MLB

Married to the Mets: Hey Blondie

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“HEYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!! BLONDIE!!!!!!!” They chanted as they ran up the stairs after a Mets/Cubs game in 2005.

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Rumor has it that I didn’t get a full head of hair till I was about two years old. I had peach fuzz to the extent that my parents were afraid I might never grow hair. I did though, grow hair, that is. I was a nice flaxen blonde in my youth. Nowadays, I need to buy it.

There’s a rumor, also, that somewhere someone once said that blondes have more fun. Since the only time I’ve ever been a true brunette (I have no idea what color my hair is), I can’t attest to it. What I can say is, though, that being a Mets fan has made things more fun in my life. No matter how they perform, I can guarantee that most of the time, I am having fun.

Also, when you have some semblance of blonde hair, you get called “Blondie.” A lot.

I stood out like a sore thumb because I was a tomboy growing up. Along with my long hair, usually pulled back in a ponytail, I wore a hat, usually of the Mets type. Dad would go to Cap Day, and I’d often inherit the cap. The standard uniform was jeans, some kind of sports shirt and my cap. Kind of like when you see me at CitiField these days too.

When I was 12 years old, I had big hair. Like big-Aqua-Net-extra-hold-supported-Jersey-hair hair. My mother spent a lot of money on my hair being permed, and I spent a lot of time in the bathroom styling my hair. When the Mets had bucket cap day in 1988, I was thrilled, because it complimented my hair style so well. (More than I can say about the actual style. I mean, seriously, did we really think we looked good??)

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By the time I was out of high school and in college, my hair was straight as a pin. Save some stints where I would just go to those walk-in places in the mall and ask them to chop my hair short, it had lots of long periods. In Mezzanine 22, I once wore a cap with a ponytail sticking out, and Richie (the yeeeeee haw! guy who sat behind us in Row C) yanked on the tail. The temptation, he said, was too great to do so.

This was 2002. At that point, I was in a relationship with the guy I call the “Big Ex” in my lexicon. We had lived together at that point, and to say he wasn’t a big baseball fan was an understatement. At first, he had a whole self-righteous attitude towards organized sports, but once he saw there was alcohol and usually a food bribe from me, we went to a few games. That was when we had met Frank, Tommy and Kim from the Woodside Crew. The infamous crew that gave us the famous saying, “Fuck these guys, I’m going to Donovan’s” when the Mets are doing particularly bad.

We went to a lot of games back then, probably because my dad and I had our Saturday plan at that point, and my dad was off doing other things on the weekends. Not to mention the Mets were just horrible then. Not just bad in the traditional sense. Boring beyond belief. The only thing that kept us going then was the relationship with the folks in 22. They made the games more fun.

I was going through a lot back then too. Stuff at work, where I was very unhappy. But also stuff in my relationship. We ended up together for almost seven years, but it was still relatively new then. My hair ended up getting a brunt of the frustration. Short. Blunt. Bangs. Grow it back. Cut so short to barely to put back. Blonde. Blonde streaks. Brown. Brunette. Straight color. It wasn’t nearly as bad as when I was in college: I had been a redhead at some points (and let’s not talk about when I went nuts and dyed it blue).

Being a blonde was part of my identity. But like many chapters of my life, I was constantly reinventing and trying to find myself. It’s difficult to do that when you’re in a relationship with someone. Especially when there’s not a lot of compromise. So my hair took a lot of the hits to the experimentation.

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But there was compromise when we went to Shea. We started out driving there, but ultimately, the train won out. We discovered the Long Island Rail Road that dropped you off behind the 7 train, closer to the park. I think this was 2005, and I was blonde again.

Things were going south in the relationship. The Mets, though, were finally looking up. Carlos Beltran was new, and while the Scott Kazmir trade the year before had left us Victor Zambrano, new General Manager Omar Minaya had made a splash with Pedro Martinez, future Hall of Fame pitcher fresh off an improbable championship run with the Boston Red Sox the year before.

It was fun going to Mets games, but I can’t say I went to many that season. I know that I went to a lot, and I still had the Saturday plan with Dad. The Ex and I went to games, but I remember going to many by myself. I had no problem doing things by myself, but looking back, it was really the beginning of the end when I started doing my own thing over the weekends, and he was more than happy to give me my space.

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By the 2006 All-Star Break, it was evident the Mets were running away with the division. Adding big bat first baseman Carlos Delgado, the emergence of Beltran (who had a very quiet debut year in 2005), and lightning in a bottle help from Jose Valentin, the Mets were the toast of New York. I had no problem getting him to the games, since we were having a lot of fun. He had given up drinking, but at that time, drinking was part of my boisterous fan persona. I guess I had retained the attitude of Mezzanine 22, though my Saturday seats were in Section 10 at that point (the “family-friendly” section). When we found ourselves at games midweek, we thought, hey maybe we should look into season seats. Those turned in Mezzanine 14 Box, with Diamond Club access, which ultimately translated into CitiField seats.

I kept the tickets. He got the TV in the breakup in 2007.

I didn’t cut my hair off till 2008, though, when I found out he got married without my knowledge. Never thought it should have been me, but definitely thought I should have known.

