Sometime in the early 70s, in the middle of summer, my friend Doug and I snuck into the press level at Shea Stadium. We left our mezzanine seats, walked up the down escalator, found a back stairway, crossed a little catwalk, and there it was: the sacred booth of Channel Nine. Security in those days wasn't what it is now - arrogant, fearful, and litigious - and a couple of skinny boys barely got a glance. We were somebody's kids. No one asked whose. And now we found ourselves bumping into the bigshots of off-field Metdom. General manager Bob Scheffing walked by. The towering Ralph Kiner stepped out of the booth. Bob Murphy stepped past him, as they shared a chuckle over something. And we caught a glimpse of a broad-checked green sportcoat. Lindsey Nelson.
Royalty in the land of royal blue and orange, when Shea was still new, when it was a temple sheathed in plates of corrugated colors, sponsored by Reingold and Royal Crown and Manufacturer's Hanover. I was reminded of this hagiography chapter in my Mets memory by Jason's ode to Opening Day this morning:
Every culture, every religion, has its own spring rebirth ritual — a death, a sacrifice, followed by emergence and renewal. The Christians have Easter. The Jews have Passover. I have Opening Day.
Opening Day marks always a new season of hope. It is perhaps the only day of the baseball season on which all possibilities are open, on which every team is a contender. It's not only the day when teams start playing again, and fans start living and dying by box scores, it's also a day when millions of Americans begin again a kind of national communion, a shared dialogue, that connects people who have buried themselves in icy impassivity during the long, cruel winter.
That's well said. This year's icy impassivity faces a much deeper and potentially satisfying thaw for Mets fans. There is real excitment in the rotting hullk of concrete in Flushing, where the Mets open their 44th season (while our Mayor tosses billion-dollar stadium bon-bons to open-mouthed fellow plutocrat Woody Johnson for his eight home Jets games a year across town). Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran are the big acquisitions. David Wright and Jose Reyes are the big home-grown talents. Kaz Matsui, Doug Mankiewicz, Tom Glavine, Braden Looper, Kris Benson (and his wife), and the old hold-over, Mike Piazza, make the interesting supporting cast. This is a team that can hit more than a bit, run, field, cover ground. It's younger, more athletic, more sunny and optimistic (discounting the dyspeptic Cliff Floyd, of course). Judging by the spring - oh fool that I am - the Mets seem to play hard and take the game seriously.
This reflects well, in the early going, on freshman manager Willie Randolph, who comes to Queens from Brooklyn and the Bronx. Borrowing his rulebook from Joe Torre, his confidence from Reggie Jackson, and his quick step from Thurman Munson, Randolph appears to be the man for his times at Shea. The Mets will be both fun to watch and in the talent-swamped National League East, one of the teams to watch. Already, baseball acumens such as those belonging to Murray Chass and Peter Gammons have tabbed Pedro for the NL Cy Young Award. The consensus Mets prediction seems to be something along the lines of 88-74, third place. Not bad at all. Worth paying attention to, a feel-good story, as Murphy used to say.
The game surely needs it. Stung by Balco, by Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, by Mark "I'm here to talk about the future" McGwire, by its failed commissioner and union leaders, baseball needs its game to rescue its business. Surely it will; it always seems to, from 1919 to 2005. The always astute Gammons got it right in his season-opening column for ESPN:
Be it 1919 or 1994, baseball has always survived because of the game, the players and the ties that bind generations to franchises. Barry Bonds is going past Babe Ruth, get over it. The game will move on because it always does.
So true. I'm bound to the Mets franchise, whether it's owned by Dame Joan Payton or the Wilpons, skippered by Gil Hodges or Davey Johnson or Bobby Valentine, led by Tom Seaver or Cleon Jones or Keith Hernandez or Piazza. It's the orange and blue, the obscure statistics, the useless, pointless knowledge, the sounds and smells of the game. Play ball.
