“Game's called.”
“No game.”
“Rainout.”
“They're not playing.”
“It's called.”
Mets fans are the most helpful people there are when they see you walking in the direction of their stadium and they're walking the other way soaked. It was just before 7 o'clock that I stepped off the 7 (and around various tennis detours…what a waste of good stickball balls) and got the official and unofficial word that the Mets would deny the Braves another night of therapy to treat their impending sense of loss. So while I appreciated total strangers providing the firsthand buzz from Shea, I was heading straight toward that deep blue something anyway.
That's 'cause this was to be a night for some serious blog-on-blog action. It was the night half of Faith and Fear was going to link to Mike of Mike's Mets and turn a virtual acquaintanceship actual.
And we did. Everything but the game.
Mike would be a total stranger to me in a blogless world. He's way the hell up there in Connecticut somewhere, that state I'm always missing in those Tri-State Area quizzes (New York, New Jersey and…wait…I wanna get this…is Inertia a state or do states of mind not count?). Connecticut clearly needs to shape up when it comes to baseball. Last month, when the Yankees and Red Sox played that series to end all series — which for once it did — the Times cited a survey of Connecticutians that indicated only 12 percent of their geographic ranks chose the Mets as their favorite team. The rest copped to being arrogant thugs or overly precious.
No wonder we're taking applications from Pennsylvania, Delaware and Quebec to fill that third seat on the Tri-State. But don't hold his neighbors' misguidedness against Mike. His blog provides the best straight-ahead analysis, pregame and postgame, of any I've come across. Mike's Mets has surged ahead of Stew Leonard's chocolate chip cookies on my list of excellent products to emanate from Connecticut.
Because of his blog, Mike wasn't a total stranger to me when the night began. Still, we were delighted at the chance for a face-to-face, all of which would have to take place outside the soggy confines of Shea Stadium. We met by the main subway entrance and — since Mets fans know enough to eventually come in from out of the rain — hopped another 7 to Grand Central and my favorite loitering spot in the city, the Grand Central dining concourse.
Over sesame chicken, we swapped tales from the cyberfront, deconstructed why virulent statheads tend to annoy us, recounted how Steve Phillips' tenure made us cringe and wondered when spelling became a lifestyle choice. As the food court began to clear and we became outnumbered by the reality-challenged (one of whom wore a Mets cap and offered to sell me an umbrella), we got up and consulted our train schedules. He headed to his ride home on the Metro-North and I across town to mine on the LIRR. We're going to try get a game in next homestand, weather literally permitting.
I'd have preferred we had done our live chat with Andruw Jones face down in a puddle, Jeff Francoeur tripping over him and Matt Diaz sprawled atop both of them while a baseball sat untouched six inches from their collective grasp. Come to think of it, visiting teams stay at the Grand Hyatt next door, so who knows how the Braves spent their rainout? (Their call; I'm no John Smoltz.) But even without a chance to boo the Braves back to fourth place, I enjoyed realizing again the kind of trackbacks this marvelous medium here yields. You meet some of the nicest folks from blogging. I found it amusing that Mike mentioned a couple of readers who probably “hate” him for things he's written. Nonsense, I thought. Get to know a good Mets blogger and there's nothing not to like.
Comments closed | | 
