportedly imminent departures. McRae has little to say on the matter, while Bonilla says a bit too much. “Ask me if I give a shit,” Bonilla roars to the scribes. “They can trade me to fuckin’ Alaska. They can do it quietly or they can tell me.” He also intimates he’d be happy to spend the rest of the season on his couch as long as he keeps getting paid. “They can send me home tomorrow if they like. It’s really up to them. I’ll watch the games on television. I might even buy a season ticket at Shea to kick a little money back to the club.” Steve Phillips declines comment,  a non-denial the press interprets as evidence the team would have already dealt the two outfielders if they’d found any takers for either one. Words like confusion and wavering are sprinkled throughout the stories that follow.

If the waiver wire incident doesn’t exude a bumbling, luckless atmosphere, the game that follows it certainly does. Though the Mets rally to tie the score on a Rey Ordoñez hit in the top of the sixth, the shortstop’s knock should have given the Mets a lead, but for a fan who leans over one of Yankee Stadium’s low walls and interferes with the ball as it rolls down the first base line. Ordoñez is “awarded” a ground-rule double, meaning the runner who’d been at first is forced to halt at third. Given this reprieve, the Yankees’ bullpen prevents further damage. It is not quite Jeffrey Maier—the young fan who stuck his fielder’s mitt over an outfield fence during the 1996 playoffs, turning a potential fly ball out into a home run for the Yankees—but it has a similar effect.

“Who knows what would have happened had the Mets gotten both runs?” Bill Madden wonders in the Daily News. He comes to the conclusion, “They probably would have found some other way to lose the game.” 

The way they find to lose in this case is via a rare infield miscue. With one out in the bottom of the seventh, a ground ball is hit between first and second. Though Edgardo Alfonzo is in a prime position to field it, John Olerud decides to leap for the ball. It glances off Olerud’s glove as he dives, allowing the runner to reach safely. Shortly thereafter, the same runner scores all the way from first when Rickey Henderson misplays a carom off the outfield wall. The Mets threaten for a moment in the ninth when Yankee closer Mariano Rivera hits a batter, then gives up a long fly ball to Edgardo Alfonzo. It has a hopeful arc, mere feet from being a game-tying double or a go-ahead homer. But the Mets lead the league in near misses these days. The ball settles into Paul O’Neill’s glove a few inches on the wrong side of the wall. The Mets lose again, 4-3. 

During the game, the Yankees are irked by the sight of Valentine examining a used baseball in the dugout, assuming he is looking for signs the ball is being doctored by the opposing pitcher. The manager denies the charge,  but times are desperate enough to make him look for evidence of sabotage. The speed and suddenness of the Mets’ fall from grace suggests outside forces, conspiracies, unseen hands switching the signposts to make them toddle off in the wrong direction.

With all other tactics exhausted, Valentine opts for cockeyed optimism. “I can’t be any more proud of a team,” he says in the wake of yet another defeat. “It’s not like we’re digging our way out. We’re playing a good brand of baseball…. Other than a victory, there’s nothing negative I can say about my guys.” 

It’s true enough that the Mets’ soul-crushing losing streak contains many close calls and very few blowouts. It is difficult to point to any one thing the Mets could have or should have done better over this stretch. And yet.

Other than victory… What a thing for a manager to say, and to say it at Yankee Stadium, where there is nothing other than victory. At this desperate juncture, Valentine’s words have a Panglossian ring. With so much talent on the team, and with the Mets falling short in so many games, it doesn’t take much deductive reasoning to surmise, as Murray Chass had days ago, that the manager is the real problem. Look at his managerial record: three games under .500 for his career and zero playoff appearances to show for it. Look at his way-too-public, way-too-personal clashes with players like Todd Hundley and Pete Harnisch. Look at his perpetual case of foot-in-mouth. Look at the brutal collapse at the end of the 1998 season. This man is supposed to lead the Mets to the promised land?

Comments about how “proud” Valentine is of his underachieving team point to greater deficiencies, say writers like William C. Rhoden of the Times:

Valentine spent a career trying to get past being “O.K.” as a player—he was never the same after he broke his leg—and as a manager.…What may define Valentine’s career is the end of last season, when the Mets, needing one victory to extend their season, lost all five games. Valentine could not find a way to win.…

When asked about Bonilla’s physical condition, Valentine said the outfielder was looking better, but added, “I’m just trying to determine if better is good enough.”

