Well, damn.
Congratulations to the Cardinals and their fans. It wasn’t a classic series by any means, but it was an object lesson that you never, ever quit fighting. They showed that. So did we.
If you’d been told we’d get that pitching performance from Oliver Perez, you’d have taken it. That we’d give up three runs? You’d have taken it. That we’d hold Pujols at bay all night? Ditto. And if we’d been told it would come down to bases loaded, a dunker away from tying it and a gapper away from the World Series and Carlos Beltran at the plate, you’d have taken that too. (And if I ever meet Endy Chavez, I’m buying him a beer for a catch that will always have me leaning closer to the TV in disbelief.)
Look, you’re going to replay that drive of Spiezio’s just missing Shawn Green’s glove in your head for a long time. You’re going to be puttering through some winter duty and realize that for several minutes you’ve been muttering to yourself, Called strike three. Called strike three. Goddamn it. It’s going to happen, just like I can close my eyes and see Orel Hershiser raising his arms (in a Dodger uniform) or Kenny Rogers missing the plate or Piazza’s drive not going far enough. Be ready for it.
But give it a little time and you’ll remember other things, too. Carlos Beltran connecting on a better night against the Cardinals and leaping into a waiting sea of teammates. David Wright willing his ball over Johnny Damon’s head. Endy Chavez about to take flight in celebration. Paul Lo Duca finding not one Dodger within his reach, but two. Pedro Martinez coolly eyeing Jose Guillen like a gunfighter in a frontier town. Jose Reyes heading for first with him and you knowing his final destination is third, and he’ll be there in a few seconds. You’ll remember these things too. In fact, close your eyes. You can see them, can’t you? In the darkest days of winter, when all the baseball news you have to chew on is some agate-type invitations to spring camp — for the Royals — you’ll smile to think of them.
And come this weekend? Take Tommy Lasorda’s advice. Get out of the tree. Turn on the set. There’s baseball left to be played, and don’t be kept from it by the fact that it (heartbreakingly, bitterly, impossibly) won’t include us. Because win or lose, romp or get stomped, baseball is fundamentally beautiful. The rising line of a home run, the sleight-of-hand of a 4-6-3 double play, the arc of a curve ball that bends in and hits the black — these are among the most-perfect things ever to spring from the mind of man. In a few short days, they’ll be gone. Don’t miss what little is left.
And too long from now but sooner than you think, it’ll be February in Florida, with guys we’ve never heard of wearing impossibly high numbers and hopelessly trite interviews and pitchers running on the warning track during games. And a couple of more blinks more and it’ll be too cold and you’ll be chewing your nails over being 3-4 or celebrating being 6-1, and able to recall every game of the young season. And another blink or two and you’ll find yourself at Shea on a lazy summer night, 25,000-odd sprawled in the stands, looking down at some interchangeable game against the Brewers or the Astros or even the Cardinals, and some Met will get on and then someone else will get on and the crowd will start to stir and you’ll hear it. You can hear it now, can’t you? Listen.
let’s go mets. let’s go mets. let’s go mets. let’s go mets. let’s go mets.
Someone will poke a single to right and bring us closer, and you’ll hear it louder this time.
Let’s go Mets! Let’s go Mets! Let’s go Mets! Let’s go Mets! Let’s go Mets!
And then the tying run will be out there on the basepaths and the go-ahead run will be at the plate and they’ll be hearing it at 111th and at Main Street in Flushing and you’ll be yelling it as loud as anybody under the night sky.
LET’S GO METS! LET’S GO METS! LET’S GO METS!
And you’ll look around Shea and see all the other loons chanting and yelling and pleading and you’ll look down on the field and you’ll think that very, very few things in this life can be better than this, than this achingly beautiful sport and this team you love beyond reason and finding yourself caught up in the middle of it.
And you’ll be right.
You know what? It’s really not so far away.
Thanks, Jason. I needed that.
