The Sunday Memory Drawer - My First Days in Section 7

Baseball approacheth. This will be my first season without Saturday games at Shea Stadium. This will be my first season with Saturday games at Citi Field. And we all know it won't be the same.

As you know, my essay entitled "The Saturday Plan" was published last year in a commemorative book saluting Shea Stadium. Here's the opening of that piece as I focus on my very first days and years in Loge, Section 7.

Friday, January 12, 1968. The year would be eventful for the country. Assassinations. Protests. Riots. For me, as well.

I had just discovered that Shea Stadium had an elevator.

On this spring-like afternoon, this young boy stood in the New York Mets elevator between his father and a representative of the Mets ticket office. I considered this imminent dual emergence of manhood and fanhood.

I was going to pick out my very own exclusive seats for my new Saturday ticket plan.

So, what were my perks as part of Met royalty? Would I get to ride this nifty elevator during the season? Discounts on hot dogs? I made a mental note to speak with Met management to voice my displeasure about trading Tommy Davis to the Chicago White Sox for some lightweight centerfielder named Agee something. They had to listen to me, right?

This burgeoning chain of events had been perpetuated by my parents’ annual Christmas gift dilemma for a young son who was too old for toys, too young for appliances, and never quite appreciative enough for clothes. The Purgatory of Presents. But, on Christmas of 1967, novelty paid a rare visit to our Westchester household.

My parents’ notion of giving me my own exclusive Met tickets for every Saturday certainly reeked of logic usually reserved for Ward and June Cleaver. The summer before, I had made my first solo trips to Shea Stadium with several other kids in the neighborhood. Ninety minutes on the subway. Through the South Bronx, when it was still safe for youngsters to pop off unattended for an afternoon of culture as presented by Ed Kranepool and Jack Fisher. I was obviously now ready for a steadier commitment. Every Saturday afternoon at Shea. For about eight or nine Saturdays a year, I would automatically have something to do.

Loge Level, Section 7, Row E, Seats 1 and 2. On the aisle. Under the overhang in case of rain. $2.50 per ticket. I owned a piece of the rock, or, in this case, the landfill. The only parental stipulation was that whoever used the second seat had to pay me for the ticket. I was getting the Christmas present, not the entire neighborhood.

Saturday, April 22, 1968. Mets 3, Dodgers 2. Tom Seaver’s eighteenth major league victory. My first Saturday plan game. Seat 2: my childhood best friend Leo, who wasn’t even born in this country. American democracy at work. Leo paid me the $2.50 before we even left for the game. During those initial seasons in Section 7, my father would always reserve that particular Saturday when the San Francisco Giants were in town. My father hadn’t been a New York Giants fan, but this new tradition just felt right.

I never asked for the $2.50 those weeks.

I discovered that the same faces sat around me every Saturday. There was the Archie Bunker prototype in Seat 3 who mispronounced the simplest of Met names. “Tim Foil-ee.” “Al Wise.” “Jack The Lawyer.” There were the two feeble guys in Seats 5 and 6. One of them went down to the bathroom every half inning. They came to be known as Frick and Frack.

As I matured, so did the Mets. My arrival on the scene coincided with the onset of the Gil Hodges regime, which seemed to instantly end the rather uncomfortable six year puberty otherwise known as Casey Stengel and Wes Westrum. My second season in Section 7 brought a World Championship to Flushing, although I think Cleon and the Glider had more to do with it than I did. Ironically, the Saturday game that stands out most during that season was a particular loss on September 20. The late Bob Moose of the Pittsburgh Pirates tossed a no-hitter than afternoon, which did not faze those in attendance one iota: the Chicago Cubs had already lost and one more magic number was erased.

The first sobering reminder that I was not exactly that high on the Met priority list came with the post-season realization that they don’t give you the same seats for the playoffs or the World Series. As my dad and I were escalated to the upper deck for Game 3 of the 1969 National League Championship Series versus the Atlanta Braves, he silently smoldered as he realized that he was going to be higher than the plane that flew him home from Japan after World War II. All he said was “They better end it today.” Hank Aaron hit a rope to dead center off Gary Gentry, Nolan Ryan shut the door, and they did. The Mets became the World Champions and I took a science midterm the next day.

I began college in the 70’s, but, as I never left the New York area, no Saturday modifications were needed. My parents decided that I was now financially responsible enough to pay for the seats myself. No problem. I was now old enough to appreciate clothes for Christmas. There was a smooth transition in Seat Two. My childhood best friend gave way to my college best friend and roommate. There were ups and downs on the field. A Staub. A Matlack. A Millan. A Schneck. Another pennant.

And we almost didn’t notice. In those days, there was this girl who must have had a Saturday plan in Section 5. Row C. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Probably no more than seventeen. And absolutely perfect. We saw her every Saturday for three years. We watched her every moment. We once followed her down the ramp into the parking lot.

And, in our own little microcosm of life, we never said a single word to her.

Dinner last night: Short ribs at Mima in Irvington.