July 24 - Happy Baseball-iversary to Me

As Yogi might say, July 24 happens just once a year.   In the middle of the usual summer heat, I take an otherwise ordinary date on the calendar and celebrate.

Technically, it's the date I officially became a baseball fan.  

I've written before of that very evening...my first one ever at Shea Stadium.  Oh, sure, I had been to baseball games before.  With my day camp.   Or because the oil burner company my dad used to work for part time had season tickets to Yankee Stadium.   

But, on all those original forays to a ball yard, I had little clue what was going on.   All I knew about baseball was that those afternoon Yankee games on Channel 11 often delayed my Popeye cartoons.

It all changed one May when I was home sick from school with the German measles.  The Mets were playing three home afternoon games and I had wandered over to WOR Channel 9 to watch.  The team stunk, but I didn't care.   There was something about them that was endearing.   And, in a world surrounded by neighborhood friends and even a father who were Yankee fans, I could be the lone renegade in Met fandom.

Annoying kid that I was, I clamored to be taken now to a game.  Thanks to my dad's work friend whose wife worked for Rambler---the official car of the New York Mets---my very first visit to spanking new Shea was via tickets behind the visitor's dugout.  It was raining and I didn't care.

That was July 24 and how it all started for me.

Ripping the calendar pages off year-by-year and decade-by-decade, there was a July 24 game at Shea Stadium.  I was an adult now.  And, somehow, I was there with my good college buddy, the Bibster.  The Mets were getting good again after years of being bad after several years of being very good.  They were playing the Cardinals and were on the periphery of a pennant chase for the first time in a long while.

The game went extra innings.  The Mets won.  And, while there was nothing terribly miraculous about the victory, the whole game was very, very special. Perhaps it was the company.  Or the environment.  Or maybe a mix of everything that is wonderful about baseball.  It was one of my most perfect nights ever in a baseball stadium.

Yes, the magic of July 24.

So, when 2015 baseball schedules came out last fall, I immediately gravitated to the date so I could see where I would be celebrating one more season.  My mouth hit the proverbial floor.

The Mets would be at home.  Well, Citi Field, but close enough to Shea as the photo above shows.  Playing, of all teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

My baseball universe on two coasts neatly compacted on one date.  Another game where I clap for two teams with one hand.

Yes, July 24.

So, I am there tonight.  With not only the Bibster but Mrs. Bibster as well.

As anniversaries go, this couldn't be better.  July 24 in Flushing.

Dinner last night:  Braciole at Zero Otto Nove in Armonk.