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The year 2005 was the turning point. Things were miserable, just as the Mets were getting good. They were a distraction. I went to games by myself, and he let me. One day, I wanted to go to a game. He was cranky. I told him I wanted to leave him. We talked it over.

We decided to try to make it work. In all honesty, when I look back at that day, it should have ended. Yet, what did we do? We went to see the Mets play the Cubs on a Friday night. They won that game. It was fun to watch. I believe we sat in the Mezzanine. I had blonde streaks. But I was also tan, so my blondeness stuck out like a sore thumb.

This was a night we took the Long Island Rail Road in. One of the drawbacks to the service was it left every hour, even after the games let out, which was difficult to time (even though the travel time was 15 minutes from midtown, a distinct discount from the nearly 30 the 7 train took).

Back then, remember the old set up at the 7 train? There was that weird platform, and you had little crowd control. There would be bottlenecks after every game. This was no exception. Yet, we had about four minutes to make a train, and an ocean of people to swim through to get there.

Seemed impossible.

We tried to cross the street, and there was still a little wait on the stairs. The time was ticking.

Till one of the loudmouths started yelling at his friend in front of us. Apparently, it seemed, there was a trivia question to which his friend didn’t know the answer.

“TODD HUNDLEY!!!! HIS DAD!!! THE CUBS CATCHER – CUBS CATCHER!!!! THOUGHT HE TAGGED AGEE AT THE PLATE!!! HIS NAME!!!”

It looked as though he forgot former Met Todd Hundley’s dad’s name.

I knew it. I thought someone else would chime in.

Till I found myself yelling out, “Yo!! It was Randy! RANDY!! HUNDLEY!!!”

The guys did the double-finger point and yelled, “HEYYYYYYY!!!! BLONDIE!!!! AHHHHHHH!!! MOVE!!! MOVE!!! MOVE!!!!!!!”

Holy cow. I think I started a riot.

The crowd all of a sudden busted up the stairs. We had about a minute to spare. Running across the wooden almost-boardwalk to the LIRR platform, we just beat the train by a hair.

Probably the first time we smiled the whole day.

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In 2009, I was talking to one of my coworkers on an elevator. I was on my way to a hockey game. Everyone in the office knew me as the resident Mets fan, but the hockey thing caught him by surprise. I shrugged and said, yeah, I’ve liked the Rangers since I was 12.

My coworker asked, “So let me get this straight. You have baseball season tickets. You have hockey season tickets?”

I shook my head. “No, I just buy a few games from my friend during the year.”

“But still, you willingly go.”

I nodded.

“Why are you still single?”

I brushed it off, laughed. Truth was, I wondered that myself. We hear that women who like sports are, like, the most desirable and least attainable prime mate out there. I had been seen as “the friend” for a long time, or the buddy who was fun to go to sporting events. Truth be told, even with the Big Ex, I had a tough time imagining myself ever getting married. The irony was I had more of a relationship with my teams than I did with any man.

I guess my point is never say never. But I also wondered why people just can’t be content with a woman choosing to be single.

I had an ear-length bob then. In 2009, I was also a brunette.

The Gal For All Seasons Meets That Sports Babe TONIGHT!

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Join me on the Gal For All Seasons podcast on NDB Sports Media tonight at 7 pm EST.

My special guest will be talk show host and Twitter personality ThatSportsBabe, aka Jackie Taylor, to discuss hoops, NBA, and whatever else floats our boat.

Looking forward to tonight’s show…are YOU?????

March Madness

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Most of you probably think of college hoops when you think of the term “March Madness.”  The reality is, I don’t have a horse in that race.  My husband is a St. John’s fan, but if it’s any indication I went to an all-women’s school for my undergrad.  Nuff said.  Although truth be told, I used to really be into hoops in general.  I followed John Stockton and Karl Malone on those great Utah Jazz teams (and ironically, married a Jazz fan, as he actively follows them to this day), but since they retired, I haven’t had much use for the sport professionally. My dad used to live down the street from Monmouth University and those basketball games were always fun.

I guess it was the survival of the fittest, in my life anyway.  Being a gal for all seasons, I don’t have a “break” per se in my sports world.  If you were to look at things from a calendar perspective, I’m booked pretty much from Jan 1 to Dec 31.  I may not have games every day for my team but I may have vested interests in other games to follow.  Basketball kind of fell by the wayside because since that season overlaps with hockey, a sport I like a great deal more than hoops, and ends well into baseball, my number one love, hoops took a hike.

Yet, March is a bit maddening, as a hockey fan and a baseball fan.  I’m looking at the Rangers schedule for the next few weeks and it is JAM PACKED.  We’re in the home stretch of the playoff push, and it’s pretty certain they will get a high ranking in the Stanley Cup playoffs.  I’ve often told my dad that hockey season ends when the Rangers are out of the playoffs and baseball season starts that same day.  In the fall, hockey season starts when the Mets are no longer playing (but I have to admit, I’ve watched most of the baseball playoffs in the last few years, just to torture myself I suppose since the Mets are almost certainly never a factor).  Somewhere, football comes in, but as you know, it’s not that much of a commitment.  So for me, the biggies are hockey and baseball due to the time commitments of being a fan.

