The Mets Police

According to Mets By The Numbers, no Met has worn #8 since the end of 2002.

So, in effect, #8 is retired.

It cannot be an accident that #8 sits unused, like 24 and like 31.

Someone is choosing not to issue the number.

So retire it.

Have Gary Carter out to Citi Field to retire #8.  Man, that will be one hell of an emotional day for everyone involved.  I know I wouldn’t be able to get through it without getting misty eyed.

He’s in the Mets Hall of Fame.  He is in Cooperstown.  He won a ring.  He was the co-captain.  Nobody wears the number anyway.

We can argue a different day about 17, 31, 16, 18, 36 or whatever other number you want to argue about.

This is about Gary Carter.  Fan favorite.  Team captain.  Champion.  Hall of Famer.  The first person you think of when you think of 8.

This is a family.  Don’t wait until it’s too late to tell someone you love him.  Especially when nobody is using the number anyway.

UPDATE: The Mets ran some video of Gary at Sunday’s game which you can see here thanks to Peter

 

 

Wow, I was going to borrow a post from my friend Louie over at CenterfieldMaz today, but before I got there I saw this on the great Faith & Fear

I went directly to the Polo Grounds’ share of the stadium exhibit and sure enough, the legendary plaque was recreated in full. All of Grant’s athletic and military accomplishments were listed, accompanied by an explanation of the plaque’s history. As a latter-day New York Giants buff, I was gratified. As a student of baseball history, I was impressed. But as a Mets fan who has wanted the Mets to embrace in some substantive fashion their two-pronged line of ancestry, I was thrilled. I was thrilled that someone in the Mets organization, perhaps at the highest level, went the extra 483 feet (the distance from home to deepest center at the Polo Grounds) to carve a niche for a meaningful piece of local baseball lore: something that had nothing at all to do with the Dodgers, something that had nothing directly to do with the Mets, something that represents the kind of patriotism and sacrifice the Mets honor every game when they single out a veteran for our appreciation. The Eddie Grant plaque’s dedication having occurred ninety years ago this week is a perfect, perhaps coincidental, touch.

via Going to the Game on May 28 « Faith and Fear in Flushing.

Now you’re probably wondering who this Eddie Grant is and why you have never heard of him or ths plaque.

That’s precisely the point.  This was overdue in coming to Citi Ebbetts Field, and the Mets really need to learn to tell us about such things when they do it.  Good press can be fun too.

On this Memorial Day take some time to learn about Captain Grant, the mystery of the plaque which disappeared for years, and if you head out to Flushing, pop in and take a minute to think about Captain Grant and all the other men and women who gave their lives for our way of life.