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By GARY SHELTON
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 25, 2000
NEW YORK -- Turns out, there are two baseball teams in New York, after all.
Turns out, there is one in the National League, too.
Who knew? After two games of the World Series, all we had seen were pinstripes. For two games, the Yankees were sharper, smarter, even nastier (see: Clemens, Roger), and this team called the Mets might as well have been the Padres or, worse, the Braves, for all the difference it made.
Then, thanks to a pleasant, pie-faced kid from Hawaii, it all changed. One swing, and here they came.
Benny and the Mets.
Oh, he's wild and he's wonderful, that Benny he's really keen. Or something like that. After this, Benny Agbayani, cult figure, will be serenaded, applauded and, should he choose to run, elected to local office.
Agbayani breathed new life into the Mets Tuesday night. His eighth-inning double to leftfield drove home Todd Zeile with the go-ahead run, lifting his team past the Yankees, past the criticism and past the graveyard.
Not a bad trip, all in all, for a guy who was supposed to be sitting on the bench, for a team that was supposed to be stepping off a cliff.
He wasn't supposed to play, of course. The Yankees were pitching Orlando Hernandez, who takes the lunch money from right-handers. Conventional wisdom says that when "El Duque" is on the mound, an opponent stacks up all the left-handed sticks it can find. For the Mets, that meant benching Agbayani for Lenny Harris or Darryl Hamilton.
Not Bobby Valentine, though.
"I was a little baffled by people who followed our team all year thinking maybe he shouldn't play today," Valentine said. "I never considered not playing him, I never considered pinch hitting for him. And I'm glad about it."
Then again, Valentine always has seemed to see the special qualities of Agbayani more clearly than the rest of the world.
There were times others thought the Mets needed a better leftfielder, that Agbayani should be moved out, shipped down or traded away. But Valentine has treated Agbayani as his pet project, nurturing him, shaping him.
Consider, then, the matchup in the eighth inning. The Yankees, a team that hadn't lost a World Series game in 14 tries, had Hernandez, a pitcher who hadn't lost a post-season game in nine starts. And all the Mets had was the Agbayani in return.
And Agbayani won. Against the seemingly invincible Hernandez, he drove a double to left to knock in Zeile, then later in the inning scored on a sacrifice fly from Bubba Trammell.
This is the way World Series heroes are born. Throughout the history of the event, there are as many unknown players who come up big -- Mark Lemke, Pat Borders -- as there are stars.
If the Mets win, you could add the name "Agbayani."
One swing, and he turned around the flow of the Series. Suddenly, Yankees manager Joe Torre was answering the tough questions, such as why he left Hernandez in so long. One swing, and the Mets were alive again, enthused again. Valentine was smart again. The Mets were amazing again. And we had ourselves a series.
"This is a great accomplishment for me," Agbayani said softly afterward. "He's a tough pitcher."
By the time Agbayani stepped to the plate, Hernandez was more than tough. He was the '72 Dolphins. He had been mortal in the regular season, but the post-season has turned Hernandez into something fierce. He has been so good that Torre didn't even consider pinch hitting for him after 112 pitches.
In a way Agbayani had to do something special. After all, he had entered this Series talking.
It was Agbayani who had predicted the Mets would win this Series in five games. Well, not really. Agbayani had been a guest on Howard Stern's show, and Stern had cornered him into saying, well, yes, he thought his team would win. And when Stern pinned him down on the number of games, Agbayani said five.
At the time, it was portrayed as if Agbayani were Joe Namath, Nostradamus and Dionne Warwick all roled into one. As for Agbayani, he kept grinning and explaining that he didn't really mean to say it. He just ... did.
This, he meant.
For the Mets, it came at the perfect time. For all the talk in the team's clubhouse about how close the first two games had been, there were huge portions of the team that were missing. The Mets couldn't run the bases, closer Armando Benitez couldn't hold a lead. Timo Perez was missing in action. Edgardo Alfonzo wasn't hitting. Jay Payton wasn't hitting. And even Mike Piazza ran hot and cold.
But Agbayani has been there every night. He has hit in all 12 games in the post-season.
Understand this. New York loves Agbayani, the wide grin, the jersey number -- no, 50 isn't for Five-O; it's for the 50th state. Now, it's going to love him even more.
Mayor Agbayani. Senator Agbayani. Governor Agbayani.
Oh, what the heck? Name him the King of Queens. After all, on Tuesday, he outranked the Duke.