So herein lies the problem.  It’s March.  My hockey team is doing extraordinarily well.  It seems like they’re playing every other damn day in the month of March.  Yet, my husband, whose baseball love trumps everything else, accepts my love of hockey, but there may be some games conflicting.  Hey, it’s baseball.  Baseball makes everything right.

Except when the Rangers are doing so well.  They had a great game against the Boston Bruins over the weekend, and it seems like this is the start of a new rivalry judging by how the game ended.  In speaking to my Ranger blogosphere buddies Nick Montemagno and Kevin DeLury on last week’s podcast, the general consensus is that the hot team gets hot at the right time and ultimately, rest is for the non-weary in hockey. Unlike baseball when you try to rest your regulars, the playoff push expects more of them.  And more of the fans who support them.

This leaves me with not a lot of free time going into the spring.

I never miss baseball Opening Day.  It’s like my High Holiday.  After that, it’s fair game till the Rangers are done.  But March will be a true test for me, given that the spring training broadcasts are so few and far between and that I have Ranger games many nights.  Should lead to an interesting household to say the least here.

Married to the Mets: Worse Than Chernobyl

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I became a Mets fan at a very interesting time.  Essentially, they ruled the city.  When I was young, I didn’t know a New York City that wasn’t all about the Mets and the Yankees, storied pinstriped team in the Bronx, played second fiddle.

Till, of course, they weren’t.

I have a family member who shall remain nameless, who claims to be a lifelong Yankee fan. Funny, I don’t remember him rooting for them till 1996.  And I DEFINITELY remember wearing our Mets gear together, rooting for them on WOR.  I do remember at one point he told my dad and I that he admires us for sticking with the Mets for so long.

You know, it’s not like we had a choice.

For me, though, the choice was simple.  I stuck around for a multitude of reasons.   Most of all, that I didn’t want to give up on the team. Also because the fans I met made me laugh like nothing else.

It was one thing watching games with my dad, Uncle Gene and Aunt Melissa, and hearing the wisecracks from all of them during the games.  Even when we met Dominic, Rob and Mike in the stands at Loge Section 22, the Mets deep-in-the-trenches army-like humor kept us going.

I’ve been a Mets fan for nearly 30 years.  (Let that one sink in for a moment).  In those years, they’ve had two World Series appearances, a few playoff runs, but mostly, futility mixed in with a splash of ennui.  Yes, it’s tough to be a Mets fan sometimes.  Yet, the fans, the true bleeding blue-and-orange fans kept me coming back when I had every reason not to.

In the 1980s, you couldn’t really knock the team because they were so good.  Shea Stadium, however, was fair game.  In the spring of 1986, the Chernobyl disaster hit Kiev, Ukraine…and Banner Day at Shea.  “Shea’s Bathrooms Are Worse Than Chernobyl,” one of the banners read.  I don’t remember any other banner that year but that one.  It was priceless and still generates some laughs from those of us who saw it.  Till the very last day of Shea, the bathrooms were the butt (no pun intended) of the joke with many fans.  In fact, I appeared on a blogger’s roundtable with such personalities as Matt Cerrone from Metsblog, Joe Janish from Mets Today and Ted Berg from SNY on Mets Weekly in 2008.  Janish made a joke about the bathrooms, and needless to say, we all chuckled.

At the root of it all, Mets fans are humorous.  We’re funny, and we’re a bunch of wise guys, and we need to make the impossibly tragic funny, in order for us to survive it.

Over the years, I’ve met so many people, fans just passing through (sometimes, I was one of those fans), people I sat with an entire season, people I sat by just once, often leave me with such indelible prints of my brain, that I still think of them from time to time.

Like the guy I sat behind at Camden Yards one year during an extra inning game in 1998.  Ironically, ex-Met Jesse Orosco (in the twilight of his career) came into the game via middle relief (in the back end of the game of course).  This gentleman threw his hands up in the arm in disgust, yelling, “Just forfeit!! Just forfeit the game!”  Though I was in Maryland, he sounded like Benny from Brooklyn, as “forfeit” sounded like “faw-fit.”  Needless to say, this has been rehashed several times over the years, usually when the Mets bring in someone with a two run lead in late innings.  Used in conjunction with the likes of Guillermo Mota, Aaron Heilman, Scott Schoeneweis, among others.

There was Richie in Section 22 in the Mezzanine.  Between him shouting “YEEEEEEEEEE HAWWWWWWWWW!” at the top of his lungs at inopportune moments (keep in mind, this was in 2002, when NO ONE was going to games, and the Mets didn’t give us much to cheer).  My personal favorite is one that we use to this day.  During a random Saturday game, probably against a futile team like the Pittsburgh Pirates, there was a 6-0 deficit for the Mets to overcome in like the 6th inning.  Richie’s response was a classic one.  “We’re down 6-0, in the 6th inning to the Pirates. WE GOT ‘EM RIGHT WHERE WE WANT ‘EM.”

Woodside Tommy, also from Mezzanine 22, was one of the smart ass ringleaders.  At a game in Coney Island, when Howard Johnson was the manager of the Cyclones and Bobby Ojeda was his pitching coach, Tommy yelled to Ojeda in the bullpen.  “HEY!  BOBBY O!!!!!! GIMME A HIGH FOUR!!!”  Of course, in reference to Ojeda snipping off his finger prior to the playoffs in 1988.  When I told Tommy he was an asshole, Tommy feigned innocence. “What? What?? What am I gonna say?  Gimme a high FIVE????  Ha ha!”

