
The plot thickens. Here, beyond question, is the very same Carmen Fanzone (see
Carmen Fanzone, Part 1)
that my brother disputed the existence of, now dressed in a Mets
uniform and going by the somewhat more innocuous but still vaguely
fake-sounding alias of Craig Swan. However, unlike with Carmen Fanzone,
I remember Craig Swan. I saw him pitch at Shea and can clearly recall
knowing that one year he even led the National League in earned run
average, the only Met from the post-Seaver years who ever got anywhere
near a leader-board (which should have been the tipoff that something
was fishy). It's a little unsettling to look at one of the cards from
my childhood and have no memory of the player in the photo, but it's
downright jarring to realize that a player I do remember was merely an
ephemeral incarnation of an anonymous drifter who skirted the shadows
of a series of last-place ballclubs. As far as I know, his ruse was
never uncovered. Probably whenever the authorities started to zero in
on him, he simply moved on to the next half-empty stadium, leaving
behind nothing but a fake mustache.
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