Tuesday, September 25, 2007

DEAD MOON NIGHT. [09-25-07]

As it turned out, tonight might likely be my last regular-season game at Shea; it is certainly the only one I have tickets left for. This morning the MG household made a snap decision to attend a concert by Mr. Bruce Springsteen at the Continental Airlines Arena on Friday, and since they were only selling about 2500 tickets for this rehearsal show, felt that it could easily trump the Mets right now. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, if you find people who paid their playoff invoices with more alacrity than we did, I’d like to meet them, and we’re not booking anything on potential playoff nights no matter what. As someone near and dear to our hearts might say, we have faith, but it’s a little bruised and battered right now and frankly could use a night off.

Even if Friday night turned out to be clinch night, I came to the realization a while ago that it wouldn’t be the same as last year—I know that nothing could, that last year was an enchanted year, the kind of year that a baseball fan maybe experiences once in every 20. I didn’t expect lightning to strike twice but I still use TBF as my touchstone, who informed me recently that he had no intention of purchasing any NL East Championship gear this time around, that I of course was free to do as I wished but that he was going to wait to the NLCS before any merchandise was acquired. I hadn’t quite quantified it the same way he had, but there was a similar equation going on in my head.

So in this semi-cranky, semi-resigned mood, I headed out to Shea to meet Will, who was my date for the evening, and see what Your 2007 Mets had in store for me tonight. TBF, calling on his way down to Asbury Park (yes, AGAIN), assured me that all would be well: “Tommy G.’s gonna throw a no-hitter until the 6th inning, you’ll see, it’ll be golden.”

Ah, famous last words.

We kind of sat there in disbelief through those 88-something pitches, at first making jokes about Guillermo Mota wearing a Tom Glavine suit, or that surely Tommy would settle down or calm down or get his focus or, well, we ran out of theories and after a while, excuses. And then we were dumbfounded that this was going to happen AGAIN, the Nationals were going to dismember us one more time IN OUR HOUSE, while we sat and watched.

I had a beer. I tried taking some color contrast shots of a group wearing light blue shirts in the upper deck. And, avidly, we were all watching the top of the NL side of the out-of-town scoreboard, finding ourselves in the improbable position of rooting for the Braves. In our section, we tried to excuse it as “rooting against the Phillies” but we all felt slightly queasy no matter how we tried to disguise it. The continued tomahawk chops and Braves war chants every time they got a lead was somewhat - disconcerting - then amusing - then bordered on the absurd. Especially at the end of the game, a lone voice in the front row of the Mezzanine boxes cried out, “The Braves won! The Braves won!” and a split second later, the out of town scoreboard flashed F and the entire crowd - the 12 of us who were left, that is - burst into cheers and the tomahawks came out in earnest. I heard after the game that the players, apparently, were confused. Guess what? So were we.

Andrew and William from Row F break out the rally caps, which they hate and despise:

So it’s the bottom of the 9th, and we have suffered humiliation after continued humiliation, and the sections all over Shea have been emptying out after each side, because the Nationals keep getting runs and the Mets keep not getting them. We come close, we leave ducks on the pond in heartbreakingly spectacular fashion, and I am eyeing the clock and calculating how long it will take me to get home, since the car is not waiting for me at Court Square and I am left to do battle with the B61 or the G train (much of a muchness, actually, sometimes). I am considering, sin against sin, sneaking out early, or maybe getting to the far side of the stadium so I can flee to the 7 train quickly, at least, when Coop and Zoe show up and plant themselves. “I don’t leave,” Coop says. “There was this game in 2000 where we got 10 runs or something in the 9th inning...”
“I know. I don’t leave either. It’s just --”
“I know.”

But they were there, and although the twins had left and seats 5 & 6 had left, and the season-ticket Walrus who has four seats in front of us who almost never shows up had left, Miriam and her boyfriend were there and the other season ticket guys that we like were still there. So I stayed. I figured, this is what I’m here for, I stay until the end.

