During his first season covering the Brooklyn Cyclones in 2001, Mark Healey got a chance to actually tryout for the Mets. He was covering the new minor league team for the Brooklyn Skyline newspaper when he went undercover for an open tryout at Keyspan Park.

“It was humbling and terribly exciting at the same time,” Healey told MOFO Sports. “And the best past about it was I was neither the fattest or slowest person there.”

It’s safe to say that at age 33, the tryout didn’t get Healey’s baseball career off the ground, but it did help further his writing career.

The Brooklyn native has been trying to reach his ultimate goal of becoming a baseball beat writer in New York since he started with the Associated Press in 1998 and has worked a number of freelance jobs on the side.

After working various ends for the newswire, he got a break when he started covering the Brooklyn Cyclones in their inaugural season and has covered them for various publications since. Being able to step in on the first floor for the Cyclones has helped Healey immensely.

“By working for the Cyclones for all that time, I basically got to know the whole scouting department,” Healey said. “Anyone who knows anything about covering a baseball team, when you know the scouts and the people, who are on the inside a front office, you get to know everything that goes on.”

And that is what Healey has done. The writer made numerous contacts within the Mets organization and has been able to break a several stories before other writers. He is also able to break some stories on the Mets Inside Pitch website before many of the newspapers.

This is what makes him tick. Healey lives and breathes baseball, which is why he is so driven in his goal. To him baseball is his life ad even though he likes covering the other sports; there is only one number one.

“I enjoy the NFL, hockey and NBA, but it’s not like baseball. Baseball is a game that has always been inherent to me,” Healey explained. “I grew up in Brooklyn and we sat on the stoop all-day and talked about (baseball).”

So to get his baseball fill, when other sports fill his docket for the AP, Healey freelances. He started with the Brooklyn Skyline and then moved to Mets Inside Pitch where he covers the Cyclones and Mets. Because he was with the Cyclones from the beginning, Healey got to know the Mets organization.

“I have been able to know the minor league system so well because I covered the Cyclones for three years, now that I cover the Major League team for Inside Pitch, it makes my life a whole lot easier,” Healey said. “I already know a lot of these players.”

So that is why he is gunning for a beat writing job some day and he doesn’t care if it’s the Mets or the Yankees because he “can’t go wrong covering baseball in New York.” He stays at the AP because of the financial security he needs with a family, but one day he will make the jump.

“Eventually I want to be a beat writer, that's what I was born to do,” he added.