Every one of us, at one point or another, was probably told by someone else that the latter thinks of the former at a certain instance.

For me, and I’m sure many others, it’s when they see a Mets game or something related to the Mets.

I’m sure there are many more fans crazier than I, perhaps none more than my husband though, who went to work at 5 am to take an extended lunch break in an effort to meet me to go to see R.A. Dickey at a book signing, and then later to catch his hetero-life-Met in Edgardo Alfonzo.

Since both were doing their appearances in midtown (though Dickey was slightly more East), we figured, what the hey.

These two Mets are special and endearing to the fan base.  They represent what it means to wear the orange and blue: they’re hard-working, have a blue-collar ethic, fan-friendly, are underdogs (meaning: they’re certainly not the best players on their team but that makes you like them that much more), and just seem like regular good guys.  While Dickey hasn’t been on widely successful Mets teams, Fonzie was part of the scrappy 1999 and World Series-bound 2000 teams.  Fonzie is also an incredibly underrated Met.  That goes without saying with Dickey, an eccentric knuckleballer.

R.A. Dickey and I have more than just the Mets in common: we were both English lit majors in college.  Probably the only baseball player I can think of who can use the word “dichotomy” in a sentence and correctly, at that.  If you haven’t read his book yet, if you are a Mets fan and are a sympathetic individual, there is no reason why you wouldn’t enjoy his inspiring story.

Perhaps though no one is crazier (and by “crazy,” I mean “certifiable”) than I am when it comes to R.A. Dickey.  When I have Twitter exchanges with him, it’s about literature and not really about the team.  I even asked him, once, if he thought Shakespeare was as overrated as I thought he was (short answer: yes, long answer: he likes his sonnets, which I agree with).

So when he writes in his book about perhaps becoming an English professor one day, my eyes lit up.  I’d LOVE to take an English class with R.A. Dickey; so many of his mannerisms remind me of my journalism and Medieval lit professor, Dr. John Marlin (both have very dry and witty personalities).  I get the idea that they would be friends in real life (even Dickey played for Marlin’s fave Minnesota Twins).

Wanna know how crazy I am about R.A. Dickey though?  I had a dream after finishing his book that I was in a lecture hall as spoke about Faulkner.

Does this R.A. Chickey know how to party or what?????

So hubs leaves work, and we head over to the east side for our first stop: Dickey’s book signing.

It’s pretty uneventful.  We wait in a long line but it moves surprisingly quick, we probably waited no more than like 45 minutes.  We passed the time by chatting with other Mets fans, about what players were nice or mean to fans (Al Leiter was kind of douchey, and we all heard Tom Seaver is very arrogant).  We all agreed that we were prepared for Dickey to be a nice guy.  And he was.

 

It was pretty quick and painless.  We got him to sign the book “To Coop & Ed – GO METS!” with his signature and #43.

While posing for our pics though, I did tell him I had to be the only baseball fan who finished his book and wanted to hear him give a lecture on Faulkner.  To which he replied, laughing I might add, “Oh man, I’d LOVE to do that!”

We pretty much floated to our next stop, which was Citibank on 6th Avenue in midtown, where Mets alumni Edgardo Alfonzo was visiting.  We weren’t expecting as big of a turn out here as there was the Barnes & Noble, and we were correct.  There were still quite a few people there.

Fonzie was what the rumors said: very nice, humble and gracious to his fans.  Possibly no one loved Fonzie more than my husband who had his #13 Mets jersey inspired by him.

 

When you find out one of the guys who wears (or wore) the laundry for your team and you liked him enough, you find a way to attend their book signing or go to a bank you don’t even do business at to meet them and take pictures.  Or you know, you scream at them during warm ups till they acknowledge you.  Hi Jon!

It’s funny the lengths my husband and I go to for our teams.  We’ll follow them around the country, we’ll go to their home games, we’ll traipse in midtown Manhattan in the lunch hours to get some pictures and spend 30 seconds with a fan favorite.

Back in 2010, there would be a literary roundtable and speakers called “Amazin’ Tuesdays.”  We brought back our own Amazin’ Tuesday for one day at least.