As Major League Baseball’s trade deadline approaches, one Queens man is preparing for the flurry of roster moves that could send him racing to work.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The trade deadline arrives 6 p.m. Monday, and while all the action takes place behind the scenes, Russ Gompers will be watching and waiting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gompers has owned Stitches, an embroidery and screen printing company in Whitestone, since 1991.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He creates apparel for teams, schools and businesses across the city \u2014 and he also stitches the jerseys for the Islanders, Mets and Yankees.<\/p>\n
Right now, he and his team are on standby.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of things happen at the deadline, and when they happen, I’ve got to be ready for it,\u201d Gompers said.<\/p>\n
Asked if the Yankees have indicated what this year’s deadline might look like, Gompers said, \u201cNo, they have not. I think the Mets have, because there’s going to be a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mets told him to be ready.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I kind of hope their names are only like four or five letters,\u201d Gompers joked.<\/p>\n
Gompers said a Yankees uniform, famously with no letters on the back, takes about 10 minutes. A Mets uniform, depending on the length of a player\u2019s last name, takes anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fine-tuned operation he\u2019s perfected over the years. Gompers started stitching the Mets’ jerseys in 1993.<\/p>\n
One Saturday night, he returned home from grocery shopping to a voicemail asking him to call back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI call the number and this guy picks up the phone and he goes, \u2018Hello, Charlie,\u2019\u201d Gompers said. \u201cNow, I know Charlie Samuels is the equipment manager for the Mets because I’m a Mets fan, but I didn’t know I was calling Shea Stadium and I didn’t know that that Charlie was Charlie.”<\/p>\n
“He said, \u2018Mr. Russ, it’s an emergency. Howard Johnson’s going on the DL\u2019 and they were calling up a kid from the minors who was going to be playing in Sunday’s game, so I had to get the uniform done. I got it done, and I’ve been doing the Mets ever since,\u201d Gompers said.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t be until 22 years later that he got the Yankees, too. When Yogi Berra died in 2015, the Yankees decided to put a commemorative No. 8 patch on all the players\u2019 sleeves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was an older man that was doing the uniforms for the Yankees at the time, and instead of him putting the No. 8 on the right way, he put it sideways, and it looked like the infinity signal,\u201d said Gompers.<\/p>\n
Not happy about that, they asked the Mets for their jersey guy, and just like that, Gompers had secured both of New York\u2019s baseball teams.<\/p>\n
“It’s not like it’s pressure,” Gompers said. “We’re used to it, but it has to get it done like that.”<\/p>\n
The last three and a half decades have been filled with countless memories, like being asked to design the Sept. 11 logo players wore in the aftermath of the attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame thing with the hats on 9\/11,\u201d Gompers said. \u201cI did all the hats that said NYPD, PAPD, FDNY. I did them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the moment that stands out most of all came in May 1998, when Mike Piazza was traded to the Mets. It was such a big deal that his staff was nervous.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause they had to set the letters and make sure it was perfect, so they were like a little tentative, so I came here and I did Piazza’s first jersey, that was pretty cool,\u201d said Gompers.<\/p>\n
And all these years later, he still feels pride seeing his work sparkle on the diamond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did that,\u201d Gompers said. \u201cYeah, yeah, I do, I still do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Major League Baseball’s trade deadline approaches, one Queens man is preparing for the flurry of roster moves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[58195,16738,64,63,591,1026,1830,2704,44,312792,85,405795,39,87249],"class_list":["post-833997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-mets","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-news","tag-professional-baseball","tag-sports","tag-stef-manisero","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}