This is the first September since 2004 in which no significant Mets games are being played. But, like other Mets seasons in which we’ve had no chance of making it to the playoffs, the September of 2004 offered some baseball pleasures. We had some interesting new guys on the team named Wright, Reyes, Valent, Seo, and Keppinger. There was stuff to pay attention to, stuff to hope for.
There haven’t been any pleasures this September and, like many other Mets fans, I’ve experienced something unfamiliar. I am watching the Mets win and lose (mostly lose) without any emotion. This has never happened to me before. I feel like a person who has lost his sense of smell or taste. I feel a numbness.
The Mets fall behind and I expect them to stay there. I have no expectation or hope that they will catch up and so I am not really upset when they don’t. The Mets get ahead and I wait for them to fall behind. I wish they would stay ahead but I am certainly not surprised when they don’t and I am not terribly sad when they don’t.
I do look eagerly for signs that Pelfrey won’t do a job on himself, or or that Angel Pagan will develop some baseball sense, or that Daniel Murphy will show us that he is worth our time and trouble. But I also have the sense that whatever happens in the next couple of weeks isn’t likely to tell us much about our prospects for next year. It’s not like previous bad years, when we were getting first exciting looks at September call-ups. Nothing ever happens that gives me an excuse to experience the very mild pleasure of September-wait-till-next-year dreaming.
There are no pleasures. There is only limbo. A grey hazy blank present in which one cannot see a horizon. The Marlins sweep us, challenging for the division title, after smashing our dreams like a piece of china for two consecutive seasons. It happens. We can’t and don’t stop it. This is our hour of lead.
And then, yesterday, after the usual drill of blowing the lead, settling into the quartz contentment of far behind, we come back and win it in Philly. We beat the Phillies in their own home park, to everyone’s astonishment, even ours. It doesn’t feel spectacular, because we were so numb we weren’t even hoping for it. But it happened, as David Wright suddenly knew exactly where the baseball was and where it had to be struck. I knew in a flash, when the ball left the pitcher’s hand, that he was going to hit the second one. But I could never prove it. It wasn’t a hope. I wasn’t hoping. But I knew it. I suddenly remembered what it was like to win a game with a home run, driven with assurance by David Wright into the left field stands. I felt emotion. But I am still trying to figure out what my emotion was.
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Check out my just-published book: The Last Days of Shea: Delight and Despair in the Life of a Mets Fan and please come meet me at the last Amazin’ Tuesday, 7 pm on September 15 at Two Books Tavern, 384 Grand St. on the Lower East Side, hosted by Greg Prince and Jon Springer, with guest readers Jeff Pearlman and John Coppinger. And if any of you are night owls, I’ll be on the Joey Reynolds Show on the morning (1 am to 5 am, not sure when) of September 16. I’m also the featured guest on New York Baseball Digest on September 17 from 6 to 7.
i don’t know what my emotion is, but I was in Philly today for the game, and I saw a lack of emotion in the Mets at the game today. Thole was an exception. Even coming back in the 9th, the emotion wasn’t there in regular guys getting days off Beltran and Castillo pinch not-hitting. No emotion from the Mets fans that I saw scattered around the ballpark either. Lots of emotion from the Philly fans there, even for their soon-to-be-defunct closer.
Dana,
Have you been practicing mind reading? You expressed EXACTLY what I was thinking! Thank you for all your blogs. You have helped me keep my sanity!
These past few weeks I really have had no emotion about the Mets. I don’t have any faith that they will come back. When I went out Saturday night, they were losing and didn’t see the score until I came home. When I did, I was shocked to find out they had ACTUALLY come from behind to win. I was happy, but it was more of a relief. My first reaction? Thank goodness they won’t lose 100 games this year. My modest goal was for them to reach .500, within 1 or 2 games. That is now gone, so my next modest goal is for them to finish no more than 10 games under .500. Am I a cockeyed optimist to even hope for a long winning streak so they end the season on a high note?
All I kept thinking tonight was WHY didn’t the Mets pay Pedro what he wanted? He pitched 8 strong innings, and beat them 1-0!!! He has been lights out since he joined the Phillies. A friend of mine said that the Wilpons were cheap, and I totally agree with them. They are also penny wise and pound foolish. The Yankees get big bangs for their bucks. The Mets spend almost the same amount, and they get 25% for their efforts.
When I told you previously I blamed the trainers, you explained that if the trainers were bad, why didn’t they have all of these injuries the past few years. So now, I have put the blame on the Mets scouts. I don’t think they have a clue! Maybe they are secretly scouting for the Phillies.
Speaking of the Phillies, they are now #1 on my hate list. I want to see them swept in the first playoff round, or if not, in the second round. If by some twist of fate they make it to the World Series, I hope they are swept in 4 games, even if it is the Yankees.
Vicki, in all fairness, no one thought that there was anything left in Pedro. His resurrection has been a miracle. He wasn’t asking for very much money, so I don’t think the Wilpons turned him down because they were cheap. They turned him down because like everyone else, they thought he was washed up.
As for the Phillies, I know that they’re our arch-nemesis now and they took our two titles and so the deal is that we should hate them. But somehow I find it hard to work up much hatred for the Phillies. The team plays the way I want my team to play.
I actually was @ Citizens Bank last night,with my daughter and about 32 other Met Fans. This was the make-up of the May 3rd rainout which we had purchased tickets for prior to the start of this unreal season.As you may have gathered my brand of fandom requires that I fulfill obligations such as this make- up ,lest I be deemed(by myself), unworthy of partaking in future glory : ) I was proud to go down with my metaphorical ship and wistfully tipped my Met cap to Pedro,whose infectious personality and spirit brought me a joy that suggests a far more successful tenure with the Mets. How surreal to be silently seated among 44,000 screaming ,standing ,ecstatic Pedro supporters all wearing Phillie’s gear!
I too ,do not have much disdain for the Phillies and may be guilty of a Yankee -like hubris which contiues to foster my belief that they are simply the beneficiaries of our failure to succeed.
Arriving back on Staten Island via Fordam @ 2:30am I had managed to gain a meaningful September baseball memory in the most unusual of circumstances. Perhaps it was the act of dropping my little girl off at college , or passing by Ground Zero in the early hours of 9-14-09 or the strange encounter with my friendly foe;Pedro- I was filled with appreciation for life and look forward to attending a couple of more Met games this year and the eternal promise of next year .
It’s really amazing how warm and fuzzy we are all feeling about Pedro, just at the moment he puts us out of our misery. One of the saddest thing about the sad last few years is that he never had a chance to lead us into the post-season, but he will, after a miraculous resurrection, go with the Phillies into the post-season, after they took two titles from us because of their own two consecutive miracles.
I can’t hate the Phillies. I envy them. And if you hate what you envy, you’re a loser. I want to beat the shit out of them next year. I want to see them cry. And I want the Rockies to win the NL pennant (what? can a Mets fan root for the Cardinals or the Dodgers?). But I have to hand it to them.
I admire you Chris for showing up to a game at Citizens Bank at this stage of this season. You took it for all of us. And you showed what you, and I hope millions of Mets fans are made of.