I hate to start a long overdue post with a “sorry,” but it’s been a busy summer. It hasn’t, however, been one of those summers that’s suddenly gone before you realize it. Each day, at least on my end, has been monitored and checked off dutifully. I’ve watched each day go by, inning by inning, from a ballpark in a city that had National League success before New York. (The New York Mutuals, an amateur team turned pro and member of the National Association (1871-75), did not survive past the inaugural NL season of 1876.)
In 1879, when Providence had the National League’s best team, Troy, NY, had an NL franchise. They weren’t good, but they existed before most of the teams we know today, including the Giants, who took Troy’s spot in the NL in NY state, and took three of the Trojans’ future Hall of Famers: Buck Ewing, Roger Connor, and Mickey Welch. Many of the “little” eastern cities faded from the NL in the 1880s—besides Providence, teams from Buffalo, Syracuse, and Worcester came and went—but Troy still loves its baseball. I do, too. Another former NL club, the Houston Astros, operate the Tri-City Valley Cats in the Class A New York-Penn League. Tri-City (for those keeping score, it is the cities of Albany Troy, and Schenectady) is the jumping off point for players, many of them fresh out of college, into the world of professional ball. And it’s my place of pro baseball embarkation, and probably my lone stop. I always wanted to work for a pro team, and this is as close as I will get. I am in service relations, or more succinctly, an usher. I have tried to do a good job. Whenever I wonder what I should do, I just think of rude treatment received from Mets ushers through the years, and I’ve just done the opposite. It has worked, for the most part.
It has been a great summer. And having started a 9-5 job as well, I have spent many evenings driving an hour up to Troy as soon as I get off work, eating in the car, listening to books on CD. (I especially enjoyed this big one.) And then I get to the park and assume my small part in professional baseball. And they have spent much of this summer in first place.
The Mets’ NY-Penn club from Brooklyn arrives—if you find yourself in the mists of time in Troy, stop in at the Joe. Section 150. We keep an eye on how the Mets are doing in New York, too.
And on a night off in Troy I was off to New York to see the Mets and Red Sox. It was a 29-year reunion of a brief, bloody war between two allies in the never ending war against Yankeeism. To me it is like I have been reliving 1986 every day, as I am in the process of editing One Year Dynasty, now available for pre-order. (Actually this is my first look at the subtitle. Comments welcome.)
And while Mets-Red Sox refueled thoughts of a glorious past beyond the lifespan of more than half of the people in the park Friday night, it was like breathing life into an NL franchise that seemed as dead as the Troy Trojans until a few weeks ago. I have been to several dozen games in the life of Citi Field, and I have never seen it brim with life like it did of a Friday night in late August. Every time the Mets take the field at Citi Field now, it is the most significant game they have ever played there. Even the waving of T-shirts on Free Shirt Friday, the waving of such in headier days at Shea Stadium sent me into diatribes like—“maybe that works in Providence or Worcester, but not in New York”—but on this night I was seeing something I had not seen before at Citi: The loading of the bandwagon. The people who might have worn Red Sox—or Yankees—shirts on other Fridays in Flushing, wore their new Mets T shirts proudly over whatever else they were wearing, or waved them in hopes of another walk to another Met. New, crisp Mets hats were creased, or left flat as a pancake. It was the end of a seven-game winning streak, but the continuation of and a lead that, at that moment, at least, could be counted on more than one hand was embraced, cherished.
Who knows what the future will bring? Will Murph be back? Will Cespedes be a Met after 2015? Will the Mets be able to scratch up the cash to keep their stud pitchers around for Free Shirt Fridays in the years to come? Will I have to write an addendum to One-Year Dynasty based on 2015? I don’t know the answer to any of this.
Right now is living history, a captivating novel whose ending you just can’t picture. I like novels as much as I do history. I especially like novels that turn into history. I just hope I’m not disappointed in the ending. It has me captivated right now. And I can’t wait until the next chapter.