Losin' in Amazin' Fashion

(I just got internet in my new apartment today, Thursday, November 5. This was written on Tuesday while on the B train heading into the city from Brooklyn.)

On Monday, I treated everything that had happened on Sunday night as a New Orleans-type 2015 New York Mets funeral, marching around Brooklyn in my new Orange and Blue Mets 2015 World Series cap, my Mets Mitchell & Ness Jacket, and my Green Jets shirt. Neither team had played well the day before, though no one had anything at all to say about the football team.

"Yo, what happened last night, man?" Said a man in a Brooklyn Nets hat as I passed New York Avenue and Snyder Avenue.

"We didn't get it done, but it's alright. We'll be more athletic next year and beyond."

"We need to get a closer that can shut it down!"

"It's not Jeurys' fault (Other than the one quick pitch too many in the 1st game.) We need to make plays behind him! It's alright, we're gonna take it all next year!"

"Hey, man. They could go back next year. Gotta get it done."

I passed a group of 5 school kids somewhere between Rogers and Bedford Avenues, probably somewhere between the ages of 7 and 12.

"The Mets are not winning the World Series, bro."

"That is now officially true."

I should have added "...smartass," to the little twerp. All in good fun.

I got to a Staples Print Center, and while waiting on line for a computer, a middle aged man with very heavy bushes of hair in his ears sat on a chair off to the side. I asked him if he was on line, he just pointed at the computer and muttered something. I didn't really understand what he said, but I understood his next words.

"What happened last night, man."

The conversation continued and so on and so forth.

On Church Avenue, next to the old Dutch Church, a man in a Yankee hat of some New Era nature stuck his head out the passenger's side of a moving car.

"What happened, man?"

"Wait Til Next Year!"

And that's all I could think of after the Murph and Clippard debacle from Game 4; the parallels to another young National League team of this region, whose old adage, "Wait Till Next Year" kept their faithful sane and warm through the winter. I hoped it wouldn't be the case the next night, but unfortunately, Game 5 became even more devastating than the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers parallels I had started drawing up.

You see, the 1941 Brooklyn National League Baseball Club hadn't been to the big show since 1920 and had never won a championship in the World Series era.  After just inching out the Cardinals for the pennant, the young team was poised, at home in Ebbets Field on Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place in Flatbush, to tie the experienced North Neighbor Yankees 2-2 in the series. Up 4-3 with no one on, 2 out and a 2-strike count to Tommy Hendrich, Hugh Casey unleashed a curveball that was swung on and missed, but ate up catcher Mickey Owen, allowing Hendrich to reach 1st base. The Yankees rallied from there and won 7-4.

Unlike OUR Game 5, the Yankees controlled that one throughout, where the Bombers' Tiny Bonham outpitched Brooklyn's Whit Wyatt and New York (A.L.) won 4 games to 1.

What's even spookier for a series that was played on Halloween was that Ebbets Field, whose facade was mirrored by our Citi, also saw it's home team lose 4 games to 1 in its inaugural World Series in 1916, against the Boston Red Sox, although, oddly, Game 5 was back in Boston back then.

So, after marching around happily mournful yesterday (attempting to let the belief that the Mets are about to get more athletic as the Minaya position players start fading away keep me smilin') Tuesday is a different story. Combined with the fact it's unseasonably 70 today, I left my hat and jacket at home, only dressed in jeans and an orange Knicks shirt. I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I just wanted to write about it.

This season started with me heading down to Washington on a Megabus at 5 in the morning to catch the afternoon game between the Nats and the Mets. It brought me back down to Washington in September for one of the greatest times I've ever had watching this team on the road. It brought me to work at Citi Field for Two Boots from Mid-September all the way through the last game of the year, which turned out to be in November and turned out to be the WORLD SERIES. It may not have turned out the way we wanted to, but I can't say I didn't have fun.

I had the time of my life, but now I've got work to do. I've got an new apartment that I OWN to get together and a life to attend to.

But I'll have the Mets on my mind the entire time.

Wait till Next Year indeed.

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.