Friday, September 18, 2009

EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS IS NOWHERE. [9-18-09]

Believe it or not, it wasn’t so bad after all.

For one, the park wasn’t deserted. It was Friday, and people were still showing up for their first time at Citi Field, judging by the endless photos and mall walking and gawking. I made it from the train to the Taqueria and up to my seat before the anthem had started. It wasn’t raining or freezing, I didn’t need the wool socks and rain shoes I had put on early this morning. It was Friday. It was payday. The train wasn’t crowded. It was Batting Helmet Night. Really, I was going to be positive about all of this.

Last night, I was chatting with Kristen of the Nationals blog We’ve Got Heart, who was joking that this series should be “fun”. I told her it was a guaranteed win for her team. She asked me if I’d seen her team play lately. I asked her if she’d seen ours. She insisted we were going to have the advantage. “Oh no,” I assured her. “Got anyone close to a milestone, or needs some MLB first? They’ll get it this weekend.”

Josh Willingham didn’t break any records, but two homeruns was enough achievement for me for one game, thankyouverymuch.

We had Wright. We had Beltran. We had Pelfrey. On paper, this all looks good, but like it or not, I went into this with no expectations. I got some advice from a Kind Commenter earlier in the day, that maybe I should try a different food stand, sit in different seats, try standing on the field level. I appreciated the suggestion and the spirit of it but the thing is, what I like about it is the ritual, I like sitting in the same seats, I like sitting in the same section. There is a comfort to it. My first season at Shea, when TBF was stuck working in Chicago for a good part of the year, the fact that every Tuesday and Friday that the Mets were in town, I got on the 7 train and walked up to the Mezzanine and sat in Row E, Seat 3 of Section 12 with the same people and watched the same game with the same rules was comforting. It was a refuge.

Citi Field has not been a refuge.

The one positive to the downturn is that it has separated the wheat from the chaff in terms of ticket holders. From what we can tell, from row 14 up to the last row in our general area is made up of former Tuesday/Friday ticketholders from Shea. At this point in the season, the people who are showing up are the diehards, the people who bought their seats to sit in them, not to resell or make a profit on.  And given the ample seating in the section, people are gravitating towards each other and there are greetings and conversations and camaraderie, a thing that has been dreadfully absent this year. The lack of consistency in the plans made every game feel like the first week of school, even when we were in July, because you were there on Tuesday or Wednesday and then maybe Friday and oops, here’s a Thursday. At least we are seeing the same faces. At least we are now on nodding ballpark acquaintanceship.

It will be interesting to see who renews their plans next year.

On that subject, tonight was mysteriously awash in even more goodwill towards the fans. Mr. Met was introduced after the anthem (which should ALWAYS happen, he should be on the dugout for the starting lineups) and was down shaking hands on the field level. Then, at the top of the second inning, I hear someone say, “Hey, look who’s up here,” and whaddya know, it’s the big guy with the baseball for the head, throwing tshirts just like it was the upper deck at Shea.

These things were wonderful. Between-inning “entertainment” interludes which require the crowd to vote from three terrible songs to “enjoy” later, or that involve dancing to the Electric Slide, or embarrasing air guitar breaks to the accompaniment of KISS are NOT fan friendly. The fact that people engage in them does not mean that they like them and want more of them. They are insulting and banal.

(Listen, there are probably dozens of people in the country who are kids just out of college with sports marketing majors who are working for their Uncle Bob’s truck dealership or helping out Aunt Meredith selling Webkinz at the Hallmark Gold Crown and would kill or die for a chance to actually get to work in the industry they have a degree in. How about you take a chance and hire some of them and see what they can come up with? We live in the center of the universe. We are supposed to be trend setters. Instead, San Francisco and Milwaukee and Kansas City have better promotions, Cincinnati and Boston have better music, and someone who works for the Mets thinks that getting the crowd to do the Electric Slide like we’re at a wedding with a bad DJ is how you appeal to fans.)

Do I need to be talking about the game here? I hope I don’t. Either you watched it or listened to it or peeked at it on Gameday while you were in Temple or at dinner or pretending to be paying attention to something else on TV. You know, it was a game. It wasn’t any better than usual and it wasn’t all that much worse than usual, at least it didn’t feel that way to me. I think in some ways it’s less painful to be there than to be following it from a distance. And at the ballpark there are still people having fun, kids and their parents, loud happy drunk groups of men, women having girls’ night out at the ballpark. I like people watching always but I love doing it at the ballpark.

And then, just when we were sure we weren’t going to rally after that 8th inning debacle, there are signs of life. Cory Sullivan - Cory Sullivan? - walks. Angel Pagan walks.

We have base runners. We have RISP.

Luis Castillo singles.

Oh dear THE BASES ARE LOADED and the guy in 515 who hops up to start yelling LET’S GO METS at the slightest provocation is on his feet, his shiny batting helmet glistening. The woman in 513 who has been waiting to wave her foam finger all night starts doing so. I get to my feet and pick up the camera. “LET’S GO METS,” I began, when Mr. 515 halts his request. We don’t need the video board. We don’t need any prompting. I wish more people were on their feet (because they certainly got up with the goddamn wave made its feeble way through our section before rightfully dying out around third base). “Okay, David, you’re 0-4,” yells the woman in the bright orange - I mean BRIGHT ORANGE, she could moonlight as a traffic cone - sweatshirt behind us. “It’s time.”

David Wright singles, and we score a run.

I don’t want to say that the place went nuts. We’re tired. We’re burned out. It’s been a long year. (I know I have no right to complain, I haven’t been at this as long as anyone else reading this has been, and I apologize, but since I’ll never be able to catch up to you, can we just agree that I’m right here and this season has been long, agonizing and devastating and that anyone with a brain is capable of recognizing this and feeling it just as strongly as you might?)

And then Carlos grounds out but we still score another run and I’m back in “IT COULD TOTALLY HAPPEN” mode as though this isn’t the 2009 Mets and somehow this is a team that actually knows how to play baseball, and what I delusionally label ‘fight’ is just blind squirrel and nut syndrome. And then Daniel Murphy reaches on a throwing error, and we’re down by one run, and I’m mentally glaring at Brian Stokes, just as Jeff Francoeur grounds out and the game is over.

We have a game on Tuesday, and then our last one on Friday 10/2. I am not going Tuesday. We have three huge concerts next week (U2 on Wednesday, Marianne Faithfull on Thursday, and Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello on Friday). I get to skip a game. I get to get some sleep and rest for things I love and care about and are not likely to send me home heartbroken and dejected. I will be back on the 2nd for our last game - I am even bringing friends! - and we are already planning 2010 roadtrips, including a massive 10-day West Coast swing that takes us to games at every ballpark and what will likely be a very fun Tweet Up in Pittsburgh one weekend.

I know 2009 has been over for a long time, but not for me. It is, however, time to let go of baseball for the year. Usually I am wistful once the weather turns cool; this year I am just a tiny bit relieved - which of course makes me sad in another way.

I can’t win.

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Of course there’s still a Flickr set from 9-18-09