Metsian Folk, We Have Arrived

My head has been in so many different places that I knew it wouldn't dawn on me that Mets baseball is back until I watch the team take the field at Citi Field. 

The fact my head has been pulled from left to right may sound like a negative, but indeed, I have made it a goal of mine in 2017 to focus; I've just been focusing on multiple things. Whether it is working on my coming-of-age stoner biopic, or getting the 3rd draft of my Dodgers period piece in order, or helping to pump up the brand that is Two Boots Pizza, or working out more consistently, or getting back to consistent Rising Apple Mets podcasts, I have felt the need to be active in 2017 with many different things after reacting too passively at times in my adult life. Though I love baseball and can't wait for the first pitch, it still hasn't hit me that the game I hold so dear, and the team within that sport I hold the dearest, will take the field soon in Flushing, Queens, wearing the bright, beautiful colors of the Orange and Blue.

Via Sportslogo.net

The Mets are something to behold, and a collective to look up to. Though times can be tough, though times can be rotten, you have to trudge through the sludge to taste the glory on the other side. A baseball season, even when your team wins more than they lose, is a metaphor for life squished into a daily period for 6-7 months. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose...sometimes it is a beautiful sadness, and sometimes it is achingly happy. Most of the time, the unexpected finds your path. Either way, it makes you feel alive.

The Mets and baseball make me feel alive and have taught me to take a breath and enjoy this experience I and all of us discover ever day of our lives. Unlike other years, where I've really had Spring Training to help me ease into it, this year, it's just going to smack me across the face in all it's wonderful green-grassed glamour.

Baseball and the Mets are back.

Bring it on.

KEEP. ON. PUSHIN'.

LET'S. GO. METS.

(Speaking of Two Boots Pizza, there is also this...)

Im hosting a @TwoBootsHQ #Mets watch party at 6pm Wed 4/5 at #TwoBoots #EastVillage! @Mets ticket giveaway, $7 Pizza+Beer special & More! pic.twitter.com/aOUW7ysN7W

— Sam Maxwell (@convertedmetfan) March 30, 2017

More Subdued, but Rising Nonetheless

Citi Field seemed to explode so much the first two days, it needed a night to chill (though with a win as well.)

As it was the first home game I could not attend, back in Two Boots Pizza Hell's Kitchen after my weekend of Monday and Tuesday (will now work every evening through Sunday.) I am sure, though there were 15-20,000 less in the ballpark than the first two games, the fans were loud and having fun with a bit more of a breather than the Mets have been playing with a 6-1 final on the Day of 42.

The Phillies look bad, that is for sure. Who knows when the shoe will drop and someone may take on some more of those contracts, but consider Chase Utley and Cole Hamels as the definites to be moved by July, and who knows which one first. Ryan Howard is as unmovable a contract as I have ever seen. In similar, if not much more extreme fashion, to OUR 1st baseman ankle injury of 2011, the last out of the 2011 NLDS between the Cardinals and the Phillies has deteriorated almost all value from the player. And it's too bad, even if I like striking him out every time.

Now, the team I had been most worried about during the offseason, the Miami Marlins, comes to town for our first meeting of the year. You know what? I'm not worried about anybody from now on. We'll have to get through anybody and everybody if we are to achieve the goal, so bring on the most annoying team the Mets have ever played. No matter who is in those uniforms or what the uniforms look like, the Marlins will always be that pesky asshole who won't stop poking you.

Bring 'em on.

Make it Funky.

LET'S. GO. METS.

The Game

I arrived to my 2nd training shift at the Hell's Kitchen Two Boots just before 5 o' clock yesterday afternoon, and I must say, my timing for monitoring this game was impeccable.

Between the minutes of 7:10 and 7:20, I checked on the game during a calmer moment. No sooner after seeing on the main page that EricYoung, Jr. was on 1st base and Daniel Murphy was up to the plate did it say in the gameday play-by-play that Daniel Murphy had grounded into a double play. I rolled my eyes and put my phone back in my pocket. With many different slices to choose from (including The Newman, Cleopatra Jones, Grandma Bess, Bayou Beast, The Larry Tate, The Night Tripper, Mr. Pink, Tony Clifton, The Bird, The Earth Mother, and V for Vegan) a man decided, not knowing his Mr. Pink was on its way out of the oven, to change his order to The Newman. Instead of Creole Chicken, plum tomatoes, fresh garlic & mozzarella, he decided on sopressata & sweet italian sausage on a white pie. With no one else claiming a Mr. Pink in the moment, I decided to get the slice for dinner and stole away for a hot second to the back outside.

