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They were all the best win of the year when they took place. Every one of them left the Mets 1-0. There's not a darn thing wrong with any of them.
But if one was asked to rank every Mets Opening Day win -- including both from the one season there were literally two openers -- this is what one would come up with...
33. 1971, NYM 4 MON 2
What’s wrong with a Tom Seaver complete game? Nothing at all, except rain, gales and being called after five innings. UN Ambassador George Bush threw out the first pitch and then beat it out of Shea. Read his lips: they were chattering. But a win is a win, even in most unideal conditions.
32. 1994, NYM 12 CHI 8
Watching (and listening to) Kent, Vizcaino and Hundley tee off on Cub pitching was invigorating after the misery of 1993, but Doc Gooden giving up seven runs to the Cubs — three of them on three home runs to future Japanese league star Tuffy Rhodes — made that windy day at Wrigley uncomfortable in New York. Gooden’s frustration had him kicking a dugout step and breaking a toe, leading him to the DL, leading him back, by his reckoning, to cocaine(7 IP
31. 1989, NYM 8 STL 4
Mets return to defend their N.L. East crown with 23 1988 Mets and one addition, Don Aase. Aase pitched a nice two innings in relief of Doc (7 IP, 5 H, 8 K), but there was a sense the roster was growing stale. By October, there’d be turnover galore...and an abdication of the divisional throne.
30. 1980, NYM 5 CHI 2
Good, routine of the Craig Swan variety, with Neil Allen chipping in two perfect innings, but nobody shows up at Shea to see it. Transit strike limits gate to 12,000. There for the first time: Messrs. Wilpon and Doubleday. Their best is yet to come.
29. 1981/1, NYM 2 CHI 0
Life goes on under threat of a strike. Pat Zachry can’t get out of the sixth at Wrigley (he walks four) but the bullpen cleans up for him — Hausman comes in and picks off one of Pat’s runners; Allen does the rest — and Rusty Staub begins his second term with a home run bang. Still, what does it all mean? Or as a fellow Mets fan said to me in gym class the next day, “The Mets always beat the Cubs to start the season and then they suck.”
28. 1977, NYM 5 CHI 3
Tom Seaver starts for the Mets for the tenth consecutive Opening Day. He pitches seven strong innings. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever will be? Sigh.
27. 2010, NYM 7 FLA 1
David Wright homers to right, indicating maybe Citi Field won’t be a hex on him in its sophomore season. Johan Santana goes six, indicating maybe he will make it through the year. Despite the presence of Mike Jacobs, Gary Matthews, Jr., and Frank Catalanotto, the Mets win easily. Maybe 2009 wasn’t a leading indicator. Or maybe it was.
26. 2002, NYM 6 PIT 2
One of those Opening Days when you buy into the script — Alomar! Vaughn! Burnitz and Cedeño come home! — and the script is filmed flawlessly. But it was just one day, and it was the Pirates.
25. 1976, NYM 3 MON 2
Seaver and Lockwood scatter eight hits, strike out eleven Expos. Joe Frazier proven a genius.
24. 2007, NYM 6 STL 1
Take that Cardinals! On Sunday Night Baseball, Mets cruise to win in what, despite all the wishing and hoping one can muster, isn’t Game Eight of the 2006 NLCS. Good to ruin their flag-raising anyway.
23. 2004, NYM 7 ATL 2
There was no particular hope when the season began, but when leadoff import Kaz Matsui homered on the very first pitch he saw...well, there was still no particular hope, but it never hurts to jump out to a lead.
22. 1973, NYM 3 PHI 0
POWs released from North Vietnam throw out the ceremonial first pitches. Cleon Jones blasts the first two home runs off Steve Carlton. Tom Seaver and Tug McGraw deliver peace with honor.
21. 1972, NYM 4 PIT 0
No way it can’t be sad that Gil Hodges isn’t around to manage, but Yogi’s first Mets team gets off to a good start: Tom and Tug combine on a five-hit, nine-strikeout shutout; Ed Kranepool knocks in three.
20. 2008, NYM 7 FLA 2
Johan Santana is wearing a Mets uniform on the mound at Dolphins Stadium. Everything else is details.
19. 1978, NYM 3 MON 1
Jerry Koosman is now the ace. Jerry Koosman throws a complete game eight-hitter. Jerry Koosman can handle acedom OK.
