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Life is but a dream....
Jun. 2nd, 2012 11:53 amHeadnote: I usually don't cross-post my Met run-ons to my regular LJ, or to the non-blogger side of Facebook. But on the occasion of the first no-hitter in 50-plus years of Mets history, I hope you'll indulge me:)
From the look of the morning-after posts all around, I was one of the many people looking for proof this morning. Proof that it hadn't been a dastardly realistic dream and we'd be awakening to an 8,020th box score with at least two different numbers in the third-and-second-to-last columns of the top row. I half-expected to see a familiar face, shockingly peeking out of our shower and saying, "Good morning!"
(That actually could have happened. Our daughter's boyfriend has moved in with us while his family is off taking the cure for their current affliction of Madly Stupid, and this one-full-bathroom deal is going to be pretty interesting the next few days....)
But no. It's real. It's been riffed on and back-paged enough for it to be indisputably true. One wonders: did the Mets have those scoreboard graphics all ready to go, much the same way that newspapers already have all the good obituaries of living people mostly pre-written? Is there a "YOU DON'T NO-NO DICK-EY!" in the same folder, or a "GEE, THAT ONLY TOOK 50 YEARS!" that we're not going to see now?
Perhaps obviously, I was not there. I was touched by how many of the Blogger community were- who don't always go, almost didn't go. I shed a half-tear that Greg didn't get to be there, but one does not argue with the results, particularly given what he was predicting.
(I have to go start the DVR now. We're only getting the hour-compressed Fast Forward, not the full Encore, because as usual, SNY's programming priorities are off the W.B. Mason outfield wall. Couldn't pre-empt that Best Pillow Ever infomercial for a real-time replay of the most historic moment ever, huh? Next, we'd expect live coverage of Banner Day parades.
Fine. I'll shut up. But get off my lawn.)
I wasn't even watching here at home. It just didn't feel like a baseball kinda night, with Cameron having his first family dinner with us, the weather having turned suddenly chilly and raw, and the Bisons having departed after what seemed like a 128-game homestand for parts unknown, leaving the ballpark to a windswept country music concert that resulted in a near-riot.
Instead, I was puttering around my usual Interwebs sites, posting about a dear friend's wedding and the ultimate suckitude of the month of May, when a random Yahooing brought up the line score in the seventh. A verrrry small line score on the top.
Nope, too soon. I bawled after Qualls. Leron Lee, he was too strong, I won't be his friend. The other names of the other breaker-uppers have died in random beer-drinking raids on brain cells over the past 30-odd years, but collectively their name spelled N-O-T U-S. I checked once or twice during the eighth and saw no change in those numbers. By then, the worst was over, although I had no way of knowing that. Beltran had his own personal outbreak of Flushing Black Cat Disease, which may someday change the replay rules but won't retroactively put no Frick-ing asterisk on this one. And I'd missed Molina- it HAD to be Molina, right?- taking Mike Baxter to the edge of Endy's Wall and saving the night, if not his own anterior cruciate ligament.
Still too soon to say anything- at least for me. But the hints were starting to come out online. Even non-regulars among the faithful were chiming in: Tracy Burgess, who I've known since we were five and who worked in the belly of the FAN for many years, put up a "you'd better turn on SNY right about now" post. Nobody was saying The Word, but everybody, by now, knows what you're not saying.
I finally wandered out to the living room for bottom eight. Bottom eight was interminably good. My only fear was that Johann would seize up in the dugout from it going so long, or, worse, that he'd come to bat, get on base, and pull something or other out there. I honestly thought he'd walked on that last pitch to him, thanks to the delayed call from the plate representative of perhaps the blissfully worst umpiring crew I've seen in years. I cheered when I saw him head for the dugout.
That's when the disk went in to the DVR and my ass got similarly inserted on the sofa.
And it's one, two, three outs you're DONE. Those first two outfield outs, seemingly routine, each put my heart about a foot above its usual resting spot. The fielders seemed happy but not surprised to have pulled them in.
Which brought up Mister Freese.
