Converted Mets Fan: "Is This Heaven?" "No. It's 11th and Broadway."

On Thursday, May 3, I traveled downtown to what is quite possibly the closest you can get to a baseball haven outside of Cooperstown and the ballpark. I speak of the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse, and if you have not visited that spot off of Broadway on 11th Street, I cannot imagine why. I gather the reason would be because you have not heard of it. Well...now you all have, which means none of you have an excuse for not checking it out if you find yourself on the Island of Manhattan. Jay Goldberg, a former sports agent (but always a Mets fan), started making handmade, custom baseballs in 2001, and opened the clubhouse in the summer of 2010. It is a gallery as well as a shop for his specialty baseballs, baseball memorabilia and baseball clothing. On this particular evening, we were there for the release of Left Field Cards' "Marvelous Mustaches", the third in a series of Letterpress Baseball Cards by French Artist Amelie Mancini.

Amelie moved to New York in 2006, and fell in love with this baseball game of ours after a trip to Shea in 2007 (apparently, it was one of those times the Mets lost to the Phillies that year.) She has since made it a focus of some of her work, and it was greatly represented that evening on the walls of the clubhouse (including paintings of some of our own.)

The profits from the portrait above go to the National Brain Tumor Society.

The process of how she makes each and every one of these baseball cards is pretty fantastic. Along with a pack of the mustache ones, I also purchased a pack she created of bizarre baseball injuries, which most certainly added to the random-baseball-knowledge section of my brain.

Do yourself a favor and head to leftfieldcards.com for some of the coolest baseball cards you will ever get your hands on.

Amelie has this awesome tattoo: A combination of the logo of her favorite French Football Club, Olympique Lyonnais, and the logo of our favorite baseball club. Definitely one of her finest pieces.

As for the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse, Jay has done a fantastic job setting a wonderful baseball atmosphere that every fan of the game will enjoy. He has events throughout the summer such as the one I attended that Thursday evening, as well as baseball book Q&A's with the authors. Head to bergino.com for a complete event calendar, a selection of his specialty baseballs and to sign up for his mailing list. And obviously, get down to 67 East 11th Street and bask in baseball glory.