Yes, I’m behind. Months behind in everything, and this blog has ended up at the bottom of the pile after family, finishing books, sitting at work, and what could have been the best sports year of my life. But wasn’t. It was close, though.
To be honest, I could not even put the lid on 2015 until January 2016 was almost done, with my Arizona Cardinals, but that ended in the NFC Championship Game, quickly, I might add, but they did pull out an incredible game out of the fire against the Packers. In short, the year 2015 can be summed up as absolutely superb, but a couple of game short of the ultimate goal. But it was close.
The World Series. The Mets in the World Series. Every step was as inconceivable as the villain Vizzini (Wallace Shaun) in The Princess Bride.
The Mets are getting Yeonis Cespedes at the trade deadline and it won’t cost them their best prospects.
Inconceivable.
The Mets are going to knock off the Nationals for the division title and the season-ending series against Washington won’t mean a thing.
Inconceivable!
The Mets are going to beat the Dodgers despite not having homefield advantage or, apart from one game, not hitting at all.
Bah, inconceivable!!
The Mets, who lost all seven games against the Cubs in 2015, are going to sweep them in the NLCS to reach the World Series.
As I told you, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable!!!
Inconceivable indeed. Though I was working two jobs, working on five books, and numerous pressing personal issues that are still too painful to share, the Mets, for once, were the one constant in my life. They just kept winning. I hadn’t missed a Mets postseason game in person since the last two games of 1986, but I missed one each in these three postseason series. Didn’t matter. Daniel Murphy’s heretofore up and down career was all up, stealing unoccupied bases and hitting homers at key moments. Every… single… game. And the pitching was as good as anything I’ve ever seen in a Mets uniform. Yes, anything. Even Terry Collins could not make a wrong move (until, sadly, he did). And if only for a couple more late-inning outs in the World Series, it might have all turned out like a fairy tale.
Inconceivable!!!! You keep saying that word. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
I saw the first pitch of the year and the last from the upper deck at Citi Field. I went to eight games in between (more on that in a future post), but I saw most of the kids pitch: deGrom, Harvey, Syndergaard, and of course, Jeurys Familia. I am still trying to catch up on the work, but in the coming weeks you will see how my homework came out: One-Year Dynasty, 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die (third edition), Mets by the Numbers (the second edition of Jon Springer’s landmark concept). And Red Sox and Cubs by the Numbers will also be out soon, in case you think I’ve been slacking. All are available for preorder, I may add because there is room for promotion every year.
It is a new season but 2015 still seems to go on. The game goes on. Life has been moving as fast as a Matt Harvey fastball. And I’m still swinging. Let’s go Mets!
Keep the inconceivable coming.