The Oct. 1 Page One article incorrectly referred to New York's La Guardia Airport as LaGuardia International Airport.
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Collapse Is Complete, and the Mets Are History
Tom Glavine pitches the worst game of his career when the Mets need him most, and New York completes a stunning September collapse with an 8-1 loss to Florida which eliminates it from the playoffs.
(Chris Trotman - Getty Images)
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On the morning of Sept. 13, with the Mets leading the Phillies by seven games in the division, the analytical Web site Baseballprospectus.com posted its playoff-odds update, in which the win-loss record, runs scored and runs allowed of all 30 teams in baseball are logged into a computer and put through 1 million simulated "seasons." The Mets made the playoffs in 99.8 percent of those simulations.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]"We played the way we wanted to all year, but fell apart in these last few weeks," said David Wright, the Mets' talented 24-year-old third baseman. "We played beyond horrible. We did this to ourselves. . . . It's not like it blindsided us. We just gradually let this thing get away."
There was nothing gradual, however, about Sunday's gruesome loss. Veteran lefty Tom Glavine, one of only three active 300-game winners in baseball, retired only one of the nine batters he faced, departing from the mound with his head hanging to a soundtrack of boos from the crowd of 54,453.
How quickly did it go from hopeful to hopeless? On the "official game thread" at the Mets fan Web site Amazinavenue.com, a post at 1:08 p.m. -- three minutes before first pitch -- by a fan with the handle TheFlushingKings, proclaimed "this is exciting . . . Let's Go Mets!!!"
But at 1:37 p.m., a fan going by "elifriedman" says in a post titled "a complete disgrace," "this is my last post possibly forever. I will not root for this stupid team unless they make wholesale changes."
This being New York, there will be wisecracking back-page headlines in the Post and the Daily News on Monday morning, and columnists and talk-radio callers demanding the heads of Mets Manager Willie Randolph and General Manager Omar Minaya.
That will be followed by something even worse -- nothing. No games, no media coverage, no Mets buzz at all, as the city shifts its full attention to the Bronx, where the American League's Yankees made the playoffs for a 13th consecutive season and will open postseason play Thursday in Cleveland.
There will be baseball again in Queens, but it won't be until next April, and there is a 99.8 percent chance the sting from the Collapse of 2007 will still be felt at Shea Stadium.
Staff writer Barry Svrluga contributed to this report from Philadelphia.
