Keith Hernandez said it best. It feels like a punch to the gut. Carlos Beltran hit a 2 run homer to tie the game and Endy Chavez made another amazing catch to keep the Marlins from scoring but the Mets bullpen once again let them down with Scott Schoeneweis and Luis Ayala each gave up solo home runs late to give the Marlins another victory on the final game of the season to end the Mets playoff dreams.

Its a tough pill to swallow and us fans will again have to endure a long offseason wondering what if. What if the bullpen didn’t blow so many games? What if the offense didn’t fall asleep again over the last week. The season now ends, and we will all need to find a way to move forward.

What I do have to look forward to is a beautiful new stadium, Johan Santana pitching every 5 days (or less if necessary) for the foreseeable future, and an emerging fine young player in Dan Murphy.

I know it has to be tough right now, and I feel awful, but I will try and think back to all the great memories we have had a Shea and hope we can make some new ones next year at Citi Field.

Even when it seemed that all was lost, thanks for believing.

The Mets have taken us to the edge once again. It is fitting, that the day the Mets celebrate Shea Stadium and all the amazing games they have played here that they have the opportunity to keep their season alive on the very last day of the regular season.

This is Mets baseball folks, and this is part of why we love this team.

Win or lose, this will be a special day at Shea, with some of the greatest players to ever step on our old home in Flushing. The 92nd St Y special prior to the Mets pregame was incredible. Getting to hear some great stories from Ronnie, Darryl and Straw, and reliving those great Mets moments at Shea.

Enjoy this once in a lifetime event, and I hope the Mets can make it even more special by willing themselves to win today.
This has been some roller coaster of a season, as they often are with our Metsies. Through it all we keep coming back, the fans and the team. A resiliency that few other teams and fans can understand. Here we are once again, with another chance to make an amazing memory for Shea. Sure, it would have been nice to do moonwalk into the playoffs, but you know better than that. You, as a Mets fan realize this is what you signed up for.

They never make it easy, they have always tested how much you believe. Well today is no different. Today we ask you to once more, on this momentous day in Mets history, to believe.

Thank you, Johan.

I can’t believe it, but I’m still believing.

Hat tip to Lets Go Mets tumblr.

Word over at Mets Blog is that there is a good chance Dwight Gooden will join the Mets for their farewell to Shea ceremony on Sunday. The very idea of Doc and Darryl Strawberry, two of my childhood idols together, arm and arm at Shea on stadium gets me a bit emotional for a number of reasons.

Doc and Darryl were baseball royalty to me. Doc, the most dominant pitcher in baseball, who could have possibly been one of the greatest of all time had things turned out differently off the field. Darryl Strawberry, with his sweet golf swing, teeing off and dispensing baseballs with such effortless force it seemed like he was driving them with a three wood. While they faded soon after their stars ascended, the impact they had on me as a kid has never dulled and in fact burns brighter as the years go by.

I’ll watch quite emotionally if both of my boyhood idols do indeed arrive together at Shea one last time, and a goodbye to this field of dreams will feel a whole heck of a lot more complete.

I received an email today from Chris McShane of Develop Willets Point that I would like to share with you. If you have an opposing view from Chris and wish for me to post yours as well, feel free to contact me. Both sides of this important issue are welcome here at Hot Foot.

Hello everyone,

I wanted to let you know that I’m organizing a rally in support of cleaning up and developing Willets Point for 11 am on Sunday morning.  The rally will take place on Roosevelt Avenue near the stairs of the Willets Point Shea Stadium station.

I’ll have plenty of copies of fliers for hand-outs to curious Mets fans.  I’m also working on getting some Clean Up Willets Point signs there.

I can use any help any of you or your readers might be willing to offer.  People to hold up signs, speak to the press, and hand out fliers would be great.  Please email me back if you can make it yourself.  If you know anyone else who is interested or want to post something on your site, please have people email me at: developwilletspoint@gmail.com

I really hope to see you all out there on Sunday morning.  As we close down Shea Stadium - hopefully just for the last regular season game - we’ll have a chance to express our voices about the future neighborhood in which we’ll attend so many games.

