Know Your Blogosphere: Y2K Talks with Greg from Faith and Fear in Flushing

Hey everyone, A Friend of Mr. Glass' here. I recently extended the invitation to Greg from the Mets blog "Faith and Fear in Flushing" to discuss his career as a Mets blogger, and the role of Faith and Fear in Flushing in the Mets blogosphere. What follows below is a transcript of our conversation.

By clicking the title above, you can be connected with Greg's favorite post, "The Greg Commandments" (more on that later).

I want to thank Greg again for participating in this interview, and I hope everyone enjoys this inside look at one of the men behind the Mets blogosphere.

Y2K: How did your blog begin? How did you decide to become a Mets blogger?

Greg: Our blog is a 2-man operation. The idea of running a blog was something that my partner and I had sort of discussed in the abstract years before we’d ever even heard of blogs.

Jason and I met on AOL back in 1994 and became friends in real life. We shared a passion for the Mets and we e-mailed each other constantly about the team in the way that friends do, through good years and bad years for the Mets.

So the idea was out there and then the blog thing started taking off in the past few years. We’re both writers for a living so we decided we should write something on the Mets. In February 2005 he called me and asked if I wanted to start a blog and I said sure. We were online as of the first day of Spring Training 2005.

Y2K: You mentioned that you’re a writer, do you have a background in journalism?

Greg: I have been a professional writer in one form or another for over 20 years dating back to college. I was a trade magazine editor and writer in the beverage field, working at Beverage Spectrum and Beverage World.

Over the years, circumstances sent me out on my own to become what I call a communications consultant. I write speeches, newsletters, do some freelance writing, research reports; basically anything in the beverage field that pays the bills and frees me up to pursue baseball writing.

Y2K: What compels you to blog? What drives you to update every day?

In my case it boils down to, A, I’m a Mets fan, B, I’m a writer, and C, if I can’t find time to write about the Mets everyday I’m not fit to call myself either one of those things, in my opinion. As for what compels me to blog every day, maybe it’s my journalism background but I start to get itchy if I see our old post up hours after the last game ended.

Y2K: When you think of people who would enjoy your blog, what kind of people do you have in mind? Beyond simply Mets fans, who are you trying to appeal to?

Mets fans who like to read, that’s really what it boils down to. I know from experience looking at computers and wanting to screw around at work for a while that if I like an article I never want it to end. I think we appeal to people who get a kick out of following a storyline.

More specifically, we seem to have a slightly older demographic within the blogging community, people more around my age, 43, people who are life-long diehards who maybe never realized there were other Mets fans like them out there.

Y2K: What do you think makes your site unique? Or put another way, what do you hope to contribute to the Mets blogosphere?

Greg: Perspective is the short answer. This is my 38th season being a Mets fan. I started in 1969, a pretty good year to become a fan. Jason started in 1975. In that time we’ve seen it all, and what we didn’t see ourselves we’ve read about, so by this point we’re pretty well versed going back to 1962.

Through that perspective we’re hoping to contribute a different viewpoint for people. We’re not looking to be the 83rd site to ask “why don’t they bring up Heath Bell?” We’re not the site that panics when the Mets lose three in a row or say the season’s over when we win 5 in a row.

Y2K: Who came up with the name? Is it a nod to Hunter S. Thompson?

Greg: Jason came up with the name, and as far as I know it’s not a nod to Hunter Thompson, although I’ve never even asked.

I had a different name in mind, “Let’s Meet at Gate E”, because that’s where we always met when we went to Mets games together. Jason suggested “Faith and Fear and Flushing” and I liked his name better than mine.

Y2K: How about some vital stats – when was Faith and Fear in Flushing created?

Greg: February 16, 2005

Y2K: Number of hits per day?

Greg: We get 4,000 page views a day, which is just amazing to me. I remember this time last year we were up to 800 hits per day and now we’re five times that.

At first you’re shocked that anyone’s reading it at all, then you see your first comment, then you get your first e-mail, then you get that first report form the numbers people and you say to yourself, Wow.

Y2K: Do you have any favorite posts among those you've written?

Greg: The Greg Commandments.

(Writer’s note: Our fanbase may particularly appreciate this commandment: Hate The Yankees. "Well I wanted them to win against Atlanta." "I'm from New York, so I want both teams to do well." "They're in different leagues." Go play in traffic.” – well said, sir.)