The man had a point.

There was the Opening Day when my ex was wearing his Brooklyn Dodger cap.  My dear uncle Gene, as everyone knows, was a New York Giants fan back in the day and still has some massive hate towards the team from the borough of churches.  My smart ass of an ex (there’s a reason why he’s that) said, “Hey Gene, I got another one of these caps for you at home if you want it,” fully knowing that Gene hates the team.  Gene said, “Yeah, good, I need some kindling for my fireplace!”  Then he had his maniacal laugh that only Gene can have.

There was the night in 2006 when I was sitting in the Field Level at Shea Stadium, and Jose Lima gave up a grand slam to Dontrelle Willis, the starting pitcher for the Florida Marlins that night.  I had to be carried out of the stadium, but not before it took me until the 7th inning before I realized Lima was NOT in the game since the 2nd inning basically.

I was not only that drunk, but  I still have some massive Post-Traumatic Mets Disorder from that one.  In fact, I believe that was the night I coined that term, shorthand is “PTMD.”  Many, many Mets fans have their own personal PTMD moments.

You know you have them too.

Lately, some of my catch phrases have taken a life of their own.  Like the ever-infamous, “HOLY SHEEPSHIT AND BALLS” that started on Twitter.  It started off as “Holy sheepshit” when something fun happened or surprising was going on.  Since then, it’s mutated.  The balls I added on because, I don’t know, I thought it was funny.  For the record, it’s supposed to be read as “Sheep shit and sheep balls,” not a purely baseball reference, as I’ve been known to tweet that during football and hockey.

While I’m thrilled to be a part of people’s lexicon while watching sporting events, I have a mouth like a truck driver that for some reason people take a holier-than-thou approach to in dealing with me.  I have to say, hey, lighten up, it’s the heat of the moment.

Like you’ve NEVER done that.

Hell, I sat in the trenches with many Mets fans in the late ’80s and early ’90s, even the early aughts, with this army-like humor.  I was even at a Mets/Braves game in 2007 when the aforementioned Mota came in and proceeded to make the game VERY interesting.  When we all talked about it later, after the Mets won of course, it was like surviving a war.

Mets fans are like army buddies.  Some of these people are the best buddies I’ll ever have in my life.  You can have inside jokes about the Mota game, or the Lima Time game, or that time on Twitter when <blank> happened and we all said “HOLY SHEEPSHIT!”  Or later, it’s mutated into Twitter memes, like our friend @JedSmed who creates different Mets hash tags when there’s nothing going on.  Or when Matt from the Daily Stache started #ReplaceShitWithMets trend or the #JustinTurnerFacts.

Like army buddies, you gotta keep things interesting to get through it all.

The next generation of Mets fans will be introduced to Banner Day in 2012, just like I was back when I first became a fan.  I couldn’t tell you what banner took the prize during that scheduled doubleheader in 1986, or if there were really cool banners.  No.  All I remembered was a plain white bed sheet with black shoe polish-like substance with the words, “SHEA’S BATHROOMS ARE WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL.”

You had to be there to get it.  Just like with most things that come with being a Mets fan.  You can look at one another, or bring up a difficult memory or even a fond memory, and know what it’s like.

Yet, I’m sure at the end of the day, we’ll take Shea’s bathrooms back any day, Chernobyl or no.

Till There Was You

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I was in a bad mood today.

I shouldn’t have been, but I was anyway.  I finished a highly anticipated but nonetheless dreaded nine mile run yesterday.  It’s a gorgeous spring-like day, even though it’s not even March yet.

I sometimes get in a mood because I haven’t worked since September.  Today was no exception as I had a phone interview with someone that should have taken place on Friday, but my appointment got screwed up.  I was tired of people implying there is something wrong with me.  I didn’t sleep well either.  I had an appointment with a financial adviser.  Don’t worry: not taxes (yet, though that’s sure to be F-U-N with a capital F).

All I wanted was a cup of coffee.

So I heard that the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf was no opened by Bryant Park.  However, turns out my sources weren’t entirely on.  They’re a little below Bryant, but no worries.  The Mets Clubhouse Store is there, and I figured I’d report on the fact they still do not have Jon Niese shirts in the store (confirmed) and that I figured me investing in an Ike Davis shirsey was in my cards.

But so much more happened.  I didn’t get a shirt.  Perhaps I was too distracted by Mr. Met.

The second I saw him, a big smile was on my face.  That did it.  My bad mood was all of a sudden lifted by the appearance of the guy with the baseball as a head.

He gave me a high-four and we posed for a picture together.  Then, his “muscle” told me that John Franco was in the store signing autographs.

OOPS.

I totally had a brain cramp that Franco was visiting some stores today.  Again, one of those things that was unexpected.  I had gone in looking to buy something but instead I find the mascot and the guy who is being inducted in the Mets Hall of Fame.

 

Forget Disney World.  Today the Mets Clubhouse was the happiest place on Earth.

How can anyone be in a bad mood after seeing Mr. Met?  Seriously, how?  I went from scowling to smiling ear-to-ear in no time flat.

