My old pal Dan almost apologized upon offering me use of his tickets for Thursday night. If I couldn’t make it, he said not to worry. “There are still other games to endure.” This is how Mets fans talk to one another in Augusts like these. There’ve been a few.
There was one 41 Augusts ago, in 1980. The backside of an uplifting year had shown its ass. We didn’t know just how harsh the mooning would be before the schedule mercifully pulled up its drawers. Nineteen Eighty, my demographic contemporaries will recognize instantly, had been the year the Magic was Back. Was. The “is” had fizzled out of the Magic in the middle of August, as the Phillies came into Shea for an extended weekend series, Thursday to Sunday, and swept five absolutely distant games. None was close. The Mets had been hanging onto the cusp of .500 and the fringes of the NL East race. That ended in a burgundy blur. Now it was the week after and the Giants were in town. To my surprise, I was asked to the Wednesday night game. Usually, even with Magic in the air, it was me soliciting company.
I looked forward to that game even as the Met backpedaled from contention. I wanted to go and join my fellow Mets fans, 13,488 of us in all, in thanking the Mets for elevating our summer. From the middle of May until the middle of August we won 47 of 86 games. We won about 40 of those games in our last at-bat — or so it seemed. Even if the descent to Earth had been swift and definitive, the melody lingered on. You have to believe we are magic. Nothing can stand in our way. Of course we’d shower love on these 1980 Mets. Of course we’d give every Magical Met a hearty ovation.
Of course this didn’t happen. It was just a Wednesday night. The Mets lost to the Giants, 2-1. Mark Bomback threw seven strong if largely unsupported innings. Lee Mazzilli was thrown out at home trying to score from second on a Claudell Washington single. Thrown out by a lot, as I recall. Reaction to the Mets was muted. So would be the Mets’ ability to win more games in 1980. The other day I told you about the best Final Forty finishes [1] in Mets history. The worst belonged to 1980: 9-31, which was just around the corner and down a manhole from that Wednesday night.
Still, I’m glad I went to Shea Stadium that Wednesday night all those Augusts ago, just as I’m glad I endured this last Thursday night at Citi Field in this August. Endured but enjoyed. That’s the best a Mets fan can do. How can a Mets fan stand such times and live? With friends like Dan and friends like Rob, the latter joining me for this final endurance contest against the 2021 Giants.
Unless we see them again in the playoffs.
Dan’s seats are situated under the carbonated soft drink advertising section, which suited Rob and I just fine since we’re old beverage magazine hands. Beverages were a fine idea at Citi Field as August schvitzing encouraged liquid intake. The only people in the ballpark probably not sweating were the Giants, at least figuratively. Do these erstwhile first-place Mets cause division leaders who’ve demonstrated endurance at the tops of their divisions to perspire? In the least?
Maybe a little, once Pete Alonso [2] clanged a ball far over the left field foul pole and off the windows of the aspirational dining club in left field, with Javy Baez [3] trotting home in front of him after another take-no-prisoners double from our very own Howard Cosell [4]. Gabe Kapler challenged Chelsea to examine the Polar landing spot to make sure what Pete sent screaming didn’t veer into loud strike territory. As the replay engineers hauled out their microscopes (still warm from chintzily subtracting a Brandon Nimmo double in the fifth), Rob and I had to go with our original view, as the only drawback of the seats under the carbonated soft drink advertising section is an obstructed sightline to the big video board. We were also blocked from seeing the lineups and line score. We were probably better off that way.
Pete wasn’t instructed to uncircle the bases, meaning his two-run, sixth-inning blast officially resonated, briefly hushing the Giant-cheering hordes and temporarily knotting the game at two while supporting Carlos Carrasco [5] like no 1980 Met supported Mark Bomback. Carrasco was a revelation. He was the Carrasco we’d heard so much about but had barely glimpsed since his return from the IL. Carlos went seven. Everything after the game’s first three batters — who included LaMonte Wade (singling) and Kris Bryant (homering) — was brilliant. The former Clevelander kept the Giants so at bay that Luis Rojas had no choice but to leave him in rather than reflexively remove him when the visitors’ order came around for a third time.
It occurs to me I’ve just detailed the only tangible highlights of Thursday night’s Mets’ 3-2 loss [6], which completed their tour of the upper echelon of the National League West at 2-11. Seven of those season-killing losses were by one run, making them not one iota more endurable than the four that were lost by more runs. As in the previous ten LA/SF defeats, there were scads of lowlights. I could detail those, too, but let’s just say our view of them was obstructed. More enjoyment than endurance that way.