I arrived there with the slice in my hand and my phone in the other, ready to get my MLB gameday on with the sounds of the crowd in the backyard of Rudy's Bar & Grill hopping. Gameday catches you up quickly on the pitches in the AB you're arriving to, and with David Wright up, it showed me the 4 pitches I had missed. Then, after a pause, clearly having caught up to the gameday's pace, the 5th pitch said "In play, run(s)" which could only mean one thing with no one on. With the words, "David Wright homers on a fly ball to center field," I knew it must have been a bomb, and couldn't wait to see the highlight when it got loaded. I finished up my slice and headed inside to do my job.

I checked in periodically, including watching the home run on my way home to my apartment a block and an avenue over for my actual roughly half-hour break. It was usually the end of an inning I would catch, giving me a quick update that hardly wasted any time compared  to following it pitch-by-pitch. As it got later into the evening, it was a surprise but refreshing to see the Mets with a 1-0 lead still intact, the game moving briskly along with Wheeler apparently dealing and the Major League debuter Andrew Heaney dealing as well after the Marlins-home-run-structure-moon-shot by David. On a whim, with a slow moment in the store, I checked just in time for a live look-in with 2 out in the 9th, and Reed Johnson up. The phone sat right under the register so I could keep an eye on everything else my eyes needed to be on. The thorn that is Reed gave us more to worry about with a great AB that finished with a clean single past a diving Ruben Tejada, then Rafael Furcal scared the BeJesus out of all of us with a lacer to center that was right at Chris Young. With a 1969 New York Mets poster hanging on my left, the 2014 New York Mets had wrapped up one of the best games of the year.  I could turn off the live-look-in.

So, Zack Wheeler, after all his struggles this year, pitched the ballgame of his life so far with a 3-hit shutout. It almost felt like Gary was calling a no-hitter at the end when I watched the highlights, with so much meaning behind Zack completing it. It meant a lot to the Mets and to Zack Wheeler's career. It couldn't have been scripted any better with the recently slumping captain of our ballclub winning it with a solo shot in the 1st inning. Wright gave Wheeler the run he would need and he ran with it.

Here's what Keith Hernandez had to say with 1 out in the 9th:

“There’s no reason why these young kids...young MEN…and I’m speaking of Wheeler going 9 innings- I know they’re not conditioned to, but I am so hopeful that it gets back to a starter, in a close game- let HIM win or lose it. Don’t have someone come in and lose it FOR him.”

Amen.

Zack Wheeler was able to do what Bartolo Colon was not allowed to do yesterday, and it was immensely impressive. This is when the naysayers who were calling for Wheeler to get sent down as he continued to struggle get proven wrong. This team will win or lose with Wheeler, and it's all part of the evolution of this ballclub, which has been a hard thing to pick up on lately.

This is the kind of game when everything else doesn't matter anymore. The baseball is the only thing that does.

When I see Josh Thole say that "the hardest thing in the baseball world is to play in New York for the Mets....EVERYTHING is a story there,” and then I see this game, it kind of makes me think that’s the EXACT reason we traded him, other than being R.A. Dickey’s personal catcher (and THAT GUY seemed to do alright in this town, bro.) I've met Josh Thole and he's a really nice dude, but a quote like that just screams incorrect to me. No matter how much we criticize Sandy with where the Major League club currently stands under his tenure, one thing I think is more of a strength than a weakness of his is that he really doesn't care about ANY of that noise. And it would seem he really doesn't. That's something that is extremely valuable in this town. 

Enough worrying about everything we, the fans, are worried about, or about the fact that we keep asking questions about the things we are worried about. 

Just play baseball. You’ll probably do it pretty well.

Wayta pitch, Zack.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. For more from myself and others on the Mets, head over to Rising Apple. And for the latest on a Brooklyn Baseball TV Series I am developing, Like the Bedford & Sullivan Facebook page, follow on Twitter here, and listen to the research process here.

For the Sake of It

The following is an exchange that occurred after posting this morning's piece (well...if morning were the crack of noon...) on the Mets Facebook group page, "THE True New York Mets Fans," not to be confused with "True New York Mets Fans," "True Mets Fans," or "Real New York Mets Fans." Yeah, I have plenty of other things I should be doing than commenting on Facebook about the Mets and then writing a post about the experience. I am unemployed once more and am looking into working at Two Boots Pizza after having started a job at Samuel Goldwyn Films back in January (and I don't mean for that to come off as an insult to Two Boots because I think it could be a match made in heaven...)

The bottom line is people are probably generally commenting on Facebook when they should be doing a number of other things.

Regardless, here is the exchange I can put in public because it already HAS been published in public.