We’ll meet at 10:30 am to start handing out fliers on Roosevelt and try to gather a good crowd for any of the media that shows up.

If you have any questions, or if I’ve forgotten any important details, please let me know.

Thanks so much.

Chris McShane
Develop Willets Point

Shea isn’t the prettiest park in baseball. It doesn’t have the long tradition of Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park. The concessions are downright awful. However, Duk at Big League Stew perhaps best summed up why I, and I suspect many others love Shea Stadium so much,

“the charm about Shea is that it’s a neighborhood bar.”

Shea Stadium is our neighborhood bar. As we move into CitiField, most folks will be corporate, white collar types who can afford the exorbitant prices they’re charging and will make up a good portion of the crowd. However, the history of Shea’s audience is distinctly blue collar. The team, the stadium, and their fans are a scrappy bunch, and all you have to do to understand why is because they’ve chosen this team over the far more successful one in the Bronx.

You see Mets fans love their team for more than just wins and losses, it runs far deeper than that, Mets fans connect with their team on a deeper emotional level and considering the roller coaster history of the team, they’ve gained an emotional maturity fans of the other team in town cannot understand. To be fair, there is the die hard base on both sides of town, and then there is that wide swath of fans who float between whatever team happens to be successful at the time. Yankee and Met fans can agree on one thing, and that is an acute disdain of those types of fans.

But I digress, this is an ode to our lovely lady Shea. The home of our childhoods, of the Buckner ball, of Dykstra’s heroic NLCS home run, of Darryl’s moon shots, Piazza’s emotional post-9/11 home run, Ventura’s grand slam single, Endy’s miracle catch and so much more. These things we get to take with us. The memories. While they auction off every square inch of the stadium, the pieces of Shea will scatter among the fanbase, but we get to share the things that matter most, the moments. No wrecking ball can ever remove those from our collective psyches.

The neighborhood bar that we all came to know and love, the stranger who became a new friend sitting in the row behind us or in the adjacent box. The knowing that this stranger has endured the same soul crushing defeats and life affirming victories. A shared knowledge that most of the folks on the other side of town were pretending while we were authentic fans, who knew real pain and for that the victories were that much sweeter.

Shea is more than just the stadium itself, but the people who came, and may not all be able to come when the new stadium opens. Shea is the culture, the current and past fan base. The folks who walked up and bought tickets the day of games, who likely won’t have that chance next year. This is Shea Stadium, not just the structure but the people.

So if you wonder why I describe people, and not just this architectural behemoth, it is because this baseball sanctuary is more than just a thing but a living breathing organism of hopes and dreams that do not die when the building disappears. The soul of the stadium remains, perhaps in limbo, as the bodies that the soul inhabits may not have the resources to move with it to its new home.

Here’s to the soul of Shea Stadium.

Join the Hot Foot Facebook Group for special prizes you won’t even find on HotFootBlog.com

This is your last chance to enter to win our first Facebook Group prize.

The first of many prizes currently being offered is a t-shirt from a recent Mets game, which is in honor of the final season at Shea Stadium. This shirt is exclusively available only to folks who attended the Last Season At Shea shirt game, but you have a chance to win it by joining our Hot Foot Facebook Group.

One lucky person who joins will win this special shirt. So head over by clicking here and get a chance at this one of a kind piece of Mets history.

Omar Minaya told Mike Francesa on his WFAN radio show recently that he will not base his decision to renew Jerry Manuel’s contract as manager of the Mets on if the Mets make the playoffs or not.

As was reported earlier this week, the Mets are close to giving Omar Minaya a four-year extension.

I’m not opposed to bringing Minaya and Manuel back, but the timing of these announcements are bad. The pressure should be put on Minaya and Manuel to get the Mets into the playoffs, regardless of the Mets intentions.

An anonymous clubhouse insider told the Seattle Times that Mariners teammates were so annoyed with Ichiro Suzuki earlier this season that they considered beating him up.

“I just can’t believe the number of guys who really dislike him,” said the insider. “It got to a point early on when I thought they were going to get together and go after him.” The coaching staff and then-manager John McLaren intervened when one player was overheard talking about wanting to “knock him out.