Yay! I Finished Another Book - "Backstage at the Mets" by Lindsey Nelson and Al Hirshberg

I've written here about my childhood summer nights.  Pressed up against the kitchen fan and reading a good book. 

Sometimes, sensory perception can bring you back to the old days.

A few weeks back, I was in New York and it was muggy.  The type of evening where the moon is almost as hot as the sun.  While my apartment there is equipped with air conditioning, I also have two ceiling fans installed.  As well as a pretty powerful floor fan that is based in my home office.   On this night, I was doing some work on the laptop.  Probably updating this very blog.  And the breeze from the floor fan gave me the kind of feeling I had years ago.   The whirr of the fan motor.  The coolness that caressed me.

I suddenly had this urge to snuggle up to the fan and read a book.  I turned around to the bookcase in my office.  These are offerings that never made the move to Los Angeles.  Things I read perhaps twenty years ago.

Or, in some cases, even longer.

I reached over and pulled down the first thing I could grab.

"Backstage at the Mets" by Lindsey Nelson with Al Hirshberg.   A book that came out in 1966.  And one I probably read in a summer a long, long time ago.  Curled up with the kitchen fan.

I dusted off the top of the binding and cracked the spine of the book.  The glue that once held it together had dried so the pages were beginning to loosen.  Despite its condition, I started to read.

And didn't stop for three hours.  A book devoured in one sitting.

I can remember when it was all new to me.  I was a young baseball fan, suddenly and inexplicably and hopelessly devoted to the New York Mets.  They were still new to baseball.  Only three or four years old.  But they had captured the hearts of New Yorkers with their lovable quirkiness and ineptitude. 

I was one of them.

Lindsey Nelson was one of the Mets announcers back when.  He was a longtime sports announcer.  A thorough professional but one also blessed with a wry wit.  He found the funny in most situations.  And certainly appreciated the wonder of the fledgling Met franchise which seemed to find an infinite number of ways in which you could lose a baseball game.  With the 75-year-old Casey Stengel at the team's helm, Nelson knew there was a great story to tell with the birth of the Mets.  This was captured wonderfully in "Backstage at the Mets."

It all held my attention, but also simultaneously provoked my mind to wander.  To my first trip to Shea Stadium.  To games and losses I had long since forgotten.   To players that were on dog-eared baseball cards in a shoebox under my bed. 

To a day when all these stories were new.  And gobbled up by a young boy simply trying to beat the summer night heat.   One more time.

The feeling was back.  The electric fan spun on in my ear.  The lilting breeze chilled me. 

And, for three hours, I was back home in Mount Vernon, New York.  And I was a new Met fan all over again.

Dinner last night:  Leftover pizza and salad.