18. 2009, NYM 2 CIN 1
Daniel Murphy plays a great left field. The Mets revamped bullpen of Sean Green, J.J. Putz and Francisco Rodriguez is airtight. Next year arrives, at least for one day.
17. 1982, NYM 7 PHI 2
Snow delays the Opener in Philly, which is no big deal since it feels like an ice age has passed since the Mets had a player like George Foster. Between the former MVP driving in a run and former Cy Young winner Randy Jones pitching six effective innings, we can dream of a star-studded future.
16. 1986, NYM 4 PIT 2
Doc throws a six-hitter at Three Rivers, which is great. Even though he give up a leadoff homer to R.J. Reynolds. I mean, we scored two in the top of the first, so it’s not like we’re losing or anything. But I have to admit, after 1985, I kind of thought he’d throw nothing but no-hitters in 1986.
15. 2006, NYM 3 WAS 2
It takes all of 6½ innings for the season to get serious. Alfonso Soriano does or doesn’t slide into home plate in the top of the seventh. Paul Lo Duca does or doesn’t tag him out. The Mets get the call. The Mets get serious right away in 2006.
14. 1991, NYM 2 PHI 1
Dwight strikes out seven Phillies in eight innings. Hubie Brooks, in his encore year, takes home on the front end of a double steal. It’s 89 degrees on April 8. What would be the point of the Mets losing when nature greets them so warmly?
13. 2001, NYM 6 ATL 4
Was there a nicer Met than Robin Ventura? Was there more poetic justice than Robin roughing up that schmuck John Rocker with a lefty-on-lefty crime on Opening Night at Turner Field, taking him deep for a go-ahead homer in the eighth? And when the pen couldn’t hold it, how about that nice Met Robin Ventura lashing another homer, this one off Kerry Ligtenberg? Two Braves closers, neither can shut a damn thing. Mets win in ten. As importantly, Braves lose in ten.
12. 1987, NYM 3 PIT 2
The Mets’ most consistent starting pitcher from 1986 was on the mound and throwing seven sturdy innings. But you couldn’t escape the sensation that something was off. Bobby Ojeda had definitely earned an Opening Day assignment, but he shouldn’t have received this one. This was Doc Gooden’s stage. But Doc missed his mark in 1987. He was playing off camera, in a drug rehabilitation drama. Ojeda did his part, but the star turn fell to Dwight’s comrade in arms, Darryl Strawberry. Did I say “arms”? I meant legs. Straw donned the Doctor’s uniform pants (his way of walking a mile in his friend’s shoes) and ripped a three-run, first-inning homer that reminded you how mighty the Mets had been the year before and how awesome they projected to be this year. The World Series rings and the World Champions banner did that, too. It was festive, all right. It just wasn’t exactly what it was supposed to be.
11. 1988, NYM 10 MON 6
On April 4, 1988, we all learned a new phrase: Tension ring. Use it in a sentence. “Darryl Strawberry’s home run at Olympic Stadium traveled so far, it struck the tension ring just below the roof in right field.” Which home run? He hit two. So did Kevin McReynolds. And Kevin Elster and Lenny Dykstra each hit one. What’s your point? The Mets hit six home runs, a team record — so we learned the new math, too.
10. 1970, NYM 5 PIT 3
Once upon a time, the Mets were so bad that they couldn’t wait to start losing, so they’d lose the first chance they got. They lost that way in their first year and their second year and so on, clear through to their eighth year. Their eighth year would be different from all the years before it — it would be different from just about every year anybody had ever experience — but the start was the same. The Mets lost at the beginning. They lost to a team that hadn’t even existed until that Opening Day. Come the ninth year, it was time to cut that out. It took eleven innings. It took a world championship in their back pocket. It took Donn Clendenon’s bases-loaded single, but it finally took. The Mets were Opening Day winners for the first time in 1970. Hard to believe that once upon a time, the Mets being that was the exception and not the blessed rule.