Then I remembered something.  It’s not spring on the calendar but it’s in the air.  Rita’s Water Ice is opening soon, the Mets are in spring training, and the weather is very mild.

And I see Mr.  Met.  This is what we call “Winning,” people.

Till I saw Mr. Met, I would have just been another pissed off New Yorker.  I walked away without an Ike Davis shirt but with an extra skip in my step reminding me of the good I have in my life, and how much baseball is a part of that.

Thanks Mr. Met.  My advice to you is that if you have any worries, just find Mr. Met.  You can’t help but smile when you see him.

Brains > Braun

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Before I go any further, I wanted to state up front that I happen to be a big Ryan Braun fan.  When Jose Reyes was in the thick of a batting race with him, I wouldn’t have minded if he lost to Braun.  That’s how crazy I am about him.

That’s something you have to know about me.  Though I am a Mets fan true and through, there are some players that get to me that I have to follow since my love for baseball transcends my team sometimes.  I’ll root for the name on the front of the jersey first and foremost.  But there are guys that I tend to watch because of their names on the back of the jersey.  Ripken.  Lincecum.  Now Braun.

I’ll still continue to watch him, if only to feed my own curiosity as to how he responds to this whole drug testing drama.

I guess in real life, I happen to be a little more on the optimistic side of realist.  In my optimism, I tend to want to see the best in people, and believe in the best side of people.  However, I’d be silly to not acknowledge that Braun was looking out for the best interests of himself in this process, under the guise of what’s best for baseball and what he found to be an incredibly flawed analysis of drug testing.

I’m just as much against performance-enhancers as the rest of us, but let’s be fair.  When Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were smacking the crap out of the ball in 1998, when they both looked like the Incredible Hulk, didn’t we all just turn a blind eye and watched for the love of the game, despite what the naysayers said?  When Jose Canseco came out with his Juiced book a few years back, I actually turned up my nose.  I felt that what went on in the clubhouse should have stayed in the clubhouse.  It’s one thing if he wanted to come out and say, “I fuckin’ did steroids.”  To throw his teammates under the bus just wasn’t cool to me.

Yet, it doesn’t mean I think those years he players should be considered tarnished.  There’s a lot going on behind the scenes in baseball that we aren’t privy to.

Here’s my take on a few of the themes in the Braun case.

Many prominent MLB players back his side of the story, even those who aren’t on his team.  Matt Kemp, a runner-up in the MVP balloting that Braun actually won in 2011, was happy that Braun won his appeal, and even went so far to say he wouldn’t want the MVP title if Braun had to forfeit it for any reason.  Remember when Mike Greenwell said that he felt that he should have won MVP when Canseco won it admitting he did steroids to enhance his numbers?   Kemp wouldn’t have wanted a tainted MVP win any more than Braun, I suppose.  Many other players not named Corey Hart (a teammate of Braun’s) have come out in support too, such as Mark DeRosa on the Nationals.

I guess it’s two-fold.  At the end of the day, players are “union brothers,” so this is sort of a win for the player’s union.  Anyone who doesn’t back another player is just a scab, I suppose.

Then there’s the MLB side, the only side who are really bashing the system…you know, the system they put in place.  And of course, beat writers and fans with a soapbox (especially those in the NL Central, rightfully so to question it, of course) who all know better than the players.

This isn’t some kind of blind-eye fan girl optimism.

Okay, maybe it is.

This might be an unpopular view, but after reading some of the articles today (especially the New York Times), I happen to think that Braun has exposed a huge hole in the testing policy in MLB.  I mean, it’s bad enough it took them forever to acknowledge that, hey, this actually IS a problem, it seems like they’re using some antiquated methods in handling the specimens that could effect the process.  At the end of the day, these players have livelihoods and families to support and all that jazz.  Do we really want a Homer Simpson-like courier to handle the specimen of a high profile player who could easily be taken down because there’s a flaw in the process?

I’m not saying that’s happened…but Braun did bring up a technicality that could impact the testing system.

I hear some people say that Braun should just give a test sample to clear his name anyway.  That’s also flawed for many reasons.  I used to be in a Union, and there are things that a member can do that the Union will not support.  The Union doesn’t have to support, for example, taking a lie detector test, and I’m guessing along those lines that if a player doesn’t have to submit a DNA test to clear his name, why would they support him if he wanted to do that?  In a way, his name has been cleared, albeit on a technicality.

At the end of the day, this was a news story that should have not even been a story in the first place.  We’re raised with the idea that we’re all innocent until proven guilty, except in the era of PED-testing where you just might as well hang up your cleats and call it a career the second your name gets anywhere near tainted.  Yet, at the same time, in the instant-gratification of journalism, we still go with the old adage if it bleeds, it leads.  What better to spice up a pretty dead winter with “OOOOH the reigning MVP might be taking PEDs.  FILM AT 11!!”

I’m not saying he took them, didn’t take them, whatever.  All I’m saying is that there are no winners, no losers in this drama.

So Ryan Braun got off on a technicality.  What can we do?  MLB will have to make their process more bulletproof.  Players will have to still monitor what they put in their bodies.  (They should do that anyway.  Idiots).

