Is A 13 1/2 Game Lead Enough Of A Reason To Start Talking “1986” Again?

The first-place Mets seem to be getting a little cocky:

If you’re wondering who to thank for the inexpensive meals that will be offered at Queens restaurants next month, place a call to Bill Buckner.

Two decades after a ground ball trickled under the Red Sox first baseman’s glove, helping the Mets win the 1986 World Series, restaurants throughout the borough announced yesterday that they will be offering a special prix fixe menu of $19.86 to commemorate the team’s last championship.

The discounts — being offered as part of Discover Queens Restaurant Week on Sept. 18-21 and again on Sept. 25-28 — are designed to keep Queens residents in the borough at mealtime, said Michelle Stoddart, director of marketing and tourism for the Queens Economic Development Corp.

“People are accustomed to going into Manhattan to eat and sometimes leaving their own neighborhoods that have great restaurants there,” Stoddart said. “So we want to highlight that all this can be found in Queens.”

About 20 restaurants have already agreed to participate in the event, and organizers hope to get at least 80 more on board in the next few weeks, Stoddart said.

The Mets will promote the eight-day event through in-game announcements on the Diamond Vision screen at Shea Stadium, and organizers plan to place ads in local newspapers to get the word out.

We Need More Cowbell

The Daily News profiles cowbell man, the latest in the storied history of long-suffering Mets superfans:

The New York Mets were down seven runs by the seventh-inning stretch to the worst team in the National League one recent night, and it seemed the only thing keeping fans inside steamy-hot Shea Stadium was the promise of post-game pyrotechnics.

But even a pummeling at the hands of the Pittsburgh Pirates couldn’t stop scoreboard-blind superfan Edwin (Cowbell Man) Boison, who continued to roam the stadium, pounding out the beat to the battlecry of Shea: Lets Go Mets!

“I think it’s awesome that there is a guy who is this dedicated to the game and the Mets — it’s exciting,” said Rich Laconi, 24, of Astoria, who had asked Boison to pose for a picture.

Not to be left out of the photo shoot was Laconi’s friend, Aileen Tlamsa, 24, also of Astoria. “I want to thank you. I have a picture of you in my cell phone from last year’s Fireworks Night,” she told Boison.

“It’s always my pleasure to take pictures with fans,” the affable Boison remarked after taking off his signature “Cowbell-Man” Mets jersey so Tlamsa could model it for the picture. “I want them to feel like they’re having a good time at the ballpark and have something to talk about when they leave — even if the Mets don’t win.”

For the last 11 seasons, regardless of the standings, the score, the opponent or the weather, Boison, 48, has pounded beats all over Shea, logging more miles each game than Mr. Met, the team’s official mascot.

“I’ve always been a people person,” he said, when asked to explain his high-profile hobby. “I go in there as ‘Cowbell Man’ to represent the team and the fans. I consider myself a superfan.”

. . .

Yet while his crowd-roving percussion act has pushed him to the brink of icon status at Shea, Boison has learned that there is a downside to being a superfan. Because of complaints from a few season-ticket holding fans on the loge level, section 5, Boison is forced to bypass this section entirely during his stadium wanderings. As one Shea stadium employee put it, the detour is the result of “an uneasy truce” brokered between the two sides.

“He’s an arrogant pain in the a–,” said Bill Brownsell, 53, an anti-Boison Mets season-ticket holder in section 5.

“He’s more interested in promoting himself,” chimed in section-mate Eric Michalak, 47, who flies up from his home in Cape Coral, Fla., to attend Mets games. “There are a lot of people who would rather not have him here.”

Blue Pants, Santa Claus And Deuce

At the risk of going all Ken Burns gooey, it is safe to say that stickball is more than just a game — it is democracy itself:

Five longtime stickball players from the Bronx joined the likes of New York City greats Joe Torre, Willie Randolph, Rusty Torres, Arturo Lopez and Joe Pepitone when they were inducted this week into the Stickball Hall of Fame.

Before the athletes named above starred on baseball fields in the big leagues, these ballplayers took to the asphalt in their youth for games like “Box Ball,” “Throw it up, one swing” and “pitch it in, one bounce.” With a Spaldeen in hand and a stickball bat (sometimes their mother’s broom handle), many other kids across the city and in the Bronx first learned the concept of baseball from its urbanized counterpart.

