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. 

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. 

Gompers has owned Stitches, an embroidery and screen printing company in Whitestone, since 1991. 

He creates apparel for teams, schools and businesses across the city — and he also stitches the jerseys for the Islanders, Mets and Yankees.

Right now, he and his team are on standby.

“A lot of things happen at the deadline, and when they happen, I've got to be ready for it,” Gompers said.

Asked if the Yankees have indicated what this year's deadline might look like, Gompers said, “No, they have not. I think the Mets have, because there's going to be a lot.”

The Mets told him to be ready. 

"I kind of hope their names are only like four or five letters,” Gompers joked.

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’s last name, takes anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour.

It’s a fine-tuned operation he’s perfected over the years. Gompers started stitching the Mets' jerseys in 1993.

One Saturday night, he returned home from grocery shopping to a voicemail asking him to call back.

“I call the number and this guy picks up the phone and he goes, ‘Hello, Charlie,’” Gompers said. “Now, 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."

"He said, ‘Mr. Russ, it's an emergency. Howard Johnson's going on the DL’ 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,” Gompers said.

It wouldn’t 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’ sleeves.

“There 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,” said Gompers.

Not happy about that, they asked the Mets for their jersey guy, and just like that, Gompers had secured both of New York’s baseball teams.

"It's not like it's pressure," Gompers said. "We're used to it, but it has to get it done like that."

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.

“Same thing with the hats on 9/11,” Gompers said. “I did all the hats that said NYPD, PAPD, FDNY. I did them all.”

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.

“Because 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,” said Gompers.

And all these years later, he still feels pride seeing his work sparkle on the diamond.

“I did that,” Gompers said. “Yeah, yeah, I do, I still do.”