09. 1979, NYM 10 CHI 6
You have to squint really hard at the end of this one. The Mets, led by an itinerant character named Richie Hebner have built a lavish lead of 10 to 3. It’s another good-feeling Opening Day win in the making at Wrigley Field. Hebner’s 4-for-5 even if he doesn’t want to be here at all. A rookie named Kelvin Chapman (we know his name because his name is on the back of his uniform, a first for the Mets...all of them, not just Kelvin Chapman) records his first hits. Everybody’s happy, basically, except the Mets, being the Mets of this era, are in the process of giving away a seven-run lead in the ninth inning. It gets to be 10-4, then it gets to be 10-6, and the Cubs are bringing up their best hitter. To keep the day from unraveling further, manager Joe Torre goes to someone even more unknown than Kelvin Chapman. And this is where we squint, because the Cubs hitter is Bill Buckner and the Mets pitcher is Jesse Orosco, and from the vantage point of the distant future, we’re sure we’ve seen them somewhere else. In the present of 1979, it’s clear what’s going on: Orosco gets a fly ball out of Buckner, the Mets win the game and the future as we will come to know it will have to wait for now.
08. 1992, NYM 6 STL 4
At this pace. At this pace, the Mets will go 162-0. At this pace, Bobby Bonilla will hit 324 home runs. At this pace, Bobby Bonilla will be a hero every day and night of 1992. At this pace, Bobby Bonilla will be the most beloved New York Met of all time. At this pace, Bobby Bonilla will rescue the Mets from a tie game in one tenth inning after another. At this pace, Bobby Bonilla’s free agent contract will go down as the greatest bargain of all time. At this pace, it’s best to take them one game at a time. But still, for one Opening Night in St. Louis, Bobby Bonilla of the New York Mets set quite a pace.
07. 1993, NYM 3 COL 0
It fell upon the Mets to shepherd two opponents into full National League being. The first was in 1969, the Montreal Expos. The Expos did not cooperate to the Mets’ liking. They planted their flag at Shea Stadium and — sacre bleu! — outslugged Le Mets, 11-10. Twenty-four years later, the Mets were better shepherds. The Colorado Rockies were born in our midst and we made sure they came into this world kicking and screaming but not winning. The Doctor spanked the new baby just to make sure everything was working correctly. The infant Rockies were too little to touch Dr. Gooden that brisk April afternoon. Gooden went the distance on a four-hitter. Three other star players of impeccable credentials — Tony Fernandez, Eddie Murray and Bobby Bonilla — each drove in a run. The Rockies learned their lesson to not mess with the big, bad Mets just yet. So it was a great day at Shea to watch a new team take shape and lose to our fully established enterprise. Only thing I don’t get is we looked so bad losing to an expansion team in 1969 and were champions a little more than six months later. In 1993...oh, you don’t want to be reminded.
06. 1981/2, NYM 7 CHI 5
Reset! Just like that, the Mets were 0-0 again. It took a 50-day strike and a Rube Goldberg settlement, but it worked to our advantage, so kiss your asterisk goodbye. The Mets stopped being 17-34 when baseball resumed in 1981. They crawled through a river of labor unrest and came out clean on the other side. It was a new season come August 10, and a new season can only commence with an Opening Day. And this Opening Day at Wrigley was as delightfully dizzying as any the Mets have played. Mookie scores on a balk. Buckner ties it on a homer. We go to an eleventh inning, and it’s the Revenge of Kong as Dave Kingman clubs a three-run homer for his formerly old team against his recently old team. And now all that has to happen is Neil Allen preserving a three-run lead. But he can’t do it. Maybe Ray Searage can...no, he can’t. On comes Dyar Miller (Dyar Miller’s still active in 1981?) and off goes Bobby Bonds with a game-tying double (Bobby Bonds is still active in 1981?). In the twelfth, Mike Jorgensen singles home Hubie Brooks, but Miller can’t stand that strand of prosperity, either. So it’s 5-5 in the thirteenth. Lynn McGlothlen (Lynn McGlothlen’s...yes, yes, he really is still active in 1981) gives up a pair of runs. As it’s all hands on deck, Joe Torre calls on ambidextrous Greg Harris to slam the door. He needs both hands after allowing runners on first and third, but ultimately, Ken Reitz flies out to Mookie and, kooky as it sounds, the Mets are 1-0 and all alone in first place.
