Being a baseball fan, and living and dying with the New York Metropolitans (Mets)

When I was a little lad, my first memory of professional baseball was of the New York Yankees.  They were the only professional baseball team in NYC because shortly before my long term memory became conscious to me, the New York Giants moved to San Francisco and the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.  Consequently, in my early years, I became a Yankee fan particularly since I shared the same birthday with Mickey Mantle.

Early in my baseball memory, the Mets came along and I recall distinctly their first season.  They had the worst record in baseball that season and lost 120 games.  No other team since 1899 had lost that many games.

Coinciding with the Mets’ losing ways was my personal Little League experience.  If my memory serves me correctly, our team lost 18 out of 20 games that season.  Our first non-loss came in game 19 when the other team had to forfeit, and our only legitimate win came in game 20. At that time I learned the true meaning of gracious humbleness, sportsmanship, and the ever important lesson of enduring tough times with your team regardless of wins and losses.

I realized early that I was not an all-star nor was I a bad player.  Regardless of my skill and prowess, I enjoyed the game and perhaps more importantly, I simply enjoyed playing.  Although winning was nice, I found much greater satisfaction in playing the game right, being a good teammate, being a good sportsman, and playing to my full potential with as much enthusiasm as I could muster regardless of the situation.

I reserve to term “love” for the people that have established an intimate and significant meaning in my life, so to say I love the Mets is somehow not appropriate.  However, I cannot deny the emotions of disappointment and elation that rise to the surface of my consciousness when the Mets are playing.  I wonder why such heart wrenching emotions surface over a simple game of baseball.  From an objective perspective, it is only a game played by people that are paid a far greater salary than I have yet to accumulate my entire working life.  I wonder; where does this emotion come from, and why does something completely out of my control affect me thus?  It jumps up and grabs my heart and tugs at its strings!

Regardless of the outcome of the season, the series, the game, the fielding play, the at-bat, the pitch, I am undeniably a supporter of the team that captured my heart as a boy when the only positive word to describe their inept play was “amazing”.

As we near the end of this 2015 World Series and the Mets are down 3 games to 1, I must give a shout out of “LETS GO METS!!!!!!”  Regardless of the outcome, I will be there for you now, tomorrow, next week, next month, next season, and so on into perpetuity.

And as Yogi Berra, who was also a Met, would say, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”

I hope you have a delightful experience today and every day henceforth.