Synopses & Reviews
Critic Ivan Felt and poet Harris Conklin are the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of baseball fandom. Or, perhaps, the Felix and Oscar of baseball fandom. Or the Pollock and de Kooning. Or the Bugs and Daffy.
The New York Mets are, of course, the New York Mets of baseball.
In 2005, Felt and Conklin, lifelong friends and lifelong fans, determined to change the course of their own careers and of baseball history by doing what had never been done: writing their beloved team to a World Championship. The 2005 Mets, with a new manager and some of the spiffiest free agents on the market, seemed ready to take the world by storm. Felt and Conklin believed themselves up to the task. It is, after all, Belief (and free agents) that makes such dreams come true.
Believeniks! is the record of a journey. Felt and Conklin would, alas, fail to see their team attain that golden pinnacle in the clouds of baseball glory. As Believeniks! reveals, however, the season's unfolding drama would leave two of baseball's most erudite and excitable fans forever changed.
Review
"We may or may not be what we eat; but we are who we support, and Ivan Felt and Harris Cronklin are the New York Mets of literature. I am English, and was therefore unable to follow the Mets' fortunes in 2005 with as much attention as I'd have liked. But I am sure Believeniks! is the tribute and testament that this venerable New York institution deserved." Nick Hornby, author of Fever Pitch
Review
"Like a seeing-eye single between short and third with a speedy runner dashing for the dish, Believeniks! scores just when you think the game should have been over. In that sense, it isarchetypically, quintessentially Mets. One might say it is a Queens avatar." Stephen King, coauthor of Faithful
Synopsis
After years of listening to planes roar overhead as though fleeing Shea Stadium's depressing airspace and watching the Mr. Met mascot stalk empty seats, the temptation to switch allegiances for the pinstriped team of Ruth, Mantle, and DiMaggio just a short subway ride away might seem irresistible. But in times of weakness, Ivan Felt and Harris Conklin, fast friends and ardent Mets fans since childhood, always found solace in their underdog team's simple three-word article of faith: "You Gotta Believe." In 2005, the loyalty of these two Mets "Believeniks" may actually be rewarded, with the addition of two of the premier players in baseball--Carlos Beltran and Pedro Martinez--as well as Brooklyn native Willie Randolph as their skipper.
And if the Mets have a real chance of beating the hated Yankees at their own game, then why shouldn't ace cultural critic Felt and neglected poet and short story writer Conklin be able to snag a little piece of "front-of-store" heaven by chronicling their team's exploits? If Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan could get window displays and end caps for their ode to the Red Sox, why not the Believeniks? Will this be the year that bestseller and baseball prognosticators get a twin shock?
About the Author
Some are born to Mets fandom, others have it thrust upon them; born in Queens, in 1954, son of the first team doctor in Mets history, poet
HARRIS CONKLIN claims both fates. Any fond memories of clubhouse hijinks are brief, alas, as his father was dismissed after failing to correctly diagnose a bone spur in the foot of Ed "The Original Met" Kranepool. A graduate of the City University of New York, he is a two-time fellow of the Chipwich Writers Colony. He presently teaches poetry and composition at Queens College, in Queens.
Born in 1953, IVAN FELT was raised in Greenwich Village. His parentsAlbert, an accountant for the Textile Workers Union, and Sophie, a schoolteacherwere well-known as the folk duo “Albert and Sophie,” best remembered for their song “Two-Cent Plain.” Ivan, educated at NYU and Berkeley, is currently Alton Skutsch Carey Distinguished Professor of Commodity Aesthetics at Hunter College–CUNY and occupies space on the waiting lists of numerous middle income housing developments.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Jonathan Lethem