05. 1998, NYM 1 PHI 0
First, it’s fun. Of course it’s fun. It’s Opening Day. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s impossibly beautiful weather. It’s actually hot — it’s March 31, and it’s like 90 degrees in Queens. What fun! And baseball, of course. Fine pitching on both sides, Bobby Jones for us, Curt Schilling for them. It’s fun to watch them breeze through hitter after hitter. More fun to watch Jones do it, but we appreciate the craft. Jones leaves after six. The Mets’ bullpen maintains their side of the shutout. Schilling just keeps cruising...through six, through seven, through eight. It’s 0-0 in the ninth. And now it’s the tenth, and while baseball is still fun and Opening Day is still a holiday, it’s less about buoyancy and warmth and more about shadows and uneasiness. Is anybody gonna score? More specifically, are the Mets are ever going to score? Are they going to score before the Phillies will? After more than four hours and more than thirteen hours, it’s less fun than unbearable. The good kind of “it’s not winter anymore” unbearable, but not as pleasant as a win would be. We’ve sat here too long to go home with anything else. So we go to fourteen. Turk Wendell, Bobby Valentine’s sixth pitcher of the day has escaped damage in the top of the inning. Ricky Bottalico, on since the twelfth, stays in for them. Matt Franco and Brian McRae turn into baserunners. Bernard Gilkey joins them. Two outs are made. It’s all up to the Mets’ last position player, Alberto Castillo, to pinch-hit. Castillo’s the backup catcher to Tim Spehr, the backup catcher to Todd Hundley, who’s out ’til July. Tell Castillo to get this day done lest he and/or Spehr go down hard. They call Castillo “Bambi,” as in short for Bambino. It’s a well-meaning nickname, but it’s not exactly flattering. There’s a reason Alberto Castillo can’t beat out Tim Spehr for the temporary starting job and it probably has something to do with his batting .203 the year before. But that was the year before. This is the year we’ve got now and in it, Alberto “Bambi” Castillo finds the narrowest of openings between first and second and Brian McRae comes dashing home. The Mets win 1-0 in 14. It’s not so warm anymore. But it’s a ton of fun.
04. 1996, NYM 7 STL 6
If expectations aren’t as sky-high as they were one decade earlier, they at least reach Mezzanine levels after the way the Mets finished 1995 and cultivated young arms in St. Lucie. There’s no Pulsipher in the house (injured) but Isringhausen’s back and Wilson has made it. But before we can move onto Generation K, we have to endure the Lost Generation, a.k.a. Bobby Jones. Jones looked pretty good since coming up to the Mets in 1993, but it isn’t working out today. The Cardinals rock his world. The Mets are behind 6-0, it’s spitting rain, it’s freezing and the figurative tomorrow of Izzy and Paul will have to wait until literally tomorrow (or two days away, technically). In the meantime, we can distract ourselves with a home run from returning catcher Todd Hundley (6-2) and another from newcomer Bernard Gilkey (6-3). It’s still not close, but it doesn’t get any further away in the top of the seventh when Royce Clayton attempts to score from second on Ray Lankford’s double to left. He should score. He ought to score. He’s absolutely going to score, except the rookie Rey Ordoñez, takes Gilkey’s relay and — while on his frigging knees — fires to Hundley. Hundley tags Clayton out! I mean OUT! Gray skies are gonna clear up, maybe. The bottom of the seventh thus yields the only available logical sequence of events: pinch-RBI from Chris Jones; infield RBI single by Lance Johnson; a Gilkey RBI to right; and a Brogna sac fly. Huh? The Mets are winning 7-6? Bobby Jones is off the hook? The Mets are off the mat? Off their (if not Ordoñez’s) knees? The Mets are WINNING? So they are and so they do. And we’ve got Isringhausen and Wilson going later this week.
03. 1975, NYM 2 PHI 1
Besides it existing, what do we want out of Opening Day? As a rule, I mean. We want the new guys to justify our excitement and the old guys to justify our allegiance. We want them to mesh perfectly, like they’ve been a team forever, not just since camp. We want to be as certain as we can be that what we imagined as winter turned to spring is gonna work. We want our revamped lineup — Clines in left! Unser in center! Kingman in right! Torre at third! — to look as good on the field as it did on paper. And we want our ace on the hill and in control. Tom Seaver pitched more poorly than he ever had in 1974. Something about his hip, they said. He was our ace anyway, and he was on the hill and we needed him, desperately, to make like he was its king. Oh, Tom Seaver ruled, all right. He became the first Met to ever throw a complete game: four hits, only one that drove in a run. Meanwhile, Dave Kingman, that power hitter from San Francisco, made our acquaintance just as we would have asked, with a home run that tied things up in the fourth. Seaver kept pitching and kept registering outs, nine by the K. Steve Carlton was his opponent and he kept pitching and pitching well, too. We headed to the bottom the ninth still wanting a little something more. One of the old guys, Millan, singled. Another of the old guys, Milner, walked. Finally, one of the new guys, Torre — the Brooklyn boy long rumored to be coming to the Mets — singled. It was the Mets’ first hit with a runner in scoring position all day. It was the only that was necessary. We got everything we wanted on Opening Day 1975. We even got nobody in the house when we came home from school so nobody would be around to give us any grief about skipping Hebrew School to watch the game.