I still happen to like Ryan Braun a lot and wish him well in the upcoming season.  He’s gonna need it with the extra scrutiny and lack of a big power bat missing in his lineup now that Prince Fielder is gone.

Married to the Mets: 1987

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the year 1987 recently.  When a child of the ’80s is asked about the Mets, 1986 is often talked referred.  As well as it should be.  Yet, there was something about 1987 that holds a special place in my heart.  It was the first in a long stretch of home Opening Days that I’d started going to.  This was also the year that the Mets had their Championship Ring ceremonies prior to their home opener.  I sat in Upper Deck in Row Z that day.  I’m sure Row Z didn’t actually exist but rest assured, it was specifically the last row.  So with my piddly Kodak Disk camera, I couldn’t get a good shot of the field ceremony if I tried.  To be in digital cameras in that time period…

I found myself spending a lot of time at Shea Stadium this year, which was slowly becoming my summer home.  As I mentioned before, my dad and Uncle Gene had a ticket plan in the Loge, Section 22, on Sundays.  The third ticket was for Aunt Melissa, who was staying behind more and more with the baby, Paul.  Typically, that third ticket was given to me quite a bit.  I’d go in threes with Dad and Gene.  Sometimes my mom would go too.  Most of the time, it was my dad and me making the drive to Shea every Sunday morning.

As a child, I loved getting a car as a passenger.  As an adult, I drive simply out of necessity and convenience, not necessarily because I want to.  I moved to a city simply so I wouldn’t be forced to drive as much.  Yet, over a recent long weekend, I trekked through the borough of Staten Island a bit, crossed the Verrazano and into Queens to drop off a rental car, and it brought back memories of driving to Shea with my dad on Sundays.

 

As I crossed Staten Island, I remembered sitting in Dad’s truck, with a book in my hand or maybe notepad and pen, reading my Nancy Drew paperbacks or jotting down some thoughts.  I pointed out the building that looked like steps going into a mountain.  The Verrazano, while not nearly as breathtaking as the Golden Gate Bridge (my favorite bridge in the world), still takes my breath away.  If all goes according to plan, I’ll be running across that bridge in November of this year.  I remembered crossing into Brooklyn via I-278, known as the “BQE.”  I remember seeing a train in the background while crossing I guess what is part of Bay Ridge, and made the connection that it’s the F train.  There was a sign for Bruno Truck Sales that towered over the road, but I always thought the sign was funny for some reason.  It’s still there, and it still makes me smile.

Looking across the East River, you can see Lower Manhattan and the South Street Seaport, the first time place I ever visited in Manhattan.  Someone told me as a kid that you could walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  The idea seemed so foreign to me, but I did manage to do it a few times in my adult life.  Tillary Street exit, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, finally we cross into Queens.  Inevitably, I’d hear about the time Bob took a wrong turn and ended up on the Long Island Expressway on the way to a game.  They missed the first inning, and of course Darryl Strawberry hit a grand slam that same inning.

All these names and streets, neighborhoods and pictures in my head all hit close to home.  Since they are part of my home.  I may have grown up in New Jersey, but I’ve lived in the greater New York area for several years now, and feel as though this is the place I should have been all along.

I fell in love with New York while driving to Shea Stadium as a child.  I always knew I would be here someday.

I’ve also become jaded, going to baseball games so often.  I get there with maybe just minutes to spare, and in an ideal situation, it will be either during or after the Star Spangled Banner.  Hey, I’m as patriotic as the next person, but I typically go to games now to watch said games, and then complain about the train ride home.  When I was a kid though, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to get to Shea several hours before a game started.

My dad, famously, got to Shea almost as soon as it opened.  I guess back then, at 10:30 am, one could get a beer fresh off the tap (as the beer vendor in the stands used to say).  I found out from my friend Steve at CitiField that the stands wouldn’t sell him beer till the clock hit 12.  I remember this because as soon as the clock hit 12, he said he’d see me later.  I also remember that Shea Stadium used to sell those Dolly Madison Dixie Cup ice cream, chocolate and vanilla with the wooden spoon.  RC Cola with the plastic on top that you peeled off.  My dad used to make megaphones out of the soda or beer cups, and we’d chant “Let’s go Mets!  Let’s go Mets!”  When it was cold, hot chocolate was sold.  And one day while we sat in field level, one of the vendors found a great sales pitch: “WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE BUY SOME POPCORN!!????!”  I think Dad bought two boxes to shut him up.

There was something I look back as being special about 1987.  It was different, almost sad in a way, to be at Shea Stadium.  One of my heroes, Doc Gooden, started off the year in rehab…not for injuries, but for drugs.  Gary Carter was starting to deteriorate.  There were rumors of clubhouse turmoil with Keith Hernandez, the veteran leader of the team, and young guys like Darryl Strawberry, who had attitude problems.

They were still good, but even as a child I could tell the magic and dominance was gone.  It was a different mission in 1987.  Yet, I was a part of it, and in the thick of it for the first time in my life.  It was the first time I realized that my team could disappoint me.  Sure, I knew about falling short in 1984 and 1985, the first two years I really understood baseball, but wasn’t every year supposed to be like 1986?  Even if the answer was no, it should be.