Think of all the bad Otto Preminger and Ah-nold jokes we'd be making now if he'd been the one to break it up. Soon as he came up, I said, to the assembled fellow fans in the room (none following the Mets like I do, but all knowing how important it was to me, and to you), either way, this guy is going to be more famous in five minutes than he's ever been.
Only it was more like 90 seconds. I kept catching Johann on every pitch- WALKS ARE OKAY! DON'T GIVE HIM ANYTHING!- and, just like that, my wait since near-infancy was finally over.
The field exploded in joy. I saw the guy in the Kid jersey joining the party; I did not see the alert Citi Security agents wrestling him to the ground. I saw the aftermath of the big pie fight. And quickly, I came back here, to post, and read the posts, and share the moment with so many of you who have waited, and wanted, and needed for as long (give or take a year or decade here and there) as I have.
As I've mentioned before, the Mets are blessed with perhaps the best set of broadcasters of any team, on both television and radio. In one of the most touching moments of the night, I got to hear Gary Cohen, in the post-game bliss, express his appreciation for his radio counterpart's skills and love of the team- and how much he wanted to hear his call of the final out. (I couldn't at the time, but I now have- as you can, thanks to the Remembering Shea blog.) I'm told that Howie expressed similar sentiments during his post-game remarks.
So many who were there had the same experience: that last night was Citi Field's bat-and-ball mitzvah. It was the first time the fans came alive together, shook the foundations, and finally invited in the 45 years of ghosts and good spirits residing in the parking lot one former stadium over. More than ever, we were all Remembering Shea last night- and much as Johann gets the credit, its aura shines back on, and honors, all of the near-misses of next door- from Al Jackson, through Tom Seaver, to Martinez, Muniz, Heilman, Schoeneweis & Wagner LLP's combined effort on the last Shea-era one.
And to Tug, and the Kid, and Gil- who, along with one Dana Brand, are smiling their fool heads off this morning.
----
Feeling good about things right now? Want to share that feeling? Join my fellow blogging panelist Ed Randall later this month in supporting Fans for The Cure- as in the cure that isn't a joke- and maybe win tickets to see the Mets on Fathers Day. You will need to be on Twitter for this, which might be the one thing that drags me kicking and screaming into that Land of Hashtag (pop. 140), and the action begins on Buddy Harrelson's birthday, aka June 6th.
From the look of the morning-after posts all around, I was one of the many people looking for proof this morning. Proof that it hadn't been a dastardly realistic dream and we'd be awakening to an 8,020th box score with at least two different numbers in the third-and-second-to-last columns of the top row. I half-expected to see a familiar face, shockingly peeking out of our shower and saying, "Good morning!"
(That actually could have happened. Our daughter's boyfriend has moved in with us while his family is off taking the cure for their current affliction of Madly Stupid, and this one-full-bathroom deal is going to be pretty interesting the next few days....)
But no. It's real. It's been riffed on and back-paged enough for it to be indisputably true. One wonders: did the Mets have those scoreboard graphics all ready to go, much the same way that newspapers already have all the good obituaries of living people mostly pre-written? Is there a "YOU DON'T NO-NO DICK-EY!" in the same folder, or a "GEE, THAT ONLY TOOK 50 YEARS!" that we're not going to see now?
Perhaps obviously, I was not there. I was touched by how many of the Blogger community were- who don't always go, almost didn't go. I shed a half-tear that Greg didn't get to be there, but one does not argue with the results, particularly given what he was predicting.
(I have to go start the DVR now. We're only getting the hour-compressed Fast Forward, not the full Encore, because as usual, SNY's programming priorities are off the W.B. Mason outfield wall. Couldn't pre-empt that Best Pillow Ever infomercial for a real-time replay of the most historic moment ever, huh? Next, we'd expect live coverage of Banner Day parades.
Fine. I'll shut up. But get off my lawn.)
I wasn't even watching here at home. It just didn't feel like a baseball kinda night, with Cameron having his first family dinner with us, the weather having turned suddenly chilly and raw, and the Bisons having departed after what seemed like a 128-game homestand for parts unknown, leaving the ballpark to a windswept country music concert that resulted in a near-riot.