That is precisely what the Mets must eventually decide about Valentine. 

Team co-owner Fred Wilpon attempts to deflect such speculation by declaring he has made his decision. “He’s the manager,” Wilpon says. The press corps’ incredulous follow up: You mean, for the whole year? “Yes. He’s under contract and he’s our guy.” Steve Phillips also swears Valentine is doing a “good job,” implying his job is safe.  These contentions are duly recorded, for what they’re worth, at the same moment John Franco makes an appearance on WFAN that lends credence to the belief that Valentine has lost his clubhouse. Interviewed by the drive-time team of Mike and the Mad Dog, Franco confesses that his manager’s lineups leave his teammates “scratching their heads.” (This admission may help identify the Unnamed Veteran who complained to the press about lineup inconsistency a week earlier.) One of the hosts shares his belief that the Mets don’t give their all for Valentine. Rather than dismiss this theory, Franco coyly says, “You may have something there.”

A Met win might stem the calls for Bobby Valentine’s head, but even everything is conspiring against such an outcome right now, including the laws of physics. During the second inning of Subway Series game two, Rey Ordoñez hits a sharp grounder right back to Orlando Hernández, smacking the ball so hard it lodges between the fingers of the pitcher’s glove. Fearing he won’t have enough time to dislodge the ball or beat the runner to the bag, Hernández flings his whole glove toward first base overhand, at a distance of some 60 feet, where Tino Martinez catches it for the out. The crowd gasps before cheering, as if they had to confer with one another to make sure they truly witnessed this. Robin Ventura, stunned as anyone, moves to third on the out but is too flabbergasted to try and score while the ball is trapped in leather.

If ever the Baseball Gods sent a message This Is Not Your Day, surely this was it. At the moment the odd glove play happens, the Mets have the lead, but this serves as an omen that it shall not last. Masato Yoshii squanders this advantage and then some as the Mets fall yet again, 6-3. The Met losing streak, now up to eight games, has dropped the team a game below .500 and into third place in the National League East, behind the poorhouse Phillies.

One writer proclaims the Subway Series a snooze because the Mets are no match for the powerful Yankees.  Rather than retire to his office following their eighth straight defeat, Bobby Valentine patrols the visiting clubhouse long after it is empty, when most of his players are on the team bus awaiting a trip back to Shea, as if he is looking for something that refuses to be found. 

The only member of Met personnel exhibiting an emotion beyond shock is Steve Phillips. Before the game, Phillips is blindsided by published rumors he is about to fire pitching coach Bob Apodaca. Whispers of Apodaca’s tenuous grip on employment, which have been murmured all year while the Mets’ pitching sputtered, have gathered steam during the team’s losing streak. The only thing that saved the coach’s neck to this point was his close relationship with Bobby Valentine, but that connection holds a lot less power now than it once did. Phillips neither confirms nor denies such rumors while backpedaling from an implicit endorsement of Valentine he’d muttered the day before. Less than 24 hours ago, he’d insisted his manager was doing a “good job.” Now, when asked if Valentine’s status is as shaky as that of his pitching coach, Phillips says tersely, “draw your own conclusions.”  Following the game, he is even more brusque, bristling at a reporter’s question before using it as an excuse to make an early exit from the Bronx. 

Like everyone else connected with the Mets, Steve Phillips has weathered a rough week. On the morning before the first Subway Series game, he was called on to give a breakfast talk at Manhattan’s tony 21 Club on the subject of the outlook for baseball in the 21st century. He expected a softball Q&A session about his thoughts on expansion and divisional realignment. Instead, he was hit with a barrage of questions from attendees—largely Mets fans, by the sound of things—about the team’s miserable performance of late. Taken by surprise, he all but kowtowed to his inquisitors. “Our pitching, once fourth-best in the league, has really collapsed,” he admitted, “and our hitting, primarily our clutch hitting with runners in scoring position isn’t what it should be.” 

The unspoken follow-up to such admissions is, If you can see the team is so lousy, why’d you put it together in the first place? An editorial in the Post proclaims that if Bobby Valentine is to blame for the Mets’ slide, then Phillips must be doubly to blame for assembling the roster that is sliding. If you want to fire the former for the Mets’ failings, the Post commands, you must also fire the latter. 

