Starting Over

Well it's the biggest thing in my life I guess

Hey, we go on next

Joaquin Andujar, who may not be a sage on the Paul Westerberg level but has had his moments, once said that “there is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is, 'You never know.' ” Except we kind of do know, no matter how many t-shirts Willie Randolph hands out, no matter how much we discuss that it's June, no matter how much we talk about what the Rockies and the Phillies did (to us) last year. Take away unquantifiable qualities of the 2008 Mets — how much they do or not care, how excited or flat they see — and you still have a team that's not young enough to stay on the field and fulfill the promise of Plan A, not deep enough to execute a successful Plan B, and not positioned in terms of payroll and prospects to jump to a Plan C. Our chances of catching the Phillies seem poor at best — the Phillies have been through the absence of Jimmy Rollins, the dreadful early-season slump of Ryan Howard, are enjoying a career year from Chase Utley, and are in sync with Charlie Manuel. Heck, they remind me of the 2006 Mets. This, I strongly suspect, is their time, not ours.

Willie Randolph will probably get fired any of these days — or live on through the year as the manager of a disappointing team that will enter a beautiful new ballpark looking rather ragged. The Mets' core — Wright, Reyes, Beltran, Santana, Maine — look headed for years that range from somewhat disappointing to good but not great. That core will enter 2009 not as favorites for a division title, but as the nucleus of a team that demands respect and has a chance to win, provided the rest of the pieces fit right.

I think that's a realistic appraisal of where we're headed.

Arriving at that appraisal has been variously disheartening, excruciating and infuriating. And I've had enough of it, enough of trying to live in the gap between Met expectation and Met reality. Faced with that, there are two choices: invest your psychic energy somewhere else, or try to change your expectations.

Last night, without having put a lot of conscious thought into it, I started doing the latter. I went out for a couple of beers with a friend I hadn't seen for a while, then looked at the clock as we were leaving and thought, “Hey, the Mets are on.” Not as in, “Holy crap I missed first pitch” or as in “Some other sucker will watch crappy baseball,” but as in “Hey, the Mets are on.” Got home, turned on the set, and there they were, live in living color and playing their ancient blood rivals, the Texas Rangers.

I could easily write a post expanding on that joke, taking pokes at interleague play as manifested in the sublime pointlessness of a game between the New York Mets and the Texas Rangers. But last night, the Rangers were the perfect opponents. Mets-Rangers means no particular context, no historical depth, nothing but what two baseball teams actually do over their respective 27 outs. (For us, ideally, 24.)

Hey, they've got this Josh Hamilton guy, heard he's having a helluva year. Oh, and that's where Milton Bradley's gotten to. And Kevin Millwood — man, remember when he was the latest Brave pitcher to dismantle us and crush our hopes? Wonder how he's doing?

As well as more familiar thoughts, like the ballistics of a ball that might come down just over the fence or might return to earth in an outfielder's glove. Like how there's a seeming infinity of green grass broken only by eight little roving points, and yet hits are hard to come by. Like the way the pitcher unwinding himself from stationary on the mound to a blur of motion tugs all these other changes along behind it — the batter crouching and focusing, the catcher shifting his feet and glove minutely, the infielders bowing and doing a little crow hop of readiness, the outfielders leaning with the pitch, the umpires awaiting the need to pass judgment, the fans waiting to sigh or cheer or hold their breath a little longer. A little mini-drama with each pitch, repeated 300 times or so.

And the result of all this? Might be a Met win. Might be a Met loss. Might be a Met no-hitter, first ever. (Though probably not.) Might have something you've never seen before, or something that you've seen before but notice for the first time and file away for the time you'll see it again. Might just be a pretty good way to pass three hours on an early-summer evening. It's baseball, man. It'll make you scream for joy and scream in fury, it'll give you mornings of floating along happily and nights of dark blue funks, but it beats the hell out of nights when green grass and warm breezes and the sound of bat and ball are just a fantasy. And most of all it's fun, provided you let it be fun.

So. Ballgame tonight, weather permitting of course. Mets are playing. Wonder what'll happen. Those are my new expectations.

Wish us luck if you can't go

It's too late to turn back, here we go…