The Sunday Memory Drawer - Baseball Like I Used to Be

I never thought I would say this.   

I used to be a New York Mets fan.  

Yes, used to be.

If you knew me as a baseball fan/child, you would have considered such a statement unfathomable.  The Mets were my first team.  They were my only team.   I lived with them.  I died with them.  And, in a neighborhood of Yankee fans, this was not easy.  Especially when the Mets were bad.   And they could be just that.  Bad.  Awful.  Unwatchable.   

I didn't care.

Now, what has driven me away in 2019?  Well, distance for one.   Proximity to a well-run organization AKA the Los Angeles Dodgers.   But I tried to stay connected once I moved 3000 miles away.  But the team's rotten and nasty ownership, otherwise known as that complete shithead Jeff Wilpon, treated some partial ticket holder plans so badly that the terms of divorce were easy to negotiate.  I will be back when the ownership changes.  I doubt this will happen.  Because once Daddy Fred croaks, the team will fall under the inept management of the maniacal son Jeff.   He will run the place once and for all into the Flushing ground.

I am, however, feeling pangs of this separation right now as a major anniversary looms.  Fifty years ago.   The greatest summer of my young baseball life.   The celebration begins.

The 1969 World Champion New York Mets.

This weekend is the official half-century commemoration at Citi Field.   I thought about going back for the festivities, but, frankly, there was a bit of luster removed.   Tom Seaver, dealing with dementia, would not attend.  About six or seven members of the team are now playing in the Heavenly League, which I hope has no designated hitter.  Heck, even Nolan Ryan declined to appear.

So 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, especially when my dad's favorite Met Jerry Grote was brought out. And remembered the days of old. I wished that this very  gathering had been held actually in the now-parking-lotted Shea Stadium, where it all played out like the most improbable plot line ever created.

Like I said, 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. 

That World Championship year would be like no other for me then or since.  
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 exhilaration of a long day's journey into Ray Knight and a ball behind the bag that get by the recently departed 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 home run in 1999 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 home run (I refuse to say the ESPN-conjured expression "walk off") in Game 3 of the 1986 NLCS? If you're under 30, 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.  Forgive me if you see a story or two here about that team in the coming weeks.  Please understand.   It was one of the top five highlights of my life.

Dinner last night:  Pepperoni and olive pizza from Maria's.