Late in the evening after the Mets’ eighth consecutive loss, Phillips addresses the press via conference call to inform them he has dismissed half of the Met coaching staff. Bob Apodaca gets the axe as expected, along with hitting coach Tom Robson and assistant pitching and bullpen coach Randy Niemann. The dismissals of Robson and Niemann make little sense unless you know that, like Apodaca, both are close confidants of Bobby Valentine. The trio formed Valentine’s brain trust in the Met clubhouse. Now, all are gone.

The general manager insists he decided to fire all three coaches the previous Thursday and that the outcome of the Subway Series had no bearing on the move.  He offers no explanation as to why a decision he’d made a few days ago was announced in the dead of night on a Saturday. “The new idea seems to be straight from the Book of Steinbrenner,” Joel Sherman writes in the Post.  He means the old Steinbrenner of the 1980s, the one who spent tons of money on free agent busts and reacted to crises by issuing cruel, indiscriminate pink slips.

Valentine learns of the firings an hour before Phillips’s conference call. The manager makes counterarguments to save his coaches’ jobs, to no avail. He then exercises what little power he has left and spends the night at a hotel, staying off the grid and off the press’s radar as the controversy swells in the wee hours. 

Phillips denies the firings are a backhanded attempt to force Valentine to resign. If they are, Valentine doesn’t bite. To a man, his dismissed coaches urge the manager to continue on. He vows to do so, in a stance could be interpreted as either stubbornness or insanity. Shovel in hand, Murray Chass pens a column entitled “To Valentine, It Seems, Loyalty Has Its Limits,” in which he calls the manager a coward for not falling on his sword. What kind of person would continue on like this, Chass argues, when his bosses are telegraphing that they want him gone?  Other takes employ more diplomacy, but ask the same essential question.

The stage is set for a cringe-inducing press conference prior to the Subway Series finale on June 6. Steve Phillips does most of the talking, defending his actions in clipped, measured phrases, expressing remorse that, sigh, it has come to this. Bobby Valentine sits at his side and says very little, looking like a hyperactive child forced to squirm through Sunday mass, his eyes darting in every direction. He bites his knuckles throughout the grotesque charade, as if afraid his mouth might betray him if it isn’t filled with something. Valentine’s presence is meant to add credence to the charade that everyone in the Met organization is now on the same page, a lie insulting the intelligence of everyone on hand to hear it.

When asked if he’s “lost” the team, Valentine responds, “None of my power is gone. I still have total control over things I’ve always had control over.” To Lisa Olson of the Daily News, Valentine’s words ring with echoes of Al Haig, the bygone politico who screeched “I’m in charge here!” in the wake of an attempt on President Reagan’s life, thus proving he was in charge of nothing.

I still have total control over things I’ve always had control over. A curious response, almost a zen koan in its profound meaninglessness. What exactly does Valentine have control over? The answer is: words. He’s always been able to command words, for as much as they’re worth. So he forms them into a cudgel and wields them on himself.

The Mets have played 55 games to this point in the season. “If we’re dealing with 55 games that just cost a few guys their jobs, I can’t see lasting much past that,” he says. “That’s fine with me.” He then expresses an amount of optimism that borders on the delusional, given how his team has played lately. “Within the next 55 to 75 games we’ll be in touch with the leaders of our division,” he contends. He even insists the Mets have the talent and ability to win 40 of the next 55 games they play—and if they don’t, he deserves to be fired. 

There are a few outlets that interpret this gambit as a sign of mad genius. Sporting News calls Valentine’s self-imposed deadline “an act of Machiavellian genius” that “set the agenda before G.M. Steve Phillips or other forces in the Met front office could open a smaller window and throw Valentine out of it.”  Locally, however, the manager’s words are reported with little comment. Forty out of fifty-five…they might as well print the ranting of a street corner madman. The Post compares Valentine’s prediction to putting a gun to his own head and asking the front office to pull the trigger.

As close spectators to the unraveling, the Yankees have the worst possible reaction: pity. Most of their players choose to say little on the subject, but those who do contribute remarks that border on the condescending, as when David Cone surmises, “I know the players are probably embarrassed over there.”

The Mets desperately need to salvage a victory in the Subway Series finale, if they to leave the Bronx with a shred of dignity left, but they will have to do so against Roger Clemens, winner of 20 decisions in a row, an American League record. The Rocket hasn’t been perfect this season, but the potent Yankee offense has bailed him out more than once, proving it is often better to be lucky than good. The Mets will counter with Al Leiter, who has been neither lucky nor good so far in 1999.