02. 1983, NYM 2 PHI 0
Who’s this pitcher the Mets are starting on Opening Day? He wasn’t here last year. He’s what? Thirty-eight years old? And coming off what kind of season? Five and thirteen? His ERA was five-and-a-half? No wonder the Mets suck. We gave up Charlie Puleo and two prospects for that? And that’s who we run out there to start the season? What’s his name anyway? I only heard the PA announcer say his number. Forty-one? What kind of number is that?
If Opening Day had a crest, it would be a 4 and a 1 set against a silhouette of a perfect pitching form atop a perfect pitchers mound. The mound would be perfect because the perfect pitcher made everything better. On April 5, 1983, Tom Seaver, still bearing the form that made every season worth looking forward to, reappeared on the Shea Stadium mound. In No. 41. In home whites. It was the first time in six years. It wasn’t just the appearing on the mound that was Terrific, though. It was the long walk in, first from 1967 through 1977 (when he was the Opening Day pitcher ten of eleven times), then from Cincinnati (where he mysteriously plied his craft as if doing missionary work for greatness-deprived Midwesterners), then from the right field bullpen, where he loosened up to resume his legend.
Reaching the mound was a must, but the walk itself was pretty memorable. The crowd heard he was No. 41, but didn’t catch his name. They didn’t need to catch his name. The only catching that needed to be done was by Ron Hodges, and he caught Seaver in 1983 as he did in the heart of the 1970s, when Hodges and John Stearns and Duffy Dyer and the great Jerry Grote took turns. The announcer never mentioned his name, come to think of it. “Forty-one” was uttered, the crowd figured out the rest and went uncharacteristically wild.
Did I say uncharacteristically? Wildness was out of character after June 15, 1977. There was little to go buck wild over in Flushing for the five-plus years that followed. Tom Seaver’s return, for his eleventh Opening Day start as a Met? That brought back the manic and burnished the depressive in every Mets fan. As for Tom himself, he wasn’t wild. He was characteristic in his control. He struck out five in six innings, starting with the first batter he faced, his former teammate Pete Rose (from that other team). He walked only one. He gave up no runs.
Seaver didn’t get the win. Doug Sisk did, once Tom left. The run that broke the 0-0 tie, off the ubiquitous Steve Carlton, was driven in by Mike Howard, who would never play for the Mets again after Opening Day 1983. He became a perennial trivia question for having accomplished that well-time RBI feat. Seaver, on the other hand, wasn’t trivial. He was the most substantive Met there ever was. 1983 would become his final Opening Day in perfect form, which is to say in his perfect uniform.
The box score says he lasted only six innings. More informed sources indicate he is eternal.
01. 1985, NYM 6 STL 5
A rather famous baseball player came along in the 1980s and declared an intention to announce his presence with authority. His name was Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh, hard-throwing righty phenom for the Durham Bulls. But obviously LaLoosh was cribbing for a more famous ballplayer who arrived in New York a few years earlier in the very same decade.
Gary Carter loomed as a game changer. He all but promised he’d be a game changer. After the Mets exchanged four young players of considerable promise to have him, he stood up at a press conference, pointed to his right ring finger and said he was saving it for a World Series ring.
How’s that for announcing one’s presence with authority?
It would become something of a teamwide tic for themid-’80s Mets to let you know what they were going to do before they could possibly do it. Carter may have set the trend in December 1984. He definitely showed the Mets were set on being a team of their word in April 1985.
