69

As bad as the Mets are this year and as far away from being a Met fan as I am right now, I really wish I had been able to use my Saturday tickets last weekend. Because they were saluting the fortieth anniversary of the greatest team that I have rooted for in my life.
The 1969 World Champion New York Mets.
I watched the ceremonies instead on the TV in my bedroom 3000 miles away. Laying across the bed on my stomach like an eight-year-old watching cartoons. And, as one 1969 Met after another was brought out, I cried. And cried some more. And remembered the days of old. I wished that this very classy gathering had been held actually in the now-parking-lotted Shea Stadium, where it all played out like the most improbable plotline ever created.
This was perhaps the most fabulous season of my life and it set a standard for summers that has yet to be topped. I was a young baseball fan and my choice for favorite team was being vindicated for at least this year. There are tons of memories and I will need to devote at least one or two of my Sunday Memory Drawers to waxing more eloquently on the likes of Seaver, Koosman, Hodges, and Agee. But, for now, 1969 brings me to some other more immediate thoughts.
As I scoped the usual blogs to read stories on the team reunion, I noticed more than a little indifference from the writers. Because most of these articles are done by younger people, the 1969 Met championship is only a sidebar in their lives. For most of them, the real bell ringer is the 1986 World Championship New York Mets. To them, players like Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, and Ron Darling trump all others in Met lore.
Hmmmmm.
Hey, I was there, too, in 1986. And I shared in the exhileration of a long day's journey into Ray Knight and a ball behind the bag that get by Buckner. For the first time as an adult, I was vindicated as a baseball fan. But, as great as that was, it didn't hold a candle to 1969. The first time for the Mets. The first time for me.
So, the question bears asking. Do you have to be alive to appreciate history? If I had been born ten or fifteen years later, would I appreciate 1969 as much?
So, I think about it. I wasn't alive for Babe Ruth, but I can still recognize that he was one of the greatest players of all time. I never saw Jackie Robinson, but I can appreciate every thing he did for the game. I didn't live through Pearl Harbor, but I can understand how devastating that event was in the annals of our nation's history.
I know some young adults who clearly get it. They can reel off the wonders of Sandy Koufax, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and other players who had retired long before their birth dates in 1983 or 1984. But, there are others who have no concept.
Several years back, when the Mets had fans vote on the greatest moments in the team's history, catcher Todd Pratt's playoff homerun in 1969 outscored several earlier but more important days in Flushing. Huh? A terrific game, but better than Agee's two catches in Game 3 of the 69 World Series? More memorable than Ron Hodges' ball off the wall during the September pennant race of 1973? More exciting than Lenny Dykstra's game-winning homerun (I refuse to say the ESPN-conjured expression "walk off") in Game 3 of the 1986 NLCS? If you're under 20, I guess the answer is...probably.
Ultimately, it's okay to respect something you yourself didn't feel or touch. So, young baseball fans, open up the books and experience some of the past days of your favorite team. Because it counts just as much as what you saw happen last week.
As for me and 1969, I am lucky. I did feel. I did touch. And it was so good.
Dinner last night: Garden medley salad with chicken at BJs.