This confluence of events seems laboratory engineered to end the Mets’ season before the All Star Break, which makes what happens during the game even more remarkable. Mike Piazza doubles to lead off the top of the second, Robin Ventura follows with a single, and Brian McRae walks to load the bases. The free pass to McRae includes a few close calls Clemens does not get, prompting the pitcher to dart a few deadly stares back at the umpire. He then gets ahead of the hapless Bobby Bonilla 0-2, only to allow the count to go full, the third ball coming on another close pitch. Clemens stalks around the mound, smirking in disbelief. Bonilla lines the next pitch fair down the right field line, fair by inches, for a two-run double. Benny Agbayani drives in another two with a single. All of this happens before an out is recorded in the inning, against a pitcher who hasn’t lost in almost a year.

Clemens sets the next three batters down without further incident, but in the third, he gives up a homer to Piazza, a monster shot that lands in a narrow corner of the Yankees’ bullpen beyond the left-center field fence. Moments later, Agbayani notches another RBI, and that is the end of the line for Clemens, who exits with one of the ugliest lines of his illustrious career: 2 2/3 innings, eight hits, seven runs, all earned.

As amazing as this epidemic of clutch hitting is, Leiter’s performance is even more stunning. The Mets’ reputed ace finally pitches like one, allowing only one run on four hits in seven innings of work. It is exactly the kind of performance the Mets need, the kind of performance a number one starter is supposed to deliver. With no need to excuse another mediocre outing, Leiter quips, “I’m so relieved just so I don’t have to answer your questions of why I’m so shitty.” 

The Mets follow the 7-2 win over the Yankees by taking the first two games of a series against Toronto at Shea. In the opener, they torch rookie Blue Jay pitcher Roy Halladay for six runs and cruise to victory. The next night, the Met bats explode again, a barrage that gives star-crossed Jason Isringhausen his first major league win in almost two years. “I get teased that every time I go out there, there’s a black cloud over the stadium,” a weary Isringhausen tells reporters after the game. “At times, if I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”  It is a sentiment every Met now understands. Adding to Isringhausen’s anxiety is the fact that ailing starter Bobby Jones is rehabbing in the minors. Jones’s return could push Izzy into the bullpen or back down to the farm, but Bobby Valentine refuses to discuss the matter after the game. “Why try to figure out what’s going to happen in three weeks when we don’t know the next five days?” he snaps to reporters.

Speculating about the future holds no interest to a man who’s been told over and over again that he is living on borrowed time. A decisive victory against Roger Clemens and a three-game winning streak are not sufficient to end the Bobby Valentine Death Watch. Newspapers run opinion pieces with titles like “Mets, Own Up to the Inevitable,” urging the team to cut its losses and ditch Valentine for the good of everyone involved. Valentine’s survival depends on him delivering on his 55-game guarantee, or at least returning the Mets to something close to normalcy. But as Jack Curry points out in the New York Times, “Exactly what is normal for the Mets is still uncertain.”

* * *

Moments after Valentine is given his early exit on the evening of June 9, the FOX Sports cameras spy a lurker in the Met dugout. In the strictest sense, this man is not in the dugout. The culprit will be careful to make this distinction later, in part to forestall a suspension and fine, in part to insist he did not violate the letter of the law. He stands on the top step connecting the dugout to the clubhouse tunnel. On his head, a black baseball cap. Not a Mets hat, but one with an indecipherable logo. No one knows what it says. No one will ever know, for no closeup or freeze frame provides a definitive answer. He wears a Met t-shirt, and a cheap looking one at that, the bootleg kind that enterprising vendors sell in the parking lot to free-spending tailgaters. His eyes are obscured by a large pair of aviator sunglasses, resembling those sported in the police sketch of the Unabomber. Below his nose, a laughably fake mustache painted on with the eye-black outfielders use to ward off the glare of the midday sun. It is the kind of “disguise” a person would wear not to go unnoticed, but to stand out.

The lurker’s arms are folded. He rocks side to side, performing such a strenuous job of trying to not be seen that no one can fail to miss him. The players on the bench pay him no mind, but their ignorance of this character is contrived. They are doing everything in their power to not look at him, which only serves to draw more attention his way. The mystery man in the ridiculous get-up remains silent. He need say nothing, for his appearance says everything. Isn’t this is supposed to be fun? he says without speaking a word. Isn’t this supposed to be a game?

For those watching live, he seems to hover there forever. But only a few moments pass before he is gone.