Gary Carter was a game changer before he ever played a game as a Met. He wasn’t imported à la George Foster to make the Mets respectable. The Mets respected themselves plenty in 1984. They won 90 games without the benefit of a massive offensive superstar. Foster wasn’t that anymore. Strawberry wasn’t that yet. Hernandez was wily and able and as clutch as they came, but he — and we — needed a companion piece. A massive offensive superstar...and then some. Gary Carter was that guy. He was the catcher in the National League since the sun set on Johnny Bench. Despite the wear and tear crouching and blocking wrought, he led the league in runs batted in as an Expo. He’d been around for ten years and though Montreal was, by their own assessment, through, Carter wasn’t.
He was what the Mets needed. He landed at Shea and in the Mets fan imagination as that proverbial last piece of the puzzle. The puzzle had only been unveiled in ’84, but here we were, frenzied to finish it. Gary Carter made us view our team differently. Maybe for the first time ever, we entered the upcoming season looking at ourselves not as a contender, but as a favorite. As the favorite in the National League East. We had Hernandez, who wasn’t getting any dumber. We had Strawberry, who was only going to get better. We had Foster, who at least had stopped being altogether awful. And we had all that pitching — Gooden and Darling fronting the rotation, Orosco capping the bullpen. Look who was going to catch them! And look who was going to hit in the middle of all those other hitters?
Look! It’s Gary Carter! It’s the 1985 Mets! They’re going to kick ass! WE are going to kick ass!
This was a change to our thinking, and that itself was a game changer.
And then there was the first game Gary Carter changed, Opening Day, one packing as much anticipation as any in the half-century there have been Met seasons. Dwight Gooden pitching to Gary Carter. Gary Carter batting after Keith Hernandez and before Darryl Strawberry. How could we not win on a massive scale?
Yet it didn’t come so easy at first. The Opening Day on which Gary Carter put his right ring finger where his mouth was unfolded as a frozen slog. Former UN Ambassador George Bush — now vice president — returned for first-pitch duties, but it was too cold for Tampa native Gooden to get a good grip; he lasted into the seventh, leaving with a 5-2 lead. Foster (homer), Hernandez (a pair of RBI singles), fellow new acquisition Howard Johnson (bases-loaded walk) and shortstop Rafael Santana (run-scoring double) built the lead. Carter (1-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch thus far) turned his attention to catching Doug Sisk. But Sisk, a weakening link as 1984 wound down, gave up a two-run single to Andy Van Slyke in the seventh.
It was 5-4. It grew colder. And then it turned positively icy. Sisk loaded the bases in the ninth. With two outs, he faced Jack Clark. Carter caught ball four. Tie game.
Gary Carter didn’t promise that.
The game moved to the bottom of the ninth. The Mets loaded the bases this time, but failed to score. It was extras, now. Tom Gorman came on to pitch, relieving Jesse Orosco, who had bailed out Doug Sisk. Gorman escaped the top of the tenth. To the bottom of the inning, where Neil Allen, a Met from 1979 to 1983, faced the man for whom he was traded, Keith Hernandez. It would be dramatic as anything if Hernandez (who reached Allen for a game-winning single the previous summer) could end this now-frigid game with one swing.
But Hernandez struck out.
Drama, however, didn’t. Allen vs. Carter would do fine.
“Welcome to New York, Gary Carter!” is how Channel 9 announcer Steve Zabriskie called it when the Kid’s game-winning home run soared over the left field fence. The Mets had won 6-5, courtesy of the game changer. Carter, like the Mets, was 1-0 in 1985. Welcome to New York, indeed. Nobody had ever made himself at home so quickly at Shea Stadium.
One great ending is enough for one Opening Day, but there really was a beginning there at the end. Carter’s benediction seemed to charm the atmosphere around him, and the 1985 Mets would take the state 161 more times and produce enough drama to match anything playing on Broadway. The only thing they couldn’t produce was quite enough wins to extend their run that fall.
Thus, they took a winter’s intermission, added a few more (if less massive) puzzle pieces and picked up just about where they left off in ’85 come ’86. With hindsight, you could say they created one almost unbroken two-year singular sensation of a season, lifting the curtain the night we learned Gary Carter became a Met, and taking their final and customary curtain call the night Gary Carter caught strike three to seal the 1986 World Series (and decorate his right ring finger).
That, young Nuke, is what it means to announce — and sustain — your presence with authority.
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