For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago
Over the last few weeks of the Mets’ incredible season, my memory picked and chose little moments to play the part of the troll and remind me of my own rather significant limitations. In particular: On May 23, I shared my dour assessment of the 2024 New York Mets with anyone who cared to read it. I was fresh off a first-hand look at our Metropolitans, having attended the first game of the Cleveland series the Guardians would go on to sweep; while it was a lovely time overall, it was impossible to ignore the team’s sorry state of play. And so, still smarting from the letdown 2023 season and intolerant of any further disappointment, I foreclosed on any chance of redemption for this “highly mercenary, extremely boring team.” I slammed the door, and slammed it hard.
Now, it’s true that the Mets really were an abysmal, lackluster squad at that stage of the season. And in the days that followed my article, the team seemed to reinforce the point by losing 2 of 3 to the Giants and getting swept by the Dodgers. They managed to squeak out a couple wins against the Diamondbacks immediately thereafter that felt entirely incidental; and as May drew to a close, the die was cast—except it wasn’t. I had lost sight of the very basic fact that the overwhelming majority of the season in all its vast possibility still yawned out ahead of us. More egregious still, in retrospect, was my concession to the tempting pull of cynicism. Thankfully, this extraordinary Mets team made no such mistake.
My son is seven years old—eight in a couple months—and before the season started, I resolved to take him on a little dad-and-son overnight trip to NYC at some point during the summer. (I should note, for those who may wonder why this is at all remarkable, that we live about 3 hours away from the city in Pennsylvania.) My wife and dad and I took him to his first game at Citi Field in 2023, but this trip would feature more of a “full contact” experience with the city: a lot of walking, a lot of crowds, and a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on trains and so forth.
As the month of June rolled along, with the Mets very suddenly rolling right along with it, I decided to build our trip around the Thursday, July 11 game against the Nationals. I figured the 1:10 start time would work out well for us: plenty of time to drive up and catch the train to Citi, and plenty of time after the game to venture back into the city, hit up the Lego store, and grab some dinner. Duly inspired and eager to see what we might see, I walked up to the window and splurged on our tickets. The team had climbed out of the gutter and over the .500 mark. I wanted the game to be unavoidable, right there in front of us, and I hoped to introduce my son to that live-wire buzz that permeates the crowd when the Mets are playing well.
Our Mets delivered that day and served up a host of delights. David Peterson—David Peterson!—went six scoreless; the lineup strung together timely hits and churned out seven runs; and the bullpen held the shutout all the way through to the end. The plan went to plan. My kid saw his first win at Citi Field. He lent his voice to many thousands of others in roaring approval as the game went on. And, to boot, he got to see me, his old man, act like the fist-pumping Mets maniac I will always be waiting to be. It was a joyful walk back to the train afterward.
Did I allow myself then to imagine the possibility of October baseball? No matter: October baseball arrived, and there we were in our living rooms, watching: my son and I pacing around ours, my mom and dad in theirs upstate, my sister in hers in Cleveland. Francisco Lindor had delivered them out of Atlanta; Pete Alonso had delivered them out of Milwaukee. And here our Mets were, home again home again in the NLDS, duking it out with the Phillies. There was an extra dram of juice in it for my family in that Phillies series; we live in Phillies territory, and we hear it here throughout the season. The Mets load the bases and my son’s favorite player for years, that new Mets legend, Francisco Lindor, strides to the plate, crushes a grand slam, sends us into heaven. Hugging, screaming, high-fiving, texting all-caps gibberish to dad and sister and friends—celebrating this joyous thing in front of us.
Some games later, as the Mets’ season drew to its end in Los Angeles, the inimitable Howie Rose spoke movingly on our collective behalf of our relationship to this special team. He evoked the memory of the Mets’ first championship in 1969—a memory my dad shares, a memory shared by that entire generation—and the way this team managed to kindle that part of him, that part of us all, that’s best and most true: the abiding space of youth in all its magic and possibility. In the most astonishing, unexpected way imaginable, these Mets slammed the door on all things cynical and dour and led us into a new and joyful and hopeful realm.
Onward we go. I can’t wait. OMG.