• 

  Timothy Monaco Can I be made an admin so Sam maxwell gets banned? Using this group as a place to dump links for you horrible blog is not cool

  2 hrs · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell Look, Timothy Monaco, ('cause of course, we have to tag them when we respond.....) plenty of people drop blog posts into these groups. You seriously have a problem with myself and my blog, by all means ask the person directly who runs this blog to ban me. I don't curse on here, I don't insult people who make comments on here, and I'm (generally) unoffensive to most folks. So, I don't know what your problem is, 'cause you certainly have the willpower to ignore it all.
  

  2 hrs · Like · 1
• 

  Timothy Monaco You don't provide anything to the conversation other than your posting of poorly written boring ramblings. And no most people don't just come on here and dump their crummy blog...

  2 hrs · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell Whatever, dude. I've gotten into plenty of "conversations" about the mets on here and other groups. You have your opinion. Until someone asks me without insulting me who actually runs this group to stop posting my stuff, i will keep posting. my stuff doesn't seem to be deleted when scrolling down the page.

  1 hr · Like
• 

  Andrew Lavan What's the point of this post? It's just ranting for the sake of ranting.

  1 hr · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell So? Andrew Lavan (.....) Sometimes you get to that point in what you have to say about last night. That's fandom. And each post is a representation of how I feel about the team in that given moment. It might also have to do with the level I can pay attention to it, which might be why I don't give "sound and thorough definitions" of why things are wrong with the team. Who cares if you're ranting for the sake of ranting? If you look through my post history, you'll find plenty of times I haven't just "ranted", where I've looked through different aspects of the game with a thorough presentation of how I perceived the moments of the story. And I've been easy on the team too, 'cause I find baseball awesome and know that not ranting and raving during the hard times "for the sake" of it doesn't really help, 'cause living through those times and taking them in stride will make when they win THAT much sweeter. BUT the team has gotten to the point where change needs to occur much sooner than later, and for the sake of ranting, I rant.

  1 hr · Edited · Like
• 

  Timothy Monaco Looking through your post history I see one post in this group that isn't a blog dump. And it's a crappy blog

  56 mins · Like
• 

  Timothy Monaco Oh wait you had your thanks for the add post

  55 mins · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell Again, whatever, dude. Who the heck cares? I'm sorry I bother you so much, but I appreciate you fueling my creativity in this particular scenario.

  54 mins · Like
• 

  Timothy Monaco Creativity? If you had any it might be a remotely readable blog, instead the only positive thing I can say about it is that it is written in English

  52 mins · Like
• 

  Timothy Monaco Your blog sucks, you spam this group with it, and you don't participate in anything...

  51 mins · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell Are you talking about Rising Apple as the crappy blog? That's cool, dude. Again. At no particular point have I ever insulted anyone on this group, and this look on you is quite unbecoming. This is FACEBOOK, and you're treating it like it's a serious thing in this world. (And this was where I played into what Facebook can make you do...or what you let Facebook make you do...Facebook is just an excuse...) You are an example of how awful this new world has become, and I look forward to responding at a later junction.

  49 mins · Like
• 

  Timothy Monaco Actually you are what's wrong with the "new world" no one wants to read your feelings stop slamming groups with it. Notice every reply you post is someone calling your blog junk?

  47 mins · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell You are an embarrassment to this generation, and reasons why older people like this man complain about us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTaZkf4dih8
  

  
  

  Louis CK Do Your Job 20 Year Olds

  
  

  From Louis C.K.'s Do your job 20 Year Olds. Louis - You are awesome!

  46 mins · Like · Remove Preview
• 

  Timothy Monaco I'm not 20 and I do my job??? It's completely irrelevant post? Just please fade away, you can keep writing your mets xanga just stop spamming it in this group

  47 mins · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell (Yes, it was slightly irrelevant but still, if you really listen to Louis and think about what he's saying in it, about how spoiled we young'uns are with all this technology, it IS relevant...but whatever. Let's continue...)Listen, since Andrew Lavan commented, I will. I will indeed. I will stop posting my blogs on here and only get into debates about Mets info and ask people what they think of this Mets thing and what they think of that Mets thing and how awful the stretches are and I will stop "spamming" this group. But again, I thank you for your insults and comments 'cause it DOES make me better at what I do. I apologize for stooping down to the level of hurling insults, but I do appreciate this chain that we have gotten into.