This was also the first year that I really started to understand who I was.  Believe it or not, I was kind of a shy kid.  I was shy around kids my own age, but around adults I was fine.  Pretty ass-backwards.  To say I didn’t have many friends my own age was an understatement though.  Baseball was an escape for me.  My dad would take me, and just leave me to my own devices.  I’d cheer, I’d keep score, I’d drink my soda.  Yet, there were some games I was just too cool for school.  I’d have my Walkman and listen to mix tapes as the games went on.  In my mind, these are the games the Mets lost.

In September of 1986, there was lettering in the outfield that said, “A SEPTEMBER TO REMEMBER.”  I remember the three guys who sat in our section, Dominic, Rob and Mike, said they should have “A SEPTEMBER TO DISMEMBER” in the outfield.  I still don’t know if they picked that up from somewhere, but I certainly never forgot it.  I think I stopped paying attention that year around the time of the Terry Pendleton home run.  I don’t remember going to many games that year in September.

Something else had happened, though, bigger than me just going to more Mets games.  My dad and I became buddies.  I think he started to like me then.  Okay, fine, he probably liked me before, especially when I begged him to teach me to play baseball since I never got chosen for teams in school.  I wanted to be good, hopefully to someday play myself.  Yet, looking back, it was also an odd time not just for the Mets and their home life, but my home life.  I started to pick up that things at home weren’t exactly pleasant.  My parents were not in a happy marriage, and I could tell.  You know, that whole business about staying together for the “kid’s sake” is just a bunch of crap.  The kids know something is up.  Or maybe just me.  It was something you didn’t talk about, but I knew.

By 1989, my dad had moved out, and it was just my mom and I, and our cat, Cody.  I know the Sunday ticket plan wasn’t much longer for the world either, as I’m sure they were no longer ours in 1991.  My dad and I still bonded over the Mets though, when I stayed at his place we watched SportsChannel, and we’d go to games.  By that time, we had discovered that driving through Manhattan and taking the Williamsburg Bridge was a better route for us than going through Staten Island.

Those long Sunday morning drives though.  It gave me two things: love for baseball and love for the city.   I’m deeply committed to both right now as an adult.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.

It Gets Better

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In the last year or so, there has been a push of special public service announcements conducted by Major League Baseball players, to help combat teenage and children bullying, especially in the LGBT community and in general, any child who may experience bullying to a degree that it seems like there’s no way out.

Unless you are a baseball player, of course.  That doesn’t apply to you.

Let me back up here.

There’s no secret that possibly my favorite Met right now is Jon Niese (okay, it’s a three-way tie between Niese, Ike Davis and Daniel Murphy).  I’m also one of those Mets fans who actually liked Carlos Beltran, though admittedly it took me a long time to come around to him.  Turns out, in the offseason, Niese had a nose job.  I’m not against plastic surgery — I’m against it as a “quick fix” but for someone who has low self-esteem.  Yet, rhinoplasty is performed not just for cosmetic procedures but for health reasons, such as deviated septum or sinus/breathing issues.  Niese has even said that he can tell his performance is up and can breathe better.

The backstory to the Niese’s nose procedure is that it was Beltran who suggested it.

Not just said, “Hey, if you’re having breathing problems, maybe getting this procedure will help.”

No.  It was teasing and making fun of Niese’s nose.  Beltran, as they say, was kind of a jerk about it.  The same guy who has a mole the size of New Jersey on his face.  I hope that Niese came back to him with that. But Beltran did offer to pay for it.  Well, that was kind of nice.  With Beltran’s millions, he should visit a dermatologist!

But no.  Niese took the high road.  He took it under advisement and got the procedure.  Beltran offered to pay for it, but hasn’t paid up yet.  Time will tell.

But it’s just so funny to me that a sport that promotes acceptance and non-bullying, a guy who can easily get bullied for a lunar eclipse on the side of his face is calling out Niese’s nose.  If you look at Jon Niese’s profile, his nose gave him character. If it was done for health procedures, then I applaud him especially if it was done in mind of performing better.

Even if it was good-natured ribbing, that wasn’t cool, Carlos.  Not cool at all.  It seems like Niese is pretty cool about it, but making fun of one’s physical appearance just isn’t something I’m on board with.  Of course, I am not privy to what’s going on in the clubhouse…

But Jon, let me tell you.  I loved your nose.  It gave your character and a certain charm.  If you made the decision without being made fun of more power to you, but you have my permission to make fun of Carlos right back.  Someone needs to give it to him, too.

TONIGHT!!! The Gal For All Seasons Podcast BASEBALL Show!

MLB, One comment

The Gal For All Seasons podcast goes live tonight at 7 pm EST with special guests Sully from Sully Baseball and Bill Ivie from Ivie League Productions and I-70 Baseball.  Our topics tonight are, what else, talking baseball, the upcoming season, offseason topics, Red Sox, Cardinals, Pujols, Valentine, Manny.  Whatever floats our boat, we’ll discuss.

Join some knowledgeable baseball fans in discussing the 2012 season tonight!