Martin “Marty” Rogers, Fr. Frank Skelly, Patrick “Patsy” Viverito, Paul “Pauly” Saryian and the late Felix “Lenny” Santiago are five Bronxites who spent a good part of their youths playing stickball. And this week they were inducted into the Stickball Hall of Fame during its seventh annual ceremony on Friday, July 7 at the Museum of the City of New York. Their names will now be added to a plaque in the museum.

. . .

Rogers and Skelly are two alumni from Immaculate Conception School on 150th Street. Skelly, class of 1960 and now a Catholic priest, played stickball in “the Alley” on Brook Avenue near 149th Street and has served as pastor at St. Cecilia’s Church in El Barrio and at Immaculate Conception. Today he is director of the San Alfonso Retreat House in New Jersey.

Skelly reminisced: “Our firescape was one flight up and offered grandstand seats for all the block activity. But ‘going down’ and being part of it all was always more fun. The teenagers were known as the Alley Boys and wore monikers like Joey Brooklyn, Blue Pants, Santa Claus and Deuce. They seemed to have a God given right to the use of the fields of play. Very little equipment was needed for any of these games of stickball, and so it was an equal playing field where skills was the criterion for success.”

In the early 1960s, Santiago was part of a team called the Young Neptunes, from Forest Avenue and 156th Street. Before his passing, he played in the New York Emperors Stickball League in the Bronx.

[Emph. added so lazy Ken Burns only has to skim the good parts.]

See also: streetplay.com’s Stickball pages . . . stickball events are held throughout the year (that just went on the to-do list).

Trying To Convince Your Body To Dance It All Down

Takeru Kobayashi bravely defended his competitive eating title against young upstart Joey Chestnut during yesterday’s hot dog eating contest at Coney Island:

Takeru Kobayashi managed to scarf down 53 3/4 frankfurters in 12 minutes to remain top dog at the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest.

The 160-pound Japanese eating machine took his sixth straight crown and even managed to best his own record of 53 1/2 dogs, which he set in 2004.

“I feel great,” Kobayashi said through a translator after the stomach-turning contest.

Kobayashi’s closest competition came from 220-pound Joey Chestnut, who struggled to stuff 52 dogs down his gullet.

The two were neck-and-neck — or rather, throat-and-throat — for much of the contest, but Kobayshi’s well-honed style of dipping the dogs in liquid before letting them slide down his throat was too much for Chestnut to handle.

“I know I can do more,” said Chestnut, 22, whose game plan was to gyrate back and forth. “I’m trying to convince my body to dance it all down,” he said.

Backstory: Let’s Return The Competitive Eating Championship Where It Belongs: The Good ‘Ol Girth-Loving U. S. Of A.

For further study: International Federation of Competitive Eating.

No Bandwagon Here: I Have Not Been, Nor Will I Ever Be, A Mets Fan

Refreshing candor from New York’s junior senator:

One crowd Hillary Clinton will never be accused of pandering to? The one at Shea Stadium.

Clinton, appearing at the National Press Club Tuesday, made it clear that her hometown loyalty extends to only one of New York’s baseball franchises — and it’s not the one next to the body shops of Flushing.

“I cannot let stand that I have ever, ever been a Mets fan: Let’s set the record straight,” said Clinton. “The Cubs and the Yankees — those were my teams and remained my teams growing up and now in my mature years.”

After all, this is a team that last night took eight innings to score off of Phillies reliever Ryan Madson. Not very impressive:

The game, of course, did not have to last as long as it did. It could have ended much earlier — when folks remembered that Steve Trachsel started and David Bell knocked in five runs — if . . .

If Paul Lo Duca had held onto that throw in the fifth inning, then the Phillies couldn’t have scored four runs.

If Ryan Howard had fielded that grounder cleanly in the eighth, the Mets couldn’t have scored three.

If Beltrán would not have slid past second base in the 10th, then David Wright’s single probably would have scored him with the winning run.

If José Reyes were not so athletic, he couldn’t have jumped high enough to spear Bobby Abreu’s liner in the 13th, doubling Chase Utley off second and thwarting the go-ahead run.

Then again, such a resolution would have been unsuitable last night. Too simple. So they kept playing.

The five hour, 22 minute game was the longest of the season. A pox on both your houses, I say!