Great thoughts as usual, enough to move me to a few tears. Baseball is equal parts beauty and heartbreak. If you're not a baseball fan you can't understand. The Met fan might just understand it a bit more clearly than some.
As the disbelief clears from our eyes, next season will start to appear bright on the horizon. There were many achievements this year, and I hope we don't forget them.
I look forward to reading my favorite blog right on through to the spring.
Yeah, Jace… that's what I just posted on the last thread!! “Pitchers and catchers soon, and we will kick a** all over again. Count on it.” I'm inconsolable right now but I will be stronger by Saturday because I need that strength to root for the Tigers to pummel the Cardinals into oblivion.
And if I ever meet Endy Chavez… aw, heck. Let's be honest. I'll buy him a wedding band. No one put a bigger smile on my face this year… after my favorite player went down with one of the most heartbreaking injuries I'd ever witnessed, I was very sad. And then there was Endy.
Thanks to all the guys for an amazin' season. It should have ended better. But it was awesome nonetheless. As always, I'll spend October to April passing an empty Shea Stadium with misty eyes, a warm smile and my nose pressed up against a cold window, waiting for it to finally be time for baseball. And as always, I'll fill the void by screaming at the Jets every Sunday.
We chose this life. And we wouldn't have it any other way.
Let's Go Mets. Tonight and always.
Hmm….
Yankees suck! Yankees SUCK!
Thanks for the comments Jason. And I will be proudly wearing my Faith and Fear in Flushing T-Shirt tomorrow.
David Woodard
St. Paul, Minnesota
Dear Jason,
That was wonderful, and painful, and beautiful. Thank you.
I can't believe right now that you're right, but I know it's true. Next year we do it all over again. You found it in yourself to write something important and necessary and big-hearted and powerful on a night when I can't even get up off the floor… just, thanks. I don't know what else to say. That helped even more than the bottle of whiskey I'm three quarters of the way through.
I can't watch any more baseball this season. I have to let it go. But God bless you, Jason, and you, Greg. And our whole little community here.
Let's go Mets.
Josh
F the world series. F Lasorda.
I wanted to celebrate the Chavez catch.
I can't.
I understand your posting, which is well-written and I suppose could be moving to some, but your positive attitude… I can not fathom that right now. Not ready.
Beltran won game 1 and got us going in game 4.
Here's to a great offseason, to all y'all. What the fuck. At least it wasn't as painful as losing to the Yankees, or to the Braves.
Anyway, I think we're in for more thrills next October. See you then. Ok…and maybe a little before then.
This was a very good season for the Mets. We all wish they had gone further but with the injuries to Pedro, Orlando and Floyd, is the ending such a surprise ?
Next season Omar will provide us with a younger pitching staff, some new front line outfielders and perhaps a new second baseman.
To look on the bright side of this season it is a stepping stone to a better tomorrow.
Great write up.
Omar is up for the challenge. Here's to the Mets in 2007!
great post. Hope should definitely be the order of the day, although, understandably, disappointment is very much on the mind of all Mets fans today
This was a truly great season, and the future is definitely bright. I'm just not ready for optimism, yet.
that was great… gave me chills thinking about Reyes hitting one down the line into right field and rounding second at full speed his helmet falls off and headfirst dive into third just beating the tag, getting up and clapping his hands…
Jason,
You sonofabitch. I said I wouldn't cry. Then I read your post.
Now how'm I supposed to explain this to my boss? He's looking at me all weird-like.
I can't wait for Lucky '07 to begin. Anyone who's got plans to catch the Mets in spring training in the Orlando area, let me know (the Astros, Braves, and Nationals all train within an hour of my house). I'll buy you a beer, and we can cry into it until we laugh at the memories of '06.
Or vice versa.
Not reading any newspapers or listening to any talk radio….
Just hearing from our little community is enough for right now.
A fabulous post…a few tears..
There's going to be major withdrawal….
Hugs to all….