  43 mins · Like
• 

  Timothy Monaco You want tips on how to make your blog better? Make it less about you. You aren't particularly witty or interesting. Research about the mets. If you'd rather just rant at least be funny

  42 mins · Like
• 

  Sam Maxwell Dude, this is the experience I am going through, and it's mostly an Op blog. I do plenty of research about the Mets. The funny thing is that you apparently read it enough to know it's about me. The blog is about my life as it plays out around following the Mets. I actually have gotten away from that mantra, but yes, I understand how that comes off as "spam." I'd say I'd should start posting more of the Rising Apple posts, but apparently you think that's a crappy blog, too. Whatever, dude. You are certainly one of the elements that makes this fun and interesting.

  36 mins · Like

And upon further inspection, 'cause clearly I was going to keep obsessing over the whole thing because I am an obsessive person, (as shown by this ENTIRE POST...) I saw some other comments on the piece titled, "It's Over" from Monday:

• • 

    Matthew Everett #OhForFucksSakes

    May 19 at 11:45am · Like · 4
  • 

    Josh Springer Someone should send him a big ol' glass for his whine.

    May 19 at 12:09pm · Like · 5
  • 

    Timothy Monaco I haven't seen this much wine outside of an episode of the bachelor in a long time

    May 19 at 1:58pm · Like · 1
  • 

    Mike Scourby My 52 years as a Mets fan tells me that when a manager starts pointing fingers at the media his days are numbered.

    May 19 at 4:01pm · Unlike · 1
  • 

    Matt Kaufman Wall post pending deletion

    19 hours ago · Like · 4

Notice how it wasn't deleted considering I was able to grab the comments...Plus, that post was one of the most clicked on in this blog's history.

Now, the thing is, comments like his are great. I'm glad to hear why people don't like certain things I do. And to be honest, they're probably mostly right. Plus, no matter how much I should be doing other things right now, including looking through footage of the Mets and interviews with fans, the exchange lights a fire, one that does fuel me creatively here, and one that certainly gets me in a better place to do all the things I need to do and obsess over things much more important for me to obsess over, creatively or otherwise.

And it made me think...This blog IS about me. I have never hidden that since the day I wrote "Dumping the Navy Pinstripes for the Orange and Blue." As I said in the comments, the blog is about my life as it plays out around following the Mets. And I have gotten away from that mantra. I have suffered from not writing enough for close to a year. For a while, I would NEVER miss a day the Mets played to talk about what I saw and maybe tell a story surrounding the game if there was one to tell. Starting in the summer of 2013, I wrote one for every series, and then, as regular readers know, the writing became less and less frequent. Then, I didn't write for the majority of the 1st two months of 2014. Though the readership has grown steadily since I started the blog, clearly, what had made me successful I got away from, and that was just doing what it is I do. The thing is when Timothy says ('Cause I don't know if people call him Tim...'Cause I don't KNOW Timothy):

You want tips on how to make your blog better? Make it less about you. You aren't particularly witty or interesting. Research about the mets. If you'd rather just rant at least be funny

That's not me. Other people do that. Other people do...echem..."research" about the Mets. And be witty and funny and interesting, since I am not those things.

I'm the Converted Mets Fan. I am Sam Maxwell. I am a ridiculous human being. My nickname was "psycho" at the Jewish summer camp I went to because of all the Ritalin I took and overdramatics I would employ in presenting myself to the world. I'd like to say I've toned down those overdramatics in my adult life, but...well...

I have had 2 mothers ever since my mom came out when I was 10 and a father who has been an actor, who also considers himself an "honorary lesbian." I have three older half-sisters on my dad's side and a little sister on my mothers' side. When peers used to slur the insult, "Yo mamma!" my way, I would respond with, "Which one?"

All three of my parents love women. And passed that love and appreciation onto me.

I don't take ritalin anymore and I want to be in film in whatever capacity that ends up being. I don't view baseball as my favorite sport but rather as my religion.

I am unemployed after having started at Samuel Goldwyn Films in January but still go to Mets games with my former boss who fired me, a die-hard Mets fan.

I love movies, I love TV, I love my family and I love New York.

And I LOVE the New York Mets.

And luckily for me, I'm not the only ridiculous human being out there. In fact, I'm fairly certainly the majority of us are.

I WILL, however, be eradicating the posting of my pieces on "THE True New York Mets Fans" Facebook page. 

After this one, of course.

So, no need to worry Timothy Monaco and Matt Regan, and Matt Kaufman and Stephen Josiah, and Matthew Everett and Glen Goldberg, and Bob Dittus. I love AND HATE the fact I can write your full names here.

...................WAIT, what happened??? I blacked out.....well, anyway...I should go get a JOB..........

LET'S. GO. NEW. AGE.

LET'S. GO. METS.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @convertedmetfan. And for the latest on a Brooklyn Baseball TV Series I am developing, Like the Bedford & Sullivan Facebook page, follow on Twitter here, and listen to the research process here.