A love letter to New York Mets fandom— the triumphs, the heartbreak, and everything in between Childhood for Evan Roberts was defined by outings to the old Shea Stadium with his father, always with a scorebook in hand. What began as a gameday ritual replete with misspelled player names and scrawled symbols turned into an obsession with scoring every game he watched, one which persisted as Roberts rose through the ranks at WFAN. Taken together, those scorebooks form a living, breathing Mets diary spanning 30 years of thrilling— and, at times, tortured— fandom.My Baseball Bible is an exercise in memory and nostalgia, and a meditation on the things that stick with us as sports fans. With his personal scorecards as a guide, Roberts brings to life some of the most unforgettable moments in Mets lore, offering a fresh perspective on the highs and lows of being a die-hard fan. Meticulously kept history mixes with personal recollections and behind-the-scenes anecdotes covering touchstone events such as Johan Santana's no-hitter, Robin Ventura's grand slam "single", and the loss that Roberts has never quite gotten over.By turns heartfelt and hilarious, Roberts delivers a thrilling and wholly unique journey through modern Mets history.

The New York Mets fan is an Amazin’ creature whose species finds its voice at last in Greg Prince’s Faith and Fear In Flushing, the definitive account of what it means to root for and live through the machinations of an endlessly fascinating if often frustrating baseball team. Prince, coauthor of the highly regarded blog of the same name, examines how the life of the franchise mirrors the life of its fans, particularly his own. Unabashedly and unapologetically, Prince stands up for all Mets fans and, by proxy, sports fans everywhere in exploring how we root, why we take it so seriously, and what it all means. What was it like to enter a baseball world about to be ruled by the Mets in 1969? To understand intrinsically that You Gotta Believe? To overcome the trade of an idol and the dissolution of a roster? To hope hard for a comeback and then receive it in thrilling fashion in 1986? To experience the constant ups and downs the Mets would dispense for the next two decades? To put ups with the Yankees right next door? To make the psychic journey from Shea Stadium to Citi Field? To sort the myths from the realities? Greg Prince, as he has done for thousands of loyal Faith and Fear in Flushing readers daily since 2005, puts it all in perspective as only he can.

This collection of well-crafted essays spans more than 40 years of franchise history but hews to a single theme: the experience--sometimes humorous, sometimes painful--of being a fan of the New York Mets. From the sound of jets overhead to Keith Hernandez and the Seinfeld connection, Hofstra professor Dana Brand writes about the experiences and lore that make baseball in Queens unique. Mets fans will recognize themselves in this book, and everyone who enjoys great baseball writing will delight in the reading.

Ordinary club histories proceed year by year to give the big picture. Mets by the Numbers uses jersey numbers to tell the little stories?the ones the fans love?of the team and its players. This is a catalog of the more than 700 Mets who have played since 1962, but it is far from just a list of No. 18s and 41s. Mets by the Numbers celebrates the team's greatest players, critiques numbers that have failed to attract talent, and singles out particularly productive numbers, and numbers that had really big nights. With coverage of superstitions, prolific jersey-wearers, the ever-changing Mets uniform, and significant Mets numbers not associated with uniforms, this book is a fascinating alternative history of the Amazin's.

In 1962, the New York Mets spent their first year in existence racking up the worst record in baseball history. Things scarcely got any better for the ensuing six years--they were baseball's laughingstock, but somehow lovable in their ineptitude, building a fiercely loyal fan base. And then came 1969, a year that brought the lunar landing, Woodstock, nonstop antiwar protests, and the most tumultuous and fractious New York City mayoral race in memory--along with the most improbable season in the annals of Major League Baseball. It concluded on an invigorating autumn afternoon in Queens, when a Minnesota farm boy named Jerry Koosman beat the Baltimore Orioles for the second time in five games, making the Mets champions of the baseball world. It wasn't merely an upset but an unprecedented, uplifting achievement for the ages. From the ashes of those early scorched-earth seasons, Gil Hodges, a beloved former Brooklyn Dodger, put together a 25-man whole that was vastly more formidable than the sum of its parts. Beyond the top-notch pitching staff headlined by Tom Seaver, Koosman, and Gary Gentry, and the hitting prowess of Cleon Jones, the Mets were mostly comprised of untested kids and lightly regarded veterans. Everywhere you looked on this team, there was a man with a compelling backstory, from Koosman, who never played high school baseball and grew up throwing in a hayloft in subzero temperatures with his brother Orville, to third baseman Ed Charles, an African-American poet with a deep racial conscience whose arrival in the big leagues was delayed almost a decade because of the color of his skin. In the tradition of The Boys of Winter, his classic bestseller about the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team, Wayne Coffey tells the story of the '69 Mets as it has never been told before--against the backdrop of the space race, Stonewall, and Vietnam, set in an ever-changing New York City. With dogged reporting and a storyteller's eye for detail, Coffey finds the beating heart of a baseball family. Published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Mets' remarkable transformation from worst to best, They Said It Couldn't Be Done is a spellbinding, feel-good narrative about an improbable triumph by the ultimate underdog.

That's In The Bible? illustrates the significant impact the Bible has had on our everyday conversational language. Throughout history, written and verbal language has been seasoned with hundreds of colorful expressions lifted directly from its pages. This is no less true in our modern language - newspapers unknowingly use catchy phrases as headlines that are actually derived from biblical texts. Advertisers lure customers with limited time offers, such as "Don't Miss the Boat!" - a direct reference to Noah and the Ark. And people use familiar colloquial expressions casually in everyday speech perhaps without even being aware of the fact that they are using an expression originally penned in Scripture. This book explores many such phrases - everyday expressions - voiced from the corporate boardroom to the schoolyard playground. Each phrase is traced to its original biblical roots. The study of word and phrase origins is known as etymology - from the Greek words etymon meaning "true sense" and logos meaning "word". This book presents the "true sense" of the word and promotes Bible discovery, readership, and witnessing. It is intended to illustrate the Bible as a genuinely user-friendly resource.