1/30/2007
The World Series
Baseball has a special place in my heart. Even though it is not my best sport, it is my favorite; to play and to watch. Many people think that baseball is boring and slow. I can understand why they feel that way, because some games really are boring and slow – even when compared to other baseball games, but I think it is one of the most exciting sports to watch if the score is close and the game is on the line.
I grew up as a New York Metropolitan fan. In fact, my mother would go a step farther and say I was born a Met fan; she was pregnant with me when the Amazin’ Mets of 1986 (not to be confused with the Miracle Mets of 1969) had their “amazing” season capped by a stunning World Series victory over the Boston Red Sox - in a series known by every American sports fan by the notorious ground ball error of the ill fated Red Sox clutch hitter, Bull Buckner. The major influence on me was my father, he was the Mets fan. My mother was/is actually an evil Yankees fan - like everyone on here populous side of the family - something I still don’t let her live down. You would probably think that my dad was a Met fan because he became enchanted with them during his childhood moldabilty when the ’69 Mets conquered the sports world. But no, my grandfather was a Yankee fan and as such my dad and his brother (my uncle) conspired to rise up in rebellion and become Mets fans, just to piss grandpa off. Years later, my uncle would commit treason in an act so grandiose that it is akin to that of the one and only Benedict Arnold by becoming a Yankee fan once again (but that is a different story). As the circumstances dictated, from babyhood I was constantly barraged by assaults on my Met-hood from almost member in my extended family, especially by the one closest to my heart: my grandpa.
But the aforementioned inter-family power struggle was nothing compared to the battle that would come later. As I grew older, I came into more direct and heated contact with the enemy: my peers. Furious combat ensued. Most every time I would be most unfairly outnumbered; my battle cries simply drowned out by the chants of the enemy. Even when the numbers on the field were fair, soon enemy backup would arrive to overwhelm me. There was nothing I could do, fore the Mets sucked much ass and the Yankees rule of the sports kingdom was more dominating than the Roman Empire’s hold on the world at the height of its glory, circa 117 AD. Being a Met fan made me a social leper; an easy target of ridicule for insecure, pubertal little boys. I rarely found solace in the comfort of other Mets fans: there were none. I was living deep inside enemy territory; any others like me were hiding for their mere survival. Then the Mets acquired Mike Piazza, things started to turn around. The Mets soon became a winning team, a perennial playoff contender with the best bullpen in the majors. I thought I was saved, but I was foolish. Even our recent winnings could not even stand up to the mighty Yankee dominance and the irrational thinking of their fair-weathered, not knowing more than 5 players on the team following of [insert plural bad word of choice here]. I harbored much resentment for the combined colors of white and navy blue. The symbol of the intertwined letters of “N” and “Y” (the non-curly, non-orange version) made me cringe with disgust and hatred.
Then the year 2000 came. The Mets won the NL pennant. The Yankees won the AL pennant. The stage was set for the final battle. This would be no mere inter-league play. Subway Series; this was the mother of all rivalry. The prize? The mother of all bragging rights: total power to spit in the other side’s face and kick dirt on their clothes unchallenged. The vast majority of the human population did not care about the World Series, if they even knew what it was. They were either too concerned with the resignation of Slobodan Milosevic or with getting food on their plate to survive the day. To most of the sports world, it was just another year made only slightly more interesting by the Big Apple’s cross-town rivalry. To New York and its subsidiary states, it was war. Mets fans rose out of hiding everywhere and prepared for revolution. It was us against everyone, even our own mayor was against us when he said "It is often said that the Mayor of New York City wears many hats, while this may be true, I can assure you that for the duration of this World Series I'll be wearing a Yankees hat”. It was my time for retribution.
The Mets, even in their new found winning ways, always found a way to almost lose every game. It was always that way. The saying in our household, and I’m sure it was the same in the household of every Mets fan (as evidenced by these words being said by Met legend and broadcasted Keith Hernandez) “no lead is big enough with the Mets”. Most fans would feel safe with a two run lead. I only reached that feeling at a lead of around ten or twenty. So it was no surprise to me when the Mets fell in the series three games to one. Most felt it was an insurmountable lead, especially since it was held in the vice grip of the Yankees. But I had optimistic hope, especially because my dad had gotten tickets to game five. I was going to the biggest game of them all.
The game is mostly a blur to me, but I remember a few things. I can’t comment on actually going to the game on the train because it blurs with every other time I’ve ridden the number 7, but I do remember other things. I remember how many people there were, 55,292 to be exact. The place was packed. I remember meeting up with one of my dad’s buddy’s and his entourage. We brandished our weaponry, donned our armor of jersey’s and hats, embraced in gestures of brotherhood, and parted ways to our respective parts of the stadium as assigned by our tickets. I remember how many Yankee fans their were, in Shea stadium, on our turf. How dare they let the opposition inside our house! I remember having to sit next to some annoying guy and his annoying offspring of a son. My dad knew him through work, which is where they both got the tickets. They barely knew each other, but apparently it was enough for my dad to be able to tell me he was an “asshole”. I guess the fact that he was a Yankee fan only aided in further agitating my dad’s position (or perhaps it was the only agitating factor). Marc Anthony sang the national anthem. Gary Carter, Ron Darling, Lenny Dykstra, Keith Hernandez, and Mookie Wilson threw out the first pitches. Al Leiter stepped up to the rubber, and the game was on. Despite only having getting 2 hits, we took had lead until the sixth inning, when the Yankees tied it up at 2-2. In one of the most valiant sports efforts I’ve ever witnessed Al pitched his arm off until two outs in the ninth (he must have thrown about 150 pitches). Franco came in to relieve him. There were two men in scoring position, all the world was on the line now. Then time stopped, Luis Sojo – a frickin’ bench player - laced a looping, two out, history of the world changing single into the outfield. The snickering jeers of the guy beside me were only drained out by my own anguish. I remember a guy getting on base in the bottom of the ninth. I remember Piazza stepping up to the plate with two outs. I remember him launching a ball deep into the outfield. I remember wishing it further and further, trying to propel it over the unreachable fence with my will. I remember Bernie Williams catching it. The rest is mostly a blur to me; I couldn’t see. I was 12 years old then.
I went with my dad to his work a couple of years ago, I was probably 17 or so. Some guy passed by my dad’s office and stopped for a minute to chat. He patted me on the arm and told me that the last time he saw me I was crying my eyes out in the back trunk of an SUV. Normally that would probably be an embarrassing thing, but I smiled and we laughed. All three of us understood.
Originally Posted by Ged
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