Y2K: Yankees 2000 not included, what sites do you read on a daily basis (mainstream media and blogs)?

Greg: I used to be a big newspaper reader before the blogs started cropping up everywhere, and while I still buy the newspapers like an older person might, the blogs have taken up a lot of the function of the mainstream media for me.

These days I want to be super served. I used to say, “Hey, Sports Illustrated mentioned the Mets, that’s great!” Now, if something doesn’t mention the Mets it gets on my nerves. I need a nice orange and blue view of the world.

As for the blogs, Metstradamus is the one I look forward to the most after the games, that guy does a great job. Mike’s Mets is the second one; he runs a very clean site and captures the essence of what’s going on. The two after that are Mets guy in Michigan and Mets Walkoffs. I also really enjoy Metphistopheles and Lone Star Mets. Beyond that, I read Metsblog because it’s a great news site.

Y2K: What’s the hardest part about being a blogger in your opinion?

Greg: Finding something to say everyday and making it good; living up to your own standards. Because we’re a two-man booth, and because we’re both writers who take our work seriously, some element of it is living up to each other’s standards. If Jason writes something outstanding I don’t want to write three paragraphs of nothingness.

Y2K: What’s the best/most rewarding part of being a blogger?

Greg: It’s certainly not the money, which is non-existent (laughs).

It’s probably the feedback. When the blog gets people thinking and they start sharing their own stories, or when you touch people and they start talking about the games they went to as a kid, or when, like just the other day, we’ve got a guy commenting from Azerbaijan, saying we made him feel like he was home, that’s when I really appreciate the work we do.

Y2K: Do you have any goals for the future, either for Faith and Fear in Flushing or for yourself?

Greg: For the site itself, I look forward to the challenge of writing about the postseason, writing about clinching the division, about playoff series’, about the World Series, knock wood, knock wood, knock wood.

Beyond the site, one of the side projects I have is I’m a writer for “Mets Weekly” on SNY. I write the “Profiles in Orange and Blue,” which has been great. They’re not Yankeeographies; they tell a little story and I enjoy telling those stories.

I had the opportunity to work as Managing Editor at Gotham Baseball, and I’d like the chance to keep writing about baseball.

Y2K: What are your thoughts on the Mets’ season thus far? Any predictions?

Greg: So far, so good. It concerns me a little bit that they’ve been a .500 club since that great road trip, but then again that’s what big leads are for.

It’s funny though, but because this season has the potential to be up there with the all-time greats, you’re in that position where if they don’t go all the way, you’ll be disappointed. If all you can look back on 2006 and say is that it was an entertaining season, that’ll be disappointing.

For the Mets to have this kind of season and then get knocked out in the first round, I wonder how we would look back on 2006. Would it be like 1988 where they won 100 games and nobody ever remembers it? Possibly.

Y2K: Do you have a favorite Mets team?

Greg: 1999 – that was the most locked into a season I ever was. Like 1985, another team I adored, there was a bittersweet ending, but in 1999 they actually got to the postseason.

It was just such an unusual construction for a team. All its star power was basically in the infield. The outfield was makeshift with Agbayani and Cedeno and all those guys. The starting pitching was kind of mediocre. The bullpen was terrific.

But we got great performances and we had great personalities. We had the greatest infield ever, we had Rickey Henderson for that one magical season, we had guys like Shawon Dunston and Darryl Hamilton – everyone seemed to contribute.

We beat Cincy, we beat Arizona, I was at the Pratt game. The Atlanta series was heartbreaking for three games, then we had the great comeback in Game 4 and then again in Game 5 with the grand slam single. No matter how it ended, I thought Game 6 was one of the greatest games of all time.

I really loved that team, and to be honest, it really took me until last year to really get over that season. 2000 to me was more of an impatient type of year where you were hoping to get back to where you were in 1999. Tell you what, the minute they got rid of Olerud it felt like something wrong, everything fell apart after that, but that all changed last year. Last year got me past 1999 with Pedro and the kids coming along.

Y2K: Favorite Mets?

Greg: Current, Jose Reyes. All-time, Tom Seaver.

Y2K: Thanks again for taking the time to speak with Yankees 2000.

- A.F.O.M.G.