The New York Daily News’ Adam Rubin had the distinct displeasure of chatting with former Mets reliever / Cards’ last resort Braden Looper.
Looper was among the players in the visitors’ clubhouse at Shea Stadium last Thursday after the Cardinals had won the pennant, mimicking the “Ole, ole, ole!” chant Mets fans do to support Jose Reyes.
“The what?” Looper asked, pretending to be dumbfounded.
“We always do that,” the ex-Met continued, tongue in cheek. “We do that in the bullpen. We do it every time we score. We do it in the clubhouse. It’s just having fun, you know?”
Looper has allowed three earned runs in 8-1/3 innings this postseason, including a scoreless ninth to combine with Chris Carpenter on a 5-0 shutout in Game 3 on Tuesday.
Carpenter’s performance ranked pretty high, but it wasn’t the best postseason performance Looper has witnessed. Looper reflected back to Oct. 25, 2003, when then-Marlins teammate Josh Beckett tossed a complete game at Yankee Stadium in the World Series clincher, a 2-0 Florida victory in Game 6.
“That’s probably the only bigger game I’ve been involved in,” Looper said. “That was a big performance that day, in Yankee Stadium, Game 6, Josh Beckett. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.”
It’s more than a little telling that Looper ranks a game in which he didn’t make an appearance as a career highlight.