Wednesday, June 27, 2007

“HEARTBREAK AND DESPAIR GOT NOTHING BUT BORING…”

It was a hot and clammy night. For once, the breezes off of the bay were welcomed, such as they were.
As we were getting off the train, we passed a gentleman in a PUJOLS jersey.
“Just don’t,” was my admonition. “It’s too hot.” Or rather, it was too early to begin what would undoubtedly turn into a heckle-fest, brought on by the presence of metal on the hands of the Cardinals and the lack thereof on the hands of the Mets. Ho-hum, is my take. We’re almost at the All-Star break. Your bragging rights are over. Stand and deliver.

But, as I am fond of saying, Pot, meet Kettle.

Like my esteemed colleague, I say bullpucky to the concept that the Cardinals fans are the ‘best’ fans in baseball. I’d even say bullpucky to TBF’s assertion that they’re the ‘nicest’ fans in baseball.  I’m not quite ready to pick a successor yet, but what a load of media-processed malarkey. We had some in our section last night and I was almost disappointed they did nothing. They watched the game. They cheered politely. TBF was raring to heckle, beginning with his salute of, “What time’s the bar open, Tony?” as the line-up announcement began.

Nothing. Not a chirp.

(Get it? Chirp?)

[More inanity after the jump.]

An ERA over 6 owned by the opposing pitcher no longer says anything to me. We have no bats. They have gone missing. They are absent. No bats, no balls, no hits, no runs. “Hits and walks, boys, hits and walks,” as TBF says. “Little bites, little bites,” as Willie was fond of saying last year. Conspicuously absent. Ridiculously absent.

And yet, we soldier on. We are there in Section 12, with the rest of the faithful. The full-season gents from row D. Redheaded Dad of William and Matthew, this time with Redheaded Mom, an infrequent visitor. Miriam and Julia. On our other side, in seats 5 and 6, the regular seatholder is absent, replaced by his father and his curmudgeonly friend, who I referred to last year as Statler and Waldorf. Statler is the father, Waldorf is the friend. Waldorf also keeps score and loves talking to TBF.

So we began optimistic and light-hearted, beginning with Miriam staring at the image of Scott Spiezio on the Diamondvision.
“What is that?”
“What?”
“On his chin.”
We all kind of looked at her in puzzlement. Um, Miriam? Last year? The playoffs? Chants of “Shave Your Chin”?
“Is that a birthmark?”
“Miriam, were you not here for the playoffs?”
“Yes, I was here.”
“Did you watch them on tv?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t remember the Cardinals fans with their fake goatees?”
“No.” She pouts. We laugh.
“Seriously, what is that?”
“It’s called a ‘soul patch,’” TBF says.
“No, I’ve seen a soul patch. It’s a little bit, here,” she gestures.
I would make other comments about Scott Spiezio but there are children and people’s mothers in the vicinity.

Tonight, Professor Reyes teaches us about el despertador, the alarm clock. I cackle.
“El despertador NO me despierda,” I taunt TBF. My alarm clock does NOT wake me up. Actually, it’s his that doesn’t wake him up. I joke about getting him that alarm clock that rings, and then rolls off of your nightstand and travels around the room until you catch it. I ponder whether Jose Reyes is one of those guys that bounds out of bed the minute before the alarm goes off, or if he needs to snooze about 8 times before struggling out of bed. I decide he doesn’t even need an alarm, much less one that rolls around the room.

You can see Reyes’ grin watching himself from up here. It used to be Delgado’s smile that out-shone the diamondvision. Not any more. It’s sad. I bought my Delagdo shirt at the beginning of the season; it hasn’t had a lot of use. Our inside-joke asides of, “Remember when people used to consider Carlos Delgado a defensive liability?” “Not any more” are gone. I’m not ready to give up on Carlos, though; I will swear up and down to you that Moises Alou will not be back this season, but I am still ready to believe that Carlos Delgado will conquer his slump. Although the stats, at this point, are scary.