Instead, I was puttering around my usual Interwebs sites, posting about a dear friend's wedding and the ultimate suckitude of the month of May, when a random Yahooing brought up the line score in the seventh. A verrrry small line score on the top.
Nope, too soon. I bawled after Qualls. Leron Lee, he was too strong, I won't be his friend. The other names of the other breaker-uppers have died in random beer-drinking raids on brain cells over the past 30-odd years, but collectively their name spelled N-O-T U-S. I checked once or twice during the eighth and saw no change in those numbers. By then, the worst was over, although I had no way of knowing that. Beltran had his own personal outbreak of Flushing Black Cat Disease, which may someday change the replay rules but won't retroactively put no Frick-ing asterisk on this one. And I'd missed Molina- it HAD to be Molina, right?- taking Mike Baxter to the edge of Endy's Wall and saving the night, if not his own anterior cruciate ligament.
Still too soon to say anything- at least for me. But the hints were starting to come out online. Even non-regulars among the faithful were chiming in: Tracy Burgess, who I've known since we were five and who worked in the belly of the FAN for many years, put up a "you'd better turn on SNY right about now" post. Nobody was saying The Word, but everybody, by now, knows what you're not saying.
I finally wandered out to the living room for bottom eight. Bottom eight was interminably good. My only fear was that Johann would seize up in the dugout from it going so long, or, worse, that he'd come to bat, get on base, and pull something or other out there. I honestly thought he'd walked on that last pitch to him, thanks to the delayed call from the plate representative of perhaps the blissfully worst umpiring crew I've seen in years. I cheered when I saw him head for the dugout.
That's when the disk went in to the DVR and my ass got similarly inserted on the sofa.
And it's one, two, three outs you're DONE. Those first two outfield outs, seemingly routine, each put my heart about a foot above its usual resting spot. The fielders seemed happy but not surprised to have pulled them in.
Which brought up Mister Freese.
Think of all the bad Otto Preminger and Ah-nold jokes we'd be making now if he'd been the one to break it up. Soon as he came up, I said, to the assembled fellow fans in the room (none following the Mets like I do, but all knowing how important it was to me, and to you), either way, this guy is going to be more famous in five minutes than he's ever been.
Only it was more like 90 seconds. I kept catching Johann on every pitch- WALKS ARE OKAY! DON'T GIVE HIM ANYTHING!- and, just like that, my wait since near-infancy was finally over.
The field exploded in joy. I saw the guy in the Kid jersey joining the party; I did not see the alert Citi Security agents wrestling him to the ground. I saw the aftermath of the big pie fight. And quickly, I came back here, to post, and read the posts, and share the moment with so many of you who have waited, and wanted, and needed for as long (give or take a year or decade here and there) as I have.
As I've mentioned before, the Mets are blessed with perhaps the best set of broadcasters of any team, on both television and radio. In one of the most touching moments of the night, I got to hear Gary Cohen, in the post-game bliss, express his appreciation for his radio counterpart's skills and love of the team- and how much he wanted to hear his call of the final out. (I couldn't at the time, but I now have- as you can, thanks to the Remembering Shea blog.) I'm told that Howie expressed similar sentiments during his post-game remarks.
So many who were there had the same experience: that last night was Citi Field's bat-and-ball mitzvah. It was the first time the fans came alive together, shook the foundations, and finally invited in the 45 years of ghosts and good spirits residing in the parking lot one former stadium over. More than ever, we were all Remembering Shea last night- and much as Johann gets the credit, its aura shines back on, and honors, all of the near-misses of next door- from Al Jackson, through Tom Seaver, to Martinez, Muniz, Heilman, Schoeneweis & Wagner LLP's combined effort on the last Shea-era one.
And to Tug, and the Kid, and Gil- who, along with one Dana Brand, are smiling their fool heads off this morning.
----
Feeling good about things right now? Want to share that feeling? Join my fellow blogging panelist Ed Randall later this month in supporting Fans for The Cure- as in the cure that isn't a joke- and maybe win tickets to see the Mets on Fathers Day. You will need to be on Twitter for this, which might be the one thing that drags me kicking and screaming into that Land of Hashtag (pop. 140), and the action begins on Buddy Harrelson's birthday, aka June 6th.