Know The Score. Literally. If a game is over and you are wearing the sacred NY on your person, be prepared to inform the inquiring passerby. There's no better feeling than being able to answer, “Mets won 6-3. Benson got the win. Wright hit a homer. Beltran got three hits.” If the result is not so felicitous, make one up that is. You're never gonna see that nosy jerk again anyway.
The shame is nobody asked me the score on my way home. Nobody gave me a chance to explain that although Benson got no-decisioned, Wright dinged twice and Beltran went 4-for-4, the actual score matched the hypothetical example presented Thursday afternoon.
That, however, is the only shame to come out of Thursday night and it is a shame with which I can easily live.
Jock Soto, eat your heart out. Our principal dancer has yet to yield the stage. This, too, is the stuff I'm talking about.
Mr. Floyd made yet another amazing catch, tumbling and descending into one of those Shea left field voids wherein if you don't hold onto the ball, you're sucked into a black hole in which Wes Westrum is forever haranguing himself, Gus Mauch is pouring jars of pickle brine into a vat and Mark Bradley is loping after singles in an effort to turn them into triples. If it weren't for the abandoned KINGMAN FALLOUT ZONE sign, the half-filled applications for the all-new 1998 Mets Mastercard from MBNA and, of course, the beefiest feral cats you ever saw, you wouldn't have a clue regarding your former whereabouts.
But Cliff hung on, so it was OK. So did Looper. That's LOOOOOO, to everybody in Section 9. Not BOOOOOO. I mean, yeah, I understand, but c'mon. Don't make me read you the rules again.
Good night to be a Mets fan, to be among Mets fans, to meet a Mets fan. Good night all around.
Mets won 6-3. Did I mention that?
Truly a night of class and magic at Shea. Why Baseball is Great, Reason #64821: It lets you share old times with new friends…