The seats in front of us don’t fill up until the fourth inning. Three youngish guys and a small child in an Alex Rodriguez jersey. It’s a small child, and we’re doing okay, so we won’t heckle him.
Miriam points at the child’s back. I shrug.
“Why is he wearing that here?” she asks. I shrug.
All of a sudden, he removes the jersey. Miriam gasps, thinking that he heard her.
I turn to TBF. He giggles. “Tell your father to buy you the jersey of a good player,” he says.
“What?”
“That’s what I told him,” he admits.
“He’s a child!”
Said child gets up and moves to the end of the row, away from Miriam and TBF.
“There, I hope you feel better,” I admonish both of them.
They do.
Miriam later feels bad, and makes friends with the child. He stands up during the t-shirt toss and I tell one of the guys with him that not that we ever get one up in our section, but if the kid wants a chance at all, he should go down to the entrance to the section.
I feel better.

I get a hot dog. TBF brought me dinner, but I am hungry. I will be very glad for this later.
“Want to go to the game on Thursday?” TBF asks when I return.
“What?”
“I think I want to go on Thursday. There’s a long roadtrip after this series.”
“We’re going to Philly.”
“Yeah, but--”
“And we’re supposed to go see Joan Jett for free on Thursday.”
*pause* “You’re right, we should go to that.”
“Because if you want to go to the game, Coop emailed me looking for a date that night, and I didn’t tell her I wanted to go because we had plans!”
“No, you’re right, we’re going to Philly.”

The best moment of the night was the Shea DJ playing ”Leap of Faith” by Mr. Springsteen as OP left the game. Very, very nice touch. We wholeheartedly approve. We talk about it a lot. We are regarded as old fuddy-duddies by everyone around us. We do not care.

We do, however, care about Jose Valentin. I won’t boo him, but we’re starting to wonder if it was really his knee that was operated on.

Mets fans start leaving.

There is a huge collective sigh of relief once Feliciano comes out. We’re not quite ready to start singing the Ballad of (which still endures as a playoff legacy in our house), but it’s enough to bring my blood pressure down. LoDuca brings it up again at the bottom of the 8th, but in a good way. I don’t know what he’s doing that everyone else is not doing, but maybe he should be offering shin-guard throwing clinics for the rest of the team. It might help.

And once it’s 2-3, you know, we’re happy again. These are the Mets we remember. I confess that I was ready to give up an inning or two ago, accept inevitability. I am tired and I have to get up at 6 and TBF has a headache and there is no Advil in the baseball bag for some reason. But LoDuca perks me right up. It also gets unbearably hot, for some reason, as soon this happens. It had been comfortable for the rest of the evening. We are now all sweating like stuck pigs.

Cardinals fans start leaving.

I don’t really expect Shawn Green to be parting the Red Sea or anything, but I’ll take a walk, even though, with the spectre of #22 coming up right behind him, it seems to be for naught. But Redheaded Dad leans over and says in my ear, “Sometimes people who make mistakes win games.”

Holy Crap! It’s heading for right field! And we stand up and we cheer until we don’t think we can cheer any more, we’re so desperate to cheer something good, cheer something great. And then, miraculously, there’s an error and Valentin gets to third and everyone is high-fiving everyone else.

“Bonus baseball,” says TBF. And at that moment I don’t care what the clock says or how tired I am or that my very high pressure day at work will be complicated by fuzzy head and dark circles under my eyes. This is the heart of what I love about this game, the improbable, the split second reversal of fate.

Which swings both ways.

--
Small comforts: no jam of morons incapable of operating a Metrocard at the turnstiles.
Small comforts: no need to strategically position ourselves on the platform to fly into the subway car in order to secure seats.
Big comforts: TBF going to work early on Tuesday, so he could leave work early on Tuesday, so he could go home, get the car, and park it at Court Square, so I am inside the apartment five minutes after stepping off the 7 train, and in bed at about 2 minutes after midnight.

It’s one thing to get up at 6am on no sleep after a raucous extra innings win. It was quite something else this morning.

--

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE METS:

We’re going to be in Philly for both Saturday and Sunday;s games.
DO NOT EMBARRASS US.
Or yourselves for that matter.
I mean it.
Thank you.

xo,
MG