Soaking up the 162nd

In the middle of the last Orange and Blue game of the season, I heard of Josh Hamilton's mishap in Oakland, CA, that not only capped his team giving up a 4-run lead they had early, but capped the crazy charge those A's had down the stretch to yank the division from Texas' grasp. I decided to put the game on my dad's Ipad and spent the rest of the Mets' win with OAK/TEX in the foreground with the volume down. I couldn't even hear how crazy the crowd was, but I could certainly see it; A sold out sea of Green and Yellow cheering as loud as they could for their Amazin' A's.

The Mets game had many highlights (which I will probably watch on loop at some point tonight.) Andres Torres homered; Jeremy Hefner continued to make his case for a role next year with another great start; Scottie Hairston got his 20th home run; Ike Davis made it an even 90 RBI with an opposite field shot for his 32nd home run of the year; Daniel Murphy made a sick snare on a hard hit ball to his left (which I wish was an mlb.com video); Ruben Tejada had a 3 for 5 day; and the bullpen didn't blow it. All great individual awesomeness that combined for the Mets' 74th win of the year.

By the time the OAK/TEX game was 2 out in the 9th, I paused Bobby Parnell in our own last inning (who had a couple crazy ricochets that got converted into outs) and turned the volume up on the West Coaster. The intensity, the excitement, the every-cliché-word-that-describes-the-Oakland-crowd in that moment was something I very much craved. I imagined that sold out sea of Green and Yellow as a crazy Citi ocean of Orange and Blue, and for the first time this September yielded to everybody else's definition of Meaningful September Baseball. I had tried to rationalize our September all...well, September, calling every game meaningful in the evaluation of every player we had. And I still believe this is the way it's supposed to be, that this is the journey this franchise is meant to be on and when we're ready for what Oakland just went through it will be that much more...Amazin'. And look how long it took the A's to get back to this point. But MAN, I wanted what they had in the worst possible way as I watched Coco Crisp grab the last out, he, his teammates and the entirety of the Oakland fanbase going absolutely insane.

After about a minute, I turned the volume back down and pressed play on our Metsies. The last handshakes and fist pounds and high fives of the year were very bittersweet, and certainly not just for every Met fan tuning into that moment. I could see how tight knit those 2012 New York Mets were as they greeted each other for the last time, a cancerous clubhouse certainly not the reason for the failings of the 2nd half.

Many highs, many lows, and many inbetweens. There will be plenty of time to process it all, but for now we say goodbye to the 50th Anniversary season of the New York Metropolitans. Thank you to the 2012 Squad for giving me memories and thrills that will last a lifetime. And thank you to each and every one of you who tuned in, supported me and pushed me further than I ever thought I would go in my first season of blogging. My life has been effected for the better by becoming this much more apart of the New York Metsian family.

We shall reconvene in the 'morrow.

LET'S. GO. BASEBALL.

LET'S. GO. METS.

 

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