Sometimes in the winter I'll be doing some household chore and I'll realize that for the last five or 10 minutes I've been brooding about a moment from the Mets' past, turning it over and over in my mind and wondering how everything could have gone so wrong. Sometimes I even catch myself muttering imprecations, with whatever I've been doing sidetracked by sour anger and regret.
It's a list that won't surprise you.
Rogers throwing ball four. Pendleton hitting it over the fence. Carter giving Hershiser a despairing glance as he packs his catching gear. Armando walking Paul O'Neill. Payton trying to take third. Luis Sojo's ball trickling up the middle. Glavine hitting Dontrelle Willis. Piazza's drive dying in the air. Brian Jordan taking Benitez deep. Brian Jordan taking Franco deep. Timo celebrating when he should be running. Beltran looking at strike three.
Should the Mets not survive to see October baseball, as looks increasingly likely, I'll have one more for the roster.
Murphy at third. None out. The Phillies have lost.
I was out for a farewell get-together with friends and former colleagues from the Online Journal. But, to the surprise of absolutely no one, I had my radio. For most of the night I'd just check in now and again: 1-0 Cubs on a DeRosa home run. 5-1 Mets, even though they only have two hits! Uh-oh, it's 5-3. Oh no, it's 5-5.
I didn't hear Murphy's triple, but my old Daily Fix partner Carl told me what had happened as I put a headphone in one ear. He stared at pitch locations on his Blackberry while I stood at the head of our table, listening to the game and acting out what I heard. It was a rather grim pantomime: Strike three on Wright. Four wide on purpose to each of the Carloses. Little bouncer by Church, Murphy out at home. Strike three on Castro. A sequence that may wind up seared into my brain for a long, long time.
“I can't believe we lost that game,” was the last thing I said to Emily before falling asleep.
“I can't believe we lost that game,” was the first thing I said to Emily when I woke up.
She noticed. But she hadn't heard all the times I muttered it to myself in the middle of the night, waking up to realize it was still true. And should the Mets fail, she won't hear many of the times I'll mutter it to myself in winters to come.
Murphy at third. None out. The Phillies have lost. I can't believe we lost that game.
But,
Tonight I'll* be on that hill 'cause I can't stop
I'll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town
*Actually, Pedro. I won't even get to see the game. But you get the idea. Here's to the light in the darkness.
Prove it all night, Pedro.
Unforgettable. Makes me think of another word that's been on my mind a lot lately: “last.” I remember thinking, after a lot of sulking about Kenny Rogers to Andruw Jones, that “at least the last game at Shea this year was one for the ages.”
Now I can't get past negative lasts. Was that Perez's last Mets start? Is tonight Pedro's? If Easley pinch-hits is it the last at-bat of his career? And worst of all: how many fans will take back horrifying memories of their last time at Shea? And what if some catastrophe Sunday – or Monday , or Tuesday, or whenever weather permits – is the last memory at Shea for anyone? How do we deal with that? This wasn't in the Met fan handbook, I'm guessing, because even that scenario was too depressing to contemplate.
For better or worse, this team, and this manager, are all or nothing. They've been streaky since last year. They have big losses, big wins. It should never have gotten this far, but it did. In the end, it looks like the final regular season game at Shea will matter, and matter big.
Either we'll bring the place down with a bang, or we'll be looking forward to the change of scenery next year.
I will, for the rest of my life, remember last night's game as one of the most painful losses I've ever endured as a Mets fan.
I feel like crying.
to me, last night was worse than the glavine game
A lot of games were “worse” than the Glavine game. That game just confirmed our worst fears, and the game was over in 15 minutes. Much worse is the game that gives you hope, many times over, then pulls it away from you at the last minute. Also, in context, it's the kind of game where the win doesn't make you feel as good as a loss makes you feel bad. To that end, the worst games of last year were August 30th in Philadelphia, and the September 20th Florida game that prompted the “…” post on this here blog. The fact that this one was at home probably gives it the edge over those two.
It was brutal. I snuck down from the upper deck in the 8th, eluded security, and watched the horror from 4 rows back of the Mets dugout. So close, TOO close to the carnage. I uttered the word “unbelievable” about 250-275 times in all different tones and cadences from the time Castro struck out, up to and including the 7 train ride home and my weary and miserable way to bed. I'm still trying to process just how you can't scORE IN THAT SITUATION!………unbelievable and stunningly inept.
All that and I'll be back for more tonight. Masochists, every last one of us.