The Buzz: Can custom cleats make Mets ‘shoe-ins’?

Edwin Diaz will lift the trumpets anywhere he is going. Eduardo Escobar will lift his place of birth. Mets co-owner Alex Cohen will lift reminiscences of Shea Stadium. And they’ll all be on their ft. 

Diaz and Escobar are amongst a lot of Mets who commissioned custom playoff cleats from Stadium Custom Kicks, whose proprietor, Alex Katz of New Hyde Park, ready forward of Game 1 of the NL Wild Card Series.  

Katz, a certified baseball participant drafted with the White Sox who lately performs with the Staten Island FerryHawks, began the challenge in 2019 and employs round 30 artists who create custom designs for gamers who wish to lift a little bit additional sartorial oomph with them into video games. 

Diaz’s cleats, painted by means of Alex Rodriguez (now not the participant), come with neon trumpets — a nod to his iconic front track — and a tribute to the Puerto Rican flag.   

“Wow, these are sick,” tweeted Timmy Trumpet, whose trumpet solo has taken cling of Citi Field. 

Escobar’s cleats had tiger stripes with repetitions of the word “El de la Pica,” a nickname that can pay homage to his place of birth in Venezuela. Francisco Alvarez’s are reflective, intended to polish within the vibrant stadium lighting fixtures, whilst Carlos Carrasco leaned into his nickname, with Cookie Monster cleats.  

Finally, Cohen has white shoes decorated with baseball seams and the phrases “La Jeffa” (the boss in Spanish), and some other pair in black with re-creations of the outdated Shea Stadium neon line drawings. 

“We can do anything imaginable, changing specific parts of the shoe,” stated Katz, who hand-delivered the cleats Friday. “There’s no limit.”  

— Laura Albanese 

First impressions 

Three of the highest 4 hitters within the Mets’ lineup (Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso) performed of their first postseason sport Friday evening. 

Former Mets 2nd baseman Daniel Murphy used to be a playoff amateur when he went on a tear for the ages within the 2015 postseason. Murphy hit .421 with seven house runs blended within the NLDS and NLCS and used to be the NLCS MVP because the Mets made it to the World Series. 

So does Murphy have any recommendation for the Mets’ trio? 

“My first recommendation could be, ‘Well-deserved and enjoy yourselves,‘ ” Murphy said Friday in a telephone interview. “And then, speaking from my experience, I was really scared. Like, nervous. Wanted to throw up. All of the things you get when you are kind of starting an adventure at something you’re aiming at, that you simply price.” 

Murphy struck out on 3 pitches in his first postseason at-bat towards Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers in Los Angeles.  

The subsequent time up, he homered off Kershaw for the primary run of the sequence. 

“I was really nervous in L.A.,” he stated. “Like, really, really nervous. I think Clayton undressed me in my first at-bat on three pitches. It’s kind of like, well, welcome to the postseason.  

“I think you kind of settle in, would be my advice. I think — and I’m speaking about myself — it’s a willingness to embrace probably the amount of fear and anxiety I was feeling. You could call it a dread. And then find some joy in that, because not everyone gets to experience that . . . There’s a bit of honor in being asked to face that dread. But it’s also exciting because really cool things happen.” 

Francisco Lindor, who performed in his twenty sixth postseason sport Friday, stated: “I usually tell the young guys when they come up and do this experience, ‘This is the last time you’re going to make a postseason debut. Enjoy this one. Every year is different. I still get butterflies. I still get anxious. Just enjoy the first moment you go out on the field, look around, embrace it. You play 162 to get to that point. Just be thankful. Be thankful.’ ”

— Anthony Rieber 

Back in black 

The Mets on Friday evening wore their black uniform tops, as they have got in each and every Friday house sport since Steve Cohen introduced them again closing season. 

But, uh-oh, the Mets went into Friday with an 8-9 report dressed in the black jerseys within the Cohen technology (7-5 in 2022, together with a loss to the Padres), in line with MLB.com. 

Also in line with MLB.com: The Mets had misplaced their closing 3 postseason video games within the black jerseys (2000 World Series Games 1 and four and 2006 NLCS Game 3). 

— Anthony Rieber