Big Pimpin' Back in 2000

Okay, let me explain. I was 15 years old. I was in 10th grade. I was in love with my favorite baseball team. So I ended up getting this:




A little history: back in my pre-driving, high school days, my parents and I had a deal. Right around the first weekend in June, I'd get my end of the school year trip into Roosevelt Field Mall to go to the Mets Clubhouse Shop. Back then, with MLB's online shop fairly lackluster, this oasis about 40 minutes from my Smithtown home was the best place for me to get full access to all my Mets apparel needs. Every year, I would bring a jersey I wanted to customize. I'd spend days, weeks, even months of valuable class time pouring over which Met should be stitched on the back to create my most recent concoction.

The jersey up for customization this year? My blank black Authentic.

In the summer of 1998, I brought the Mets new alternate jersey. The black seemed pretty cool at the time, a welcomed break from the norm. Little did I know it'd become the bane of my existence in my young adulthood. But my parents and I invested in this blank, ebony Mets jersey and it stayed nameless for two solid seasons. Two summers later, a player would adorn it's back that would not only be amusing in retrospect, but also create some technical errors.



If you look here, I snapped a picture with the patch. The original Mets patch (the blue and orange skyline with the NY in the left corner) was only used on the black jerseys for the first season. Not to mention the tagging. The Mets used Russell as their distributer in 1998, but two years later for Bell's first and only season as a Met, they had switched to Rawlings. Also note the absence of the MLB logo on the back of the collar, which was first used in the 2000, all of which technically makes my customization choice inaccurate. But I mean...it was Derek Bell.

Yes, okay he's not a Hall of Famer. But this selection was so brilliant and reeked of so much of adolescent innocence that it's often the first jersey I mention when I talk about my Mets' Authentic collection.

It was about to be the summer of 2000 and Bell was HOT. I mean blazing hot. Strolling up to the plate to the tune of Jay Z's new single "Big Pimpin'", Bell endeared himself to all Mets fans first by hitting a solo home run in the team's home opener against the San Diego Padres to give the team a 2-1 win. Then, by a torrid first half that included 12 multi-hit games before the calendar flipped to June (7 of which were games of 3 hits or more). After a 2-5 game against the Diamondbacks on May 21st, Bell was hitting..ready?....360! .360?! Yeah, Derek Bell was 15 year old Brian's kind of guy. Ridiculously baggy uniform and ugly looking face with his 'Oh my God!" home run at the Astrodome still etched in my mind.

My father still laughs when I mention this one. And really, who wouldn't? Between the quirks in accuracy and the player himself, it's quite a comedic jewel.

After a mini hot streak in August, Bell's last day as a .300 hitter for the Mets was August 7th against his former Astros squad. Bell finished his second to last Major League season with a .266 average, 18 home runs and 69 RBIs. After chasing down a ball in the right fielder corner against the San Francisco Giants in a Game 1 loss of the National League Division Series, Bell tore his hamstring and never played in another game for the Mets. His replacement? The incomparable Timo Perez. But in a season a lot of Mets fans are reminded of Mike Piazza's 40 home runs or the 10 run inning against the Braves or Benny Agbayani and Bobby Jones' postseason heroics, the early season play of Bell provided a much needed spark for a team that nearly lost their manager in early June. So to start of this blog: my (semi) Authentic Mets black alternate home Derek Bell jersey: a true testament to an overlooked hero.