Monday, October 01, 2007

MetsGrrl’s Make A Difference World Series

This post is actually not about the New York Mets, but I’m hoping you read it anyway.

I’m joining the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge. I don’t know if you’re familiar with DonorsChoose.org, but it’s an organization that facilitates fund raising for teacher-initiated projects in public schools. I personally think that public school teachers are 1) brave and 2) saints, and know how positively my life was impacted by great teachers who tried to make a difference.

The entire fund raiser is facilitated through DonorsChoose.org. This is a small, modest fund raiser, with two projects that are 1) in Brooklyn and 2) involve baseball as a tool to help motivate students, and help them learn and grow.

Think about what you would have spent at Shea during the playoffs on food and beer. Think about what you would have spent on one night at a sports bar, watching the games. If you’re getting a refund from the Mets for playoff tickets, would you miss $20 from it? Then read about what these teachers are trying to do with baseball, and consider making a donation to one or more of the programs.

I’m doing this because I believe in the organization and because I selfishly wanted to do something to make me feel better about not going to the playoffs. Small-minded as it may seem, the end result is all that counts. Even $5 can make a difference.

Mets bloggers, feel free to drop a line if you want to join in this challenge, or go ahead and start your own! The more the merrier.

Click on the graphic below to get started, and thank you for your support.

LAST TO DIE. [09-30-07]

The MG+TBF house was in a fever pitch from, well, the last pitch last night, and we were up early, at Shea just shy of 11, parked under Northern Boulevard for the first time in over a year. I wanted to wander around and take pictures, and hoped we could find the “Meet the Mets” camera and tell them, We know the second verse, let us sing! I want to say that people were cautiously optimistic, not quite ebullient, but hope. There was plenty of hope. There was a drop line at the box office, and plenty of people looking for tickets. I saw one group of three boys with a sign asking for 1, and took their photo - only to see a father with a stroller and two other young children in tow stop, ask them, “You’re not selling, are you? Just don’t sell it,” and handed them a ticket, gratis.

And the signs. There were signs everywhere. I considered a sign, but we were in UR1, Row O, which means no room to hang a sign, and with a camera and a notebook there is no extra hand to hold a sign. But I thought about it, hard. We were in WRIGHT and FLOYD (it seemed the right thing to do), and TBF was wearing the crappy hat he used to wear to work on playoff days and I was in the stylin’ hat he refers to as my “big pimpin’ hat,” but I prefer to think of as my special occasion hat, which he bought me at the New Era store on 4th St., paying far too much money for a baseball hat, but he cannot resist being able to buy me things that say METS on it.

We were quiet, though, very quiet, after our initial ebullience, when we settled into our seats and realized the Mets were, indeed, quite serious about providing pre-game entertainment from - no, seriously - The Yiddish National Theater. While I appreciate that Sundays are usually the days that The Mets Welcome… the various yeshivot and B’nai Brith and JCC’s of the Tri-State area, but, speaking on behalf of my people, I assure you that EVERYONE would have understood if the Mets had made the last-minute decision to jettison “Bei Mir Bist Du Schein” for “Living On A Prayer” and “Welcome To The Jungle” at full volume through the PA.

As the entertainment began, we sat there with our mouths open (think Beavis & Butthead watching Milli Vanilli) and then, very quietly, TBF suggests:
“How about… in honor of Yiddish Day, here’s a song by someone from David Geffen’s record label?”
When I picked myself off of the floor, I was still laughing, and continued:
“Here’s a song by a band whose A&R guy uses the word ‘schmuck’ a lot.”
“Here’s a song by a band whose members really, really like matzoh ball soup.”
Maybe it’s not that funny now, but it was much-needed hilarity to cut the undertones of solemnity.