Fun and Won (No 'Despite')

I went to the game Saturday, had a great time and the Mets won. Oh, how I’ve been waiting what seems like ages to say that.

No “despite” need be spoken. Nobody has to say, “Despite the way the game turned out, I had a really great time.” That’s the sort of thing I’ve been saying almost every instant I’ve left Citi Field over the past too many weeks. Lotsa laughs, swell food, pleasant weather, the whole bit.

But not the whole bit, because the Mets were biting it whole. The Mets were pitching but not hitting. Or, going back a thousand years, not pitching but maybe hitting. Yippee, there’s a new steak sandwich. Hooray, I took home a batting practice ball. Good for me, I got invited to sit in some beautifully primo seats. And, oh, what marvelous conversation!

The Mets lost. The food shouldn’t have tasted good. The balls should’ve been thrown back. The seats should’ve been flipped up in disgust. And the only thing we should’ve been saying to each other is, “This frigging team.”

I guess we did say that, but what we really should’ve been saying was stuff like:

• “Way to go not wasting R.A.’s seven innings!”

• “Fantastic that Turner finally homered!”

• “Some kinda catch, Scotty!”

• “Jason Bay’s not always completely useless.”

Here’s what we didn’t have to say on Saturday: Nothing about how much the bullpen blew because the bullpen was solid and stable for six outs; nothing about how we got beat by a bunch of bananaheads like the AAAstros because we have thus far split two games with those bananaheads; no assigning all our Player of the Game points to a miniature version of Mike Piazza because he’s the only one in a Mets uniform whose bobble was intentional; and no wondering if BTO could remember the words to “Takin’ Care Of Business”. Surprise, surprise, though the Mets win only once a week, Randy and Fred are still capable of getting up every morning from their ’larm clock’s warning to help us celebrate what is hardly routine enough to be considered businesslike (but tradition is tradition).

The Mets won! The best part of a very good day at the ballpark was the Mets winning! I went with one of my good friends; I ran into some other good friends; I had a nice if typically overpriced World’s Fare Market gyro for lunch; an uncrowded elevator magically opened on Field Level and whisked my party to Promenade; the vista from 517 was brilliantly expansive; the clouds didn’t threaten; I didn’t absorb a sunburn; no stranger in my vicinity bugged the spit out of me; the LIRR conductor asked me if I was going to “Shea”; and on the way home, at Jamaica, I answered some drunk wearing a BELTRAN 15’s cry of “LET’S GO METS!” with my own “LET’S GO METS!” I love all that stuff.

But what I really love is a Mets win. A Mets win — as Liv Tyler said toward the end of That Thing You Do!, I’d forgotten what you fellas looked like.