Great job Jason. You and Greg made a great season better. This hurts, but not as bad as 99 or 2000. I guess I feel that we still have a great team for next year and years to come. With Willie and Omar I am confident they will continue to make the right moves. Whats a killer is that it wasnt the “worst starting pitcher ever” but our bats that fell silent. I wont throw anybody on this team under the bus, they never quit and battled till the end. I cant watch this World Series, but have one question. How many days till pitchers and catchers report?????
My condolences, guys. I hope Beltran will be remembered more for the career year he had (41 HRs, 127 R, 116 RBI, .982 OPS) than for his final at bat. He deserves better.
Cards' fan back again in peace, peace, feeling wrung out, cuffed about, stunned, enervated…I am sorry the Mets lost. What keeps coming to mind for me is Ali-Frazier. Manila. I think it was about that fight that Ali said he never felt closer to dying. And while neither the Mets nor the Birds were in an danger of “dying” last night, I can't imagine a more emotionally draining 7-game series. And for the true fans? You all know.
I live here in New York, became a Cards' fan more or less by accident, and having watched the Mets more than any other team, in past times as a fan–until certain events in the early 90's soured me–and now as a baseball lover since they are the only team in NY I care about, I know it's going to be amazing watching them for the next bunch of years as they certainly will erase for themselves and their fans the bad feeling from what happened over the last week or so. So it won't be 86, 06. It probably will be 86, 07, 09, 10…
Hang in there. What a great season the Mets had…
I dont think I have to say it to the crowd that reads this blog, since everyone here seems to be of the true fan variety, as opposed to the type of Met fan that has self esteem issues. But when Opening Day comes around, lets try to be a example of loyalty, gratitude and intelligence to our more pessimistic brothers and sisters and cheer as loudly as we can when we start hearing the tambora and guiro of that Christian salsa and number 15 comes up to bat.
Shea debut of my “Faith and Fear” t-shirt last night. Game 7, it just felt right. So the following conversation ensued pre-game in section 20 of the upper reserved.
Guy points to my shirt–“Hey, are you one of those two guys?”
“No, I'm just a fan”
“Me too. They're great.”
“I actually met them a few weeks ago. Nice guys”
“Here?”
“Yup. Down in the mezzanine.”
“Oh. Are they around tonight?”
“Don't know. Jason said he couldn't make it. Greg didn't say anything, but he hasn't missed a post season game yet this year so he's probably around.”
And it ocurred to me. I'm no longer merely a Mets fan.
I've become a fan of other Mets fans.
What a year. WHAT A YEAR!
I haven't felt like this since I was 14 or fifteen years old, watching the '84 Mets develop into the '85 and '86 Mets.
I'm sad that we lost. (I don't know if I should be sad that missed the end; I had to turn it off after the eighth because my 10-month-old was screaming his little head off and needed comforting.) But like you say – there will be Amazin' memories to last the next twenty years or more. That game in Chicago where we scored 11 in one inning? The smile on Reyes' face that never seemed to leave? David Wright, his whole life and career ahead of him, written in his face, waiting to be discovered? Delgao, a very wise man, who knocked the h*** out of the ball in his first postseason? Beltran finally relaxing and becoming a Met? Floyd, our “old man,” dignified and eager to play, even in pain? Pedro, El Duque, Glavine!, and the boys in the 'pen. Has a team ever been blessed with a better bullpen, day in and day out, getting it done? Maybe that's hyperbole, but not by much.
Sunny days to remember. Sunny days ahead.
I'm still stunned…numb…I was there in Busch in '04 not only for game 7 with rolen hitting that bomb off clemens…but then again in game 4 when we were swept by the sox….those are probably the only two more memorable moments of my cardinals baseball fan career…I feel for the mets fans, only cus i've been there and know the feeling – but man, there were tears of joy last night at the bar where i watched in stl – how much they were a result of sprayed beer i dont know – all i know is that was just stunning – that catch – that homer – that hook…unbelievable………….