 

Married to the Mets: That Old VHS Player

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If the “Married to the Mets” series was ever put into a book, this chapter would be a postscript, an epilogue if you will, a footnote to the series.  See, I hadn’t planned on writing this yet, or at all.  This week I had planned to write on some of my Shea memories but as John Lennon once said, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

It was April 9, 1985.  My dad couldn’t go to Opening Day that year for whatever reason.  This was the time before smartphones, spoiler alerts and simply by staying away from the TV or radio for a few hours.  We had set our VCR to tape for the few hours on WOR-9.  “Catch the rising stars…”  That was the slogan that year and the silly jingle before the games.

For the next few years, that VHS would be my closest friend and confidant.  It knew what I wanted when I got home from school (soap operas), when my mom would take me to the mall (one of my least favorite activities at that age…trust me, I’d have rather been making mud pies) and there was a show that was on, or when my dad and I couldn’t watch a game.

The VHS was there for us on Opening Day 1985, when Dad couldn’t go to the game.  So we watched and learned that not only the Mets won that day, but that their new catcher, Gary Carter, hit the game-winning home run in the 10th inning.  I didn’t know it at the time, but after the game I certainly learned about how Neil Allen, the pitcher who gave up the home, was one of the pieces in the deal that brought one of Dad’s favorite players over to the Mets: Keith Hernandez.

See, the story behind Opening Day 1985 was one that Mets fans geek out over, the type of thing that I call “Mets porn.”  The type of story that lasts and takes a life of itself in Mets folklore.  One of those moments that we had at Shea Stadium, whether you were physically present or not, you could have that connective factor with another fan.

The VHS was a substitute, an absentee parenting tool for me.  If I couldn’t watch games, I could catch them later.  If I just wanted to tape games, I could watch them over and over.

That contraption in the living room (where I also sat on the floor watching many Mets games as a kid) was also one that allowed to relive these moments.  Have us recapture former glories, for better or for worse.

In 1986, I probably sat my ass in front of the television, cued up the VCR and had it play games over and over.  Dad attended the NL East clincher game in 1986 with Uncle Gene, I had to tape it, just in case he said, he was on TV.  I didn’t get those two tearing up the field or standing on second base, as per Gene-oh’s wishes.

The entire National League Championship Series was taped as was the World Series.  Dad was also at a few of those games, most importantly, he was at Game Six (which ultimately got us tickets to the definitive and final Game Seven).  We had to tape Game Seven, after all, we were going to be there.  No, we did not see ourselves on TV.

But when the Mets had failed glories in the ’80s and missed chances, I was able to watch those tapes and reminisce.  I was getting a crash course in the idea that being a Mets fan wasn’t always about domination, it was about ennui and falling just short of it.  I was led to believe that 1986 was the beginning of an era…turns out, it was the climax, with the denouement happening shortly after.

Those tapes allowed me to shape my Mets story, to shape my Mets fandom.  I was able to pop in a tape and remember how cool it was, and how young I was to not fully grasp everything that was happening around me.  I may have been in the stands on Game Seven…but I really couldn’t tell you what it meant to me until I was much older.

I remember having the Making of the Let’s Go Mets video…that video played on a constant loop almost. I used to love the beginning of it, when Gary Carter would give the kid a packet of Mets baseball cards, which started the song.  Ah, the age of innocence, as it was in Jeff Pearlman’s book The Bad Guys Won told us about how the Mets behaving badly in the making of the video.  After the “First” Game Six against the Astros, I read about how they tore up an airplane.  I guess I could see how that would happen.  When I watch that game, I, too, have a primal energy to swim across the ocean or run a marathon.

We bought the 1986: A Year To Remember video too.  I was heartbroken when the VCR got hungry one night and chewed it up.

Prior to the ’86 season, we had bought An Amazin’ Era, about the Mets first 25 years of existence.  That tape actually taught me a lot about the history of National League baseball in New York.  I still have that somewhere, and bought a VCR just so I could watch it again.  Now I think there’s a DVD on it.  I especially loved watching the build up to the ’80s years, which only covered up to and including the 1985 season, my first visibly remembered season.  I especially loved the emphasis on Gary Carter.

I loved watching those VHS tapes when the Mets weren’t that great and when they weren’t quite worth watching.  That was quite a bit.  I also taped the 1988 NLCS.  Perhaps not surprisingly, I didn’t watch those games over again.  Except for maybe Game Three.

I have no idea if those tapes even exist.  Several moves and my mother having a penchant for throwing stuff that bothers her out may mean they no longer exist.  Luckily for us, there are those who wish to make a profit by packaging these games in DVD sets.

That VHS player would keep me company and give me hope for the Mets when I didn’t have much hope or interest in the team.  It brought me back to a simpler time, when I was young, and sometimes seeing them makes me think of a time gone past, not so much of when the games actually occurred, but what I might have been thinking one night when I was left to my own devices, and wanted to see a game.  I could think back to cold winter nights when I didn’t want to watch anything on television, and perhaps wished baseball season was closer.  I could think back to when I was feeling lonely and wanted to recapture a fonder time in my life.  I could be sad and just wanted to put a smile on my face and watch the films, and remember just how good it was.

It’s funny because I’ve been watching a lot of old videos on the Mets recently, due to Gary Carter’s passing, and I love hearing the old broadcasts, and having the smile on my face because I know what to anticipate.

These games have shaped the narrative of my life, and much of it was sitting in front of a VCR with a remote control and recapturing the past and perhaps part of my youth by keeping them around as long as I did.