Two Apples, Almost 700 Mets

She said she’d meet me in the bar
At the Plaza Hotel
Wear a jacket and a tie
‘What’s the occasion?’
She just smiled and she wouldn’t say why
—Long Island’s Own Billy Joel

“6:30 at apple?” landed like a fresh breeze in my inbox Monday evening, a few hours before the person who sent it appeared to all but permanently swear off Mets baseball for the rest of his time on the planet or at least this season. Except I know him well enough to recognize his most seething contempt as an embrace of sorts, thus no matter how much he would profess to (quite understandably) hate the current iteration of Mets baseball when Monday evening was through, my answer to “6:30 at apple?” was of course going to be “LIRR willing,” rather than “only if they win tonight.”

The Long Island Rail Road was pokey, but as willing as I needed it to be. I made it to said apple a little before 6:30. He met me there a little after. Soon enough we were inside the ballpark the apple fronts, our first game together in 2023, our first game together since 2019, our even I don’t know how many games together since June 17, 1995, the day Bill Pulsipher debuted as the 532nd Met overall. Pulse is the touchstone for our ballpark relationship, given that his first start enmeshed with our first start, but I date us back to somewhere in the vicinity of Roger Mason and Rick Parker, the 507th and 508th Mets overall, each here and each gone shortly after their respective May 1994 launches into orange & blue society. Mason and Parker were Mets before we’d meet in person, but while we were getting to know one another electronically; Jim Lindeman (No. 509) and Shawn Hare (No. 510), too. As the future would prove, electronic communication could be authentic, to say nothing of enduring. Outlasting a string of 1994 Mets was just the beginning.

It had been all electronic for us since 2019, save for a random stop & chat just over two years ago right near that apple, the night of Tylor Megill’s bow as the 1,139th Met overall. The paucity of planned in-person Mettery over these past four years accounted for the fresh breeze quality of that email on Monday. We’d wholeheartedly if halfassedly tried to make a go of going to Monday’s game. Too much life was in the way, however. Plus it looked like rain. Nah, Monday wasn’t gonna work. What about Tuesday — 6:30 at apple?

“6:30 at apple?” felt very comforting to read. It felt like the plan to meet at Gate D 28 Junes, or 672 Mets ago overall, when I said I’d wear a New York Giants baseball cap and he said he’d wear one from the Capital City Bombers, and we figured we’d recognize one another somehow, even if he later admitted he wasn’t sure what a New York Giants baseball cap looked like and I was clueless regarding the logo of the Capital City Bombers. When we were beginning to get to know one another in the days of Roger Mason and Rick Parker, we never bothered to forward photography of each other to each other. Could you even do that in May of 1994?

To date, there have been 1,204 Mets overall.

Here in June of 2023, the most recent Met to debut was Danny Mendick last Saturday, the 1,204th Met overall. If the opportunity presented itself, maybe the 1,205th Met overall would present himself on Tuesday in the form of T.J. McFarland, called up on Monday, when it didn’t rain too hard but it sure did suck. McFarland, a veteran lefty reliever whose only real interest to us was the chance to account for his overall Metness, didn’t pitch Monday. Maybe he was waiting for us to drop by on Tuesday.

It appeared the Mets’ ability to win a baseball game had also hesitated to reintroduce itself publicly until we could be there to greet it. Had it been only Saturday and the debut of Danny Mendick when last the Mets produced a desirable result? Seemed longer. Seemed at least a few hundred Mets ago. We were in the midst of the world’s longest two-game losing streak. But did that stop us from meeting at apple at 6:30 Tuesday, the apple that used to be inside the ballpark that used to stand in the parking lot, when the ballpark that now stands was that ballpark’s parking lot? That apple, when it sat in a hat in its natural environs on June 17, 1995, didn’t have the opportunity to rise in salute to a home team home run. Craig Biggio did go deep for the Astros off Pulsipher, but the apple remained unmoved. Biggio was on his way to the Hall of Fame. Pulse was on his way to the showers.

Apples to apples. The one that sits inside the new ballpark was frisky Tuesday night. It doesn’t come out of a hat, but it will elevate from a bucket-like receptacle on command. Brandon Nimmo commanded it to elevate twice, Francisco Lindor and Daniel Vogelbach once apiece, all at the expense of former thorn Julio Teheran. What a show this apple touches off when it goes up. Fireworks shoot from its platform. Smoke wafts in the air. An apple-shaped counter clicks upward. A fresh breeze blows along the massive scoreboard. One line is Met runs, plenty of them. The other is exclusively Brewer zeroes, inflicted on Milwaukee by David Peterson, the 1,100th Met overall, and therefore a minor celebrity in our world, no matter that until Tuesday he had reverted to being a minor leaguer. But then Megill, ol’ No. 1,139, had repeated run-ins with roving bands of major league hitters and he was back to Triple-A, furnishing a roster spot for Peterson to fill and make the most of.

With the Mets scoring seven runs and the visiting Brewers scoring none entering the eighth inning, the stage should have been set for T.J. McFarland. “Pulsipher to McFarland,” it was said. Too good a throughline to interject, “Don’t forget Roger Mason and Rick Parker,” from when there’d been barely more than 500 Mets overall. All that was needed was the enormous lead to remain immense, and there’d be no reason to not bring in from the bullpen for the ninth inning the southpaw who would forever be the 1,205th Met overall and inch us closer to 700 Mets we could say we’ve shared across 29 years and counting of counting.

We were both in the mood for a victory, Mets had us feelin’ alright.

Except Jeff Brigham gave up a couple of runs, and Buck Showalter, too nervous to screw around too much these days, turned to Dominic Leone to finish up, and we had to settle for the Mets breezing to a 7-2 win and staying stuck on 1,204 Mets overall. Still, a delightful evening like so many we’ve enjoyed in neighboring seats in so many seasons in a couple of different apple-laden ballparks. We got everything but T.J. McFarland for our Tuesday night troubles. We even got “Piano Man” winning the singalong poll. One of us loves to sing along to “Piano Man”. The other loves to detest that “Piano Man” is being sung at all, but the seething contempt is an embrace of sorts all its own, and even that I looked forward to as I anticipated 6:30 at apple.