Help Us Make It Through the Off Night

As we will be reminded this evening and then again on Monday, the only thing worse than the Mets not winning is the Mets not playing. That’s the problem with a baseball season, even one like this: it includes off nights.

But we’re gonna try to make one of them better.

On Thursday, June 28, the Mets will be idle, but a few of us got together and recognized that Mets fans like us never are. Thus, we’ve found a way to help each other get through the off night. We’re calling it…

OFF NIGHT FOR METS FANS:
READIN’, WRITIN’ & RUSTY

…and we’re having it at Two Boots Midtown East, 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM, 337 Lexington Ave., between 39th and 40th Streets in Manhattan, convenient to Grand Central Terminal.

OFF NIGHT FOR METS FANS will be part spotlight for some prime baseball writing, part tribute to one of our idols and, if things continue as they have since the middle of April, part group therapy session.

On hand to discuss their recent books will be three writers whose devotion to the orange and blue colors so much of what they do.

• Dave Jordan, who founded Instream Sports, co-authored Fastball John with former MLB pitcher John D’Acquisto and contributes to The Sporting News.

• Jon Springer, who injected the Mets into the Internet’s bloodstream in the 1990s when he created the Mets By The Numbers site and just released his exploration of an 1880s phenomenon, Once Upon a Team: The Epic Rise and Historic Fall of Baseball’s Wilmington Quicksteps.

• And me, who you know from here and perhaps stuff like Piazza and Amazin’ Again.

Books will be available for purchase and signing. No obligation or admission, but you’ll probably want to grab an armload.

Besides delving into Met and Met-adjacent Lit, we look forward to sharing our memories of one of the greatest and most beloved Mets ever, Rusty Staub, and of course invite you to do the same. Two Boots proprietor Phil Hartman — a Mets fan and restaurateur so Amazin’ he sells his slices at Citi Field’s Promenade food court — plans a pizza most Grand for the occasion.

It’s been a while since we convened a night of this nature, but these Two Boots events have always been fun. Phil makes great food, baseball makes great conversation and, what the hell, there’s no game that night.

Hope to see you there.