If you want to get Mets first baseman Pete Alonso lost on a tangent, all you apparently have to do is bring up the famous (or infamous in some minds) black alternate uniforms his current team used to wear. According to MLB.com's Anthony DiComo, Alonso went on a three-and-a-half minute spiel about his love for those jerseys when asked about them last week.

"I don't want them back. We need them back," he said. "The reason why I love the black uniforms so much, [is] when I think of the New York Mets, I think of Pedro [Martinez]. I think of Mike Piazza. I think of Edgardo Alfonzo. I think of Cliff Floyd. David Wright wore the blacks. Carlos Beltrán wore the blacks. I think of so many just electric players that wore the black.

"When I think of that, I imagine and put in my mind 45,000 people blacked out, screaming down the necks of whoever's in that opposing dugout. It's a mentality, and it's an attitude."

The home and road black jerseys were worn from 1998 to 2012 with blue letters and numbers and orange highlights and trim for different tops with 'Mets' and 'New York' across the chest. One of the hallmark moments for these uniforms happened in the 1999 NLCS with Robin Ventura's game-winning Grand Slam single.

As is the case with anything new or different, there are dissenters against these jerseys. Longtime Mets radio broadcaster Howie Rose told MLB.com that "there's no room for black" in the team's colors. Even ex-Mets star David Wright, who is a proponent of those jerseys and wore them for some time in his career, expressed apprehension towards bringing them back.

"Obviously, [the black uniforms] have special meaning to me sentimentally," Wright told MLB.com. "I think that they look sharp. But I don't know if you go back to that, or if you're supposed to make your memories in the new blue because you'd be the first ones to do that? I don't know. ... This isn't like a black-and-white answer, no pun intended."

It'll be up to the Mets front office to determine whether they will agree to the wishes of the team's newest star. Until then, here's another highlight for the franchise from that era.