In the years that followed that youthful devotion never ceased. No matter how the losses piled up, no matter how many times they'd disappoint me (again and again) by leaving the tying run standing on third base in the ninth inning ("just ninety feet away" as the late Met announcer Bob Murphy would put it) I remained a diehard fan, hoping against hope that one day the fortunes of the club would change - and my own fortunes as well. By early 1969 I was in the middle of that simply hellacious stage of life known as adolescence - suffering from low self-esteem, acute anxiety, major unhappiness and almost daily disappointment in my attempts to connect with my peers that were almost too difficult to endure. My personal struggles only solidified my bond with the team. The Met losing ways continued and I struggled to find my way. We were a perfect team.
And then they won. Suddenly. Unbelievably. Coming almost of out of nowhere - the teams' record at one point was 18-23 (which was close enough to the break-even point to feel "encouraging" - as difficult as that is to believe). Then all hell broke loose…they started to win. Almost everyday. In dramatic fashion. Coming from behind to beat (arguably) a more talented Chicago Cub team for the division title, then rolling over a terrific Atlanta Braves team to win the pennant - and finally defeating a monster of a team, the Baltimore Orioles, four games to one to win the World Series. World Champions. The Mets. (Did it really happen?) Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman. Ed Charles (The "Glider"). Cleon Jones. Tommie Agee. Ron Swoboda. With the exception of Seaver - and maybe Koosman - not a real star in the bunch. But they came together as a team and produced a brand of exciting, heart-stopping baseball that made me smile. "Sometimes….underdogs can succeed….anything was possible…things can get better…."
Except for me it didn't get better. The first few months of 1969 had actually been promising. I'd made some friends in the neighborhood. We were hanging out, playing touch football and basketball, checking out the music shops - and of course the girls - out on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. Tenth grade in James Madison High School... still very shy and insecure but I'd actually made up my mind to say hello to the cute girl - Vicki was her name I think - that I sat next to in my Social Studies class. Then….wham! my parents purchased a home out in Suffolk County and by June - about the time the Mets were making their move - I was trying to adjust to an alien environment sixty miles from Brooklyn. I wasn't very good at making adjustments - or at making new friends. So it was another rough time, one that set me back for years.
But the Mets' victorious 1969 season - at least I was able to experience the rest of the season via TV and radio - still served as a wonderful example that anything was possible…. a lesson I tried to keep with me in the decades to come. And a natural topic for a poem when - during my sophomore year at college - my English professor asked his students to write a poem about an inspirational experience from our past. Ultimately I put music to the words. Everyone who heard the little folksong loved it…but when I put the guitar away in the early nineties the song sat - with dozens of other songs - in a folder in my desk...
Flash forward to 2010,…trying to cope with what I considered to be a "forced" retirement and at the same time coping with my parent's worsening medical issues, I began to revisit the old songs in attempt to distract myself. I used new computer programs to put background instrumentation to the vocals and guitar parts. One of these songs was "The Mets (and Me)". With additional lyrics which brought the song up to the present day, I developed a song which saluted the entire history of the Mets…and realized again…as I approached my 57th birthday…how important the Mets - and baseball - continue to be. Because regardless how difficult things get, the problems and tragedies we all experience, there is always a chance to make it better…
The last few years have been rough. It's Opening Day today for the Mets. A chance for them to succeed. And another day to be as happy, productive and positive as I can be….
The story below…"The Opening Day Story"…was my very first post this blog, now updated for 2014...
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Opening Day! In Ken Burn's magnificent PBS series "Baseball" the point is made numerous times that baseball - the American game - serves as a mechanism by which people can renew their spirit and optimism and feel connected to their pasts. An absolutely dead-on (if admittedly simplified) description. But today - Opening Day for my team, the Mets - was proof positive. Middle-aged Stevenn - now more than sixty years of baggage, physical issues, some residual emotional problems (not that I am advertising them), worried about friends and family facing serious personal issues, and still recovering from the loss of both parents in 2012 - and struggling to find meaning in his post-retirement world, had a simply glorious day. Baseball was back! The chance to start over - the opportunity to overcome adversity. The ability to change one's destiny, to experience the past even as one attempts to overcome its legacy...Opening Day!On Opening Day....memories of April 1969 return. Fifteen years old, a skinny doesn't-have-a-clue kind of a kid, sitting alone in the bleachers at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, wind whipping through my body as I spend my free period fumbling with the small transitor radio that will bring me the first couple of innings of the Mets-Expos game. Yes, the Expos, who were playing in their first major league game, an expansion team! Certainly the endlessly losing Mets can beat the Expos in the first game of the season! Sitting in the bleachers, listening to the announcers painting the word picture...anything and everything seemed possible. Even in French class when Ms. Ruggiero reached over and pulled the radio plug out of my left ear, even in Social Studies when it was whispered that the Mets starter Tom Seaver had been hit hard and the team had been defeated, even during the chilly walk home when the realization set in that Opening Day was over - and that my team had inexplicably lost - it didn't matter, it simply did not matter! Because anything and everything was possible. The next day would be another kind of "opening day" - the opening of the window of opportunity. The team could win its game. Someone might actually acknowledge my small presence in the universe. I might actually pass Ms. Ruggiero's class. It could happen. Yes it could!
I realize how much Opening Day 1969 - and the season that unfolded - have shaped my sensibilities and way of looking at life. After all, my team the Mets ultimately won the World Series against the big and powerful Baltimore Orioles, in July men walked on the moon, in August half a million young people existed in peace and harmony at Woodstock (seemingly embodying the best qualities of the "generation that would save the world"). So what if my parents yanked me out of Brooklyn that June and dumped me at age sixteen in an alien Suffolk County environment, a change which took at least another decade to overcome? Anything and everything was possible. Things can get better. There can be success. Happiness even. It can happen. And- roadblocks are temporary.
Opening Day. Let's Go Mets!
Enjoy and be safe...
Stevenn
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