According to the gentleman sitting behind me way up high in Section 3 of the Upper Deck Saturday night…
• The Mets were headed to “Comeback City”.
• There was still “plenty of time left”.
• Every ball should have been thrown “to second!” even if the play was at another base.
• CLAP!
This dude — nowhere near qualifying for the League of Extraordinary Morons [1], mind you — did like his clapping. The Mets left little to applaud [2], but he urged them on without pause.
Beat booing.
When John Maine gathered two strikes: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
When John Maine gathered two balls: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
When John Maine gave up two more runs: not so much CLAP! but lots of exhortation delivered Bill Swerski's Super Fans [3] style (a Chicago accent in Queens is very jarring; I fully expected a call for Manuel to be fired in favor of Ditka).
The Clapper did say please and thank you a lot — as in please get a hit and thank you for retiring an Astro — but he mostly clapped. As the game wore on, he grew rhythmic. It seemed to have no connection to the action, all of which was dismal. By the eighth, I caught his pattern.
HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
MY MIND: one…two..three…go
HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
MY MIND: one…two..three…go
HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
MY MIND: going…going…gone
HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
If I hadn't been nursing a stye above my left eye, I might not have minded The Clapper's booming palms in my left ear. And if the Mets really were headed for Comeback City instead of missing the exit ramp from Futility Freeway, he would have seemed more colorful and less cumbersome.
This was the first game I'd been to in a while where a lousy Mets performance could be sloughed off as just one of those things. Usually a resoundingly noncompetitive loss in which Brandon Backe outdoes Roy Oswalt while David Newhan [4] makes like Lance Berkman would have me ghosting suicide notes for the entire Sterling Equities organization. But I've seen the evil and the good — doctor, my stye! [5] — enough to give the Mets the benefit of one stinker's doubt. We never did approach Comeback City, and there really wasn't plenty of time left when were down 8-1, but it was a decent night in Dairlylea Coupon Country nonetheless. It was an evening to enjoy free sportsbags, complimentary bagpipes (to honor the Irish, the Mets wore the uniforms of the O'Hfers for four innings) and the company of my dear friend Matt from Sunnyside.
That's a name accurate in terms both geographic and disposition. Earlier this season, as I was penning concession speeches, Matt insisted Pelfrey and Delgado and everybody else would come around. The Mets played lame but Matt held firm to his optimism. Poor deluded soul, I thought then. Soon the Mets were winning, Matt's faith was validated and I was recalibrating my fearful estimations for the remainder of 2008. Who, besides The Clapper, seems clueless now?
Other than achy [6] John Maine, I mean.