That was great, Jason. Thanks! This season was a bit brighter since I discovered F&F.
Go Jets.
Oh…..never mind.
See you next spring!
JoAnn
Jason – Thanks. I needed that.
4 months to pitchers and catchers. I have faith in Omar. I have no fear about next year.
Hi Jason,
Yes, a great summer that just didn't extend one more week into the fall. No real Met fan can categorize this season as a failure. While we are still the best team in the National League anything can happen in a short series, so congratulations to St. Louis. Your team is the equivalent to our 1973 squad that also lost 79 games and now we know the disappointment fans of the vastly superior Big Red Machine felt that season.
Shea was alive and well and Willie's crew gave us a magical summer to remember. While making it to only one game this year (the famous two-balk inning by El Duque) by sitting in the third row of the Mezzanine behind home plate and having it recorded on HD-DVR we can re-live Shea's festive atmosphere throughout the cold, winter months, especially since the television camera above home plate provided the same view we had at the game.
Let's hold our head up high.
Joe and Mary
Great post, and exactly what I needed to read right now.
LETS GO METS!!
Thanks for the great post, Jason. I have been trying to be upbeat all day and suppressing the urge to throw up in my desk drawer. It was a great season and I will never forget Games 1 and 6, feeling Shea shake, hugging random strangers and chanting in my sleep. Now, I can resume being a regular person and not a sleep-deprived lunatic.
I am treating my girlfriend to a nice romantic dinner this weekend where no sports will be discussed. It's the least I can do for a wonderful woman who has put up with my obsession.
Let's all celebrate how far this team has come. We are well ahead of
Omar's schedule and I don't see that man backing down one bit.
Yes. We all owe our significant others a romantic dinner for putting up with us. Unless they're fanatics too, in which case we owe them a romantic dinner to start healing from the October marathon.
BTW, I know Keith, and no, he's not a certain former first baseman who's liable to say anything in the broadcast booth, but yes, his name is Keith Hernandez and he's both a fine fellow and hardcore Met fan. Just clearing that up ahead of time. :-) Glad to see you here, man!
You're right. Greg and Jason are the honorarily 26 and 27 on my Mets roster (or 41 and 42…hey, don't those numbers sound familiar?)
ya know, as i left shea last night, i think i was in shock because it didn't truly hit me till today how incredibly devasted i am. this one hurt, this one hurt bad. ugh!
how many days till p & c's report?
Mets will make it to the WS next year. This year totally reminded me of 1999 when they came so close. At least we made it to Game 7! It always seems like you must endure the lowest of the lows before experiencing the highest of the highs. With this low out of the way, it's all uphill from here. Even Omar acknowledged that this year was a big surprise — his plan was for the Mets to get to this point in 2007-08. And they will — they have got to be the odds on favorite in Vegas come next Spring to take it all. I'll be there to place my bet!
One of the only smart things I said last year, as a promising season went south, was that we'd been kidding ourselves thinking 2005 was 1986. It wasn't, I said. Instead, it was 1984.
Which would make this just-concluded season 1985.
I like the way that one's trending.
I consider it a privilege to have been able to attend game 7. Despite the way it turned out (credit to the Cardinals), I will live the rest of my life getting chills every time I think about The Catch and how close we came to a comeback for the ages.
Minor gripe: Whose idea was it to hand out white towels? Does nobody see the connection between hands busy waving towels and hands unavailable for clapping? Even when it was loud, Shea was quiet last night. Leave the towels and Sweet Caroline and all that shit for other teams. I want the upper deck to rock.
Hey, That was you Albertsonmets ?? Was nice to meet ya. Great shirt, great game, and great season (although the ending coulda turned out better, huh?)…………………..
Nice meeting you as well, J squared.
Yes, it was truly a great season, a great game and an all around unforgettable experience.
Can't wait to start it all up again.