BOOM. Paul Lo Duca gets a single. We cheer.
Carlos Gomez gets a walk, and we cheer, again, louder.
I take my camera back out of my bag. I change lenses. I realize I might need it. Maybe.
People are in shock. Amazed. Dumbfounded. Pinching themselves.
and then - that magical BOOM from Jose, and not one, not two, but THREE runs are coming in now, and it is 6-10, and there is dancing in the aisles (well, there was plenty of room), and shouts of disbelief and while I know there were no fireworks going off in the outfield it sure felt like it. They are standing up in the dugout, Milledge and Oliver are standing on the railings waving at the fans, telling them, get up, get up, you’re the only ones left, please, get up.

Luis Castillo comes to the plate and gets a single, which surprises no one. (If Luis Castillo is not here next year, I am going to personally send an email to and demand an answer why.) And then the Nationals actually GET WORRIED, because they bring in Cordero, who was probably sitting in the bullpen playing a game of gin rummy and wondering what he was going to have for dinner when he got back to the hotel, because there was no way he was going to have to work tonight.

David Wright, predictably, singles.

We cheer louder and louder and louder and louder.

Carlos takes a pitch. He takes another pitch. He takes another pitch. Coop has her fingers over her eyes. Zoe is waving her lone blue and orange pom pom. People are banging empty beer bottles on seats and railings. Even the obnoxious token Yankees fan behind us is cheering for the Mets right now.
“I WANT THE BASES LOADED,” yells his Met fan buddy. “BELTRAN, YOU A SUPERSTAR! LOAD THOSE BASES!”

Carlos walks.

I have never in my life been so glad to see Moises Alou. I yell, “I WILL TAKE BACK ANYTHING BAD I HAVE EVER SAID ABOUT YOU, EVER,” and I mean it this time. “ah-LOUUUUUUUUUUUU,” we bellow, werewolves under the full moon, half exhortation, half prayer.

Improbably, he does it. I mean, you know about this, this is why you are here and why you do this and why you sit through bonus baseball and freezing Aprils and years where achieving the Wild Card would be your most extreme wacked-out fantasy.

A double. Moises Alou hits a double, and in come Castillo, Wright and Beltran. The party now starts in earnest.

Cordero comes out, and a lusty cheer arises when #10 heads out to replace #18.
“Do we sit down? We were sitting down when the rally starts?” a worried Zoe asks.
“No! We stand! We’re all standing!” I think even Howie Rose was standing. “No one moves,” I yell like a crazed stick-up artist. “No! One! Moves!” Not that there were many people left TO move right now.

Mr. Delgado. #21. We think he can do this. We hope he can do this. Even if we don’t, we’re going to believe it for as long as it takes him to actually DO it so we can win this game and get on with our lives. He doesn’t, but Endy steals third, and we wish he wouldn’t and we were sure he was out but somehow he wasn’t out.

One more. The man that the fans probably cheer the loudest and most spontaneously. Born in Brooklyn, I know, he’s essentially as Brooklyn as my cat is, but - right now, I want the ghosts of Brooklyn to will Paulie Baseball on to do this for us, give us the fairy tale ending. And he can do it, you know? We’ve seen him do it.

And this is where the glass coach turned into a pumpkin. I said my goodbyes to the faithful who were left, and hurrying down the stairs with the girls, took my regular season leave of Shea. Maybe we’ll be back on Sunday; maybe we won’t. But we’ll be there next week, pompoms, new hats, and carefully polished and recharged optimism by the boatload.

I hate, hate, HATED that we lost tonight, that we had to come so far from behind, that they put themselves into that position YET AGAIN. But I took heart that there were some fangs bared, some teeth, some guts, some heart tonight, that they fought. That’s all I ever wanted to see. I don’t know why it makes the losing better but it does.

I have no time, repeat, no time to put the rest of the photos into the story (will do that tomorrow night) but the Flickr feed is here.