Until I was in my twenties, I was your typical “Daddy’s Girl.” I was his biggest fan and greatest audience, and my only goal in life was to make him proud. We’ve had a difficult relationship since my mom died (which I’ve written a little about in “Fighting my Fears One Step at a Time”). I love him and know that he loves me, but since my adulthood, my mom was the translator and arbitrator for us and we’ve yet to find a new way of relating to one another.
However, my full-fledged commitment to being Daddy’s Little Girl is probably why I love baseball and the Mets so much (at least in the beginning). Dad was a diehard Mets fan from the day they were born. (He grew up a Dodgers fan but when they left for greener LA pastures, he didn’t have a baseball team until the Mets were created as one of the first expansion teams.) I don’t ever remember not being a Mets fan, honestly. And it was hard because almost everyone I grew up with was a Yankees fan. The Yankees always won and the Mets always lost. While this isn’t literally true, that’s what it felt like. Being a Mets fan allowed me to have an unlimited well of optimism. Every April was a new year when we had another chance to win it all. That optimism mostly faded before the All Star break, but the well was deep.
The best part was when we got to watch the Mets play in person. My childhood was filled with memories of going to Shea with my dad and brothers and watching the Mets. Those days were filled with hot dogs and Mets helmet ice creams and eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the ground. It didn’t matter that they rarely won. The pleasure was in watching the game. Even though both of my brothers were there, I was still able to carve out my own time with dad. I had to pay real close attention to the game because we would always keep a scorecard. My younger brother usually left our seats around the third inning to go exploring and didn’t come back until the eighth or the ninth. My older brother wasn’t very interested in keeping score at all; he just wanted to watch the game.
Mostly, it was just dad and me trying to figure out whether something was a hit or an error before they told us. Me showing the path of a base runner around the bases and filling in the diamond so carefully to indicate a run was scored. Also me, sometimes forgetting whether the left fielder or the right fielder was 7. (For the record, the left fielder is indicated by the number 7.) The act of watching the Mets in good times and bad bonded us further when I thought he could do no wrong. It gave me something I could talk to him about when I couldn’t talk to him about anything. Since my mom died, there is one thing we still can do. We can go to a Mets game and watch and enjoy and not argue for three whole hours in a row. We can have a beer and a hot dog and peanuts where we just toss the shells on the ground. And that’s not nothing.
The Mets have been mostly mediocre — with flashes of brilliance — for their 53-year life. Their history is filled with decades of awful performances, epic collapses, injuries, a medical team I’m convinced didn’t have any actual doctors and horrible trades. Their owners were caught up in the Madoff Ponzi scheme, which led to some pretty serious financial difficulties for the Mets. But those flashes of brilliance, though. They made it to the World Series four times and won it all twice. They have had years — okay, one year — where it seemed that they just couldn’t lose. They’ve had some Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famers play for them. There has been just enough brilliance to keep the Mets faithful hanging on for more.
This year, after nine years, the Mets have made it to the postseason. The first time since 2006. There were a lot of things that led to this… we got some help from our division rivals, the Nats. A player ended up not getting traded after Mets management made him cry on the field (Flores); we got a power hitter right as the trade deadline was expiring (Cespedes); the Cap came back (Wright). Call it clubhouse chemistry, call it things coming together at the exact right time. Whatever you call it, in the last two months the Mets have been exciting to watch in a way they haven’t been in years.
Because of my long-suffering history as a Mets fan, I don’t usually allow myself to dream for them. I’m throwing all caution to the wind now, though. Now that the regular season is finally over, I can admit and embrace this: I am dreaming big dreams for them. I’m dreaming that we play through October. I’m dreaming that we #BeatLA. I’m dreaming that we win the National League Championship Series. I’m dreaming that we are still playing when the World Series starts on October 27. If the Mets make my dream come true, I will definitely be buying tickets. So that my dad and I can go to Citifield and have a beer and a hot dog and throw peanut shells on the ground. I think we’ll even get a scorecard and keep score.
Will you dream a little dream with me?
