Good story in the Daily News today [1] about David Wright and HoJo, but what struck me wasn't the friendship between the two, though that was nice to hear about. It was the weave of Mets history: “HoJo took an instant liking to the 19-year-old Wright, even before Wright's agent and ex-Met Keith Miller — also a close friend of HoJo's — checked in on their budding relationship.” There you have it: a future Met and two ex-Mets bound together in one sentence. The only way you could pack more into that one would be if HoJo had text-messaged Wright while young David was raking the leaves at Wayne Garrett's house. (And elsewhere in the Daily News, I read that Rick Peterson's kid pitches for a college half an hour a way. His pitching coach? David West.)
(By the way, lots of ex-Mets in this fantastic Dugout [2].)
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Went out carousing with pals last night and, after drinking enough beer to drown a fair-sized ox, my inherent cheapness came to the fore and I decided that the fiscally responsible thing to do was take the subway home, even though it was the wrong side of 3 a.m. (Not that there's really a right side if your reference point is 3 a.m.) Next thing I know I look up and through the subway-car windows I see buildings and trees and the night sky.
Waitaminute, the A/C line doesn't run outside between West 4th and High Street … uh-oh.
We pull into a station and what to my blearily horrified eyes should appear but this sign: 88TH STREET-BOYD AVENUE.
88th Street? Boyd Avenue? Where the hell is that, the moon? (No offense to any readers who live around there. I'm sure it's quite nice. Point is it's not exactly where I live.)
As I stagger out into a mind-bogglingly cold night (wow, maybe this is the moon), time for a chaser of bad luck (and yes, I know luck is the residue of design): Merrily pulling in across the elevated tracks, hopelessly out of reach, is the Manhattan-bound A train that's the only thing that can get me back to where I belong. Fantastic. There'll be another one of those in 20 minutes or so — assuming everything's running normally in the middle of the night on a holiday.
I wish it were warm, I kept thinking as I huddled miserably by the token booth, willing myself to stay awake and not miss the sound of the next A train arriving above me. Not I wish I'd taken a cab, or I wish I weren't a complete moron or I wish I were home in bed where 37-year-old fathers should be, but I wish it were warm. 4 a.m. in Queens near the terminus of the A line will get you down to basics.
What on earth does this have to do with the Mets? Well, you see, the next thing I knew there was a bright light and a lot of noise and David Wright arrived in a helicopter to save me. Ha ha. No, it's that when I woke up this morning and this whole misadventure swam back into memory, the first thing I thought was rather odd: If the subway system were the baseball season, 88th Street/Boyd Avenue would be February 19th.
Or, to recall last night's prayer, I wish it were warm.