Little solace to be found for fans of bumbling Mets

Casey Stengel was ready to take the reins of the original Mets in this March 5, 1962 cover shot. Covery photo by Mark Kauffman

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ATLANTA -- I'd say it's not just the heat, it's the humility, but that would be misleading. Very misleading. Frankly, I'm stunned at the lack of flak fired by friends who recall my pronouncement in May:

"It's over, boys. Your Braves are already playing for the wild card. The NL East belongs to the Mets."

And it did, for all but 24 days this season. Alas, the last of those days was Sunday. So now I sit here tap-tapping on my laptop, listening while the sublime George Winston caresses an ivory keyboard and offers a fitting soundtrack for the Mets' monumental collapse. A dirge-like, almost funereal rendition of Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

And when Winston finishes? Nothing. No ha-ha phone calls. No X-rated e-mails. Nuthin'. Maybe they've all taken pity on me, a gray-haired man but once a 12-year-old Lynbrook boy who bounded into the Polo Grounds to watch Casey Stengel's Amazin's, way back in '62. Or perhaps, heaven forbid, my friends and former colleagues just don't care enough to give me grief about the Mets. In the heat of a pennant race, on the cusp of the postseason, the only thing worse than derision is indifference.

So who can I turn to when nobody knees me in the groin (figuratively, of course)? Why, Bobby Schwartz, my old Farnum Street neighbor and fellow original Mets fan. He's now Bob Schwartz, a renowned attorney and child advocate who lives in the heart of darkness. No, not the Bronx. Philly. Phooey. Yet surely, he'll understand my confusion and distress over the Mets' stunning demise. Surely, he'll feel my pain.

After all, we co-wrote a song for the ages -- ages 13 and 12, which Bob and I were, respectively, in 1962. We composed it in his house, recorded it on his father's reel-to-reel tape recorder and mailed it to WABC, the AM radio giant in New York City. We addressed it to the attention of a hit show, Speaking of Sports, and its host: Howard Cosell. It was sung to the tune of an Irish ditty, Dear Old Donegal:

"Shake hands with your Uncle Case, my boy, shake hands with your Uncle Case,
and here is his team, the New York Mets, and they are in last place.
Whenever you're on the road, my boy, wherever you may roam,
just remember they'll be back to wish you welcome home.
There's Kranepool and Hodges and Charlie Neal, and Elio Chacon,
and then there is Ray Daviault, "Frenchy" as he's known.
McKenzie, Coleman and Al Moran, and then there is the Duke.
And when the great Mets win a game, consider it a fluke!"

Second verse? Worse than the first. Shockingly, we never got a reply from Cosell.

Now, 45 years hence, having not spoken to him in years, I phoned Bob in Philadelphia, where the citizenry's going nuts over Jamie Moyer, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and the NL East champion Phillies.

"I don't know whether to tell you to sit down or not, Jack," Bob said softly. "The bad news is, by the mid-'70s I'd become...a Phillies' fan."

Somewhere, Choo Choo Coleman wasn't smiling. Me neither. After dropping the phone, I picked it up and somehow resisted the urge to throw it at the Art Howe bobblehead in our den.

Bob continued, appropriately apologetic: "Back in '72, when Carlton had his amazing year [Steve Carlton was 27-10 that season], I got down to the Vet a lot. He was so dazzling. By the mid-'70s, the Phillies began to get really good.

"And I'd become a Philadelphian," said Bob, who graduated in '71 from Haverford, in suburban Philadelphia, and never left the area. "I've been here for nearly 40 years. What can I say?"

He can say this, and did: "I was at the game Sunday." The day Tom Glavine gave up seven runs to the Marlins in the first inning at Shea Stadium and Phillies fans, whose game started 25 minutes after the Mets debacle, reveled without a pause all afternoon.

"I have a Sunday ticket plan, in the left-field seats," Bob said, gleefully now. And I thought I knew this Schwartz. "Sunday was the loudest, most explosive game that I can ever remember attending."

This from a guy who was at the last game of the 1980 World Series, when the Phillies finally won it all. He was in Shea in August of '69, as they were becoming the Miracle Mets, and saw Tom Seaver's perfect game broken up by the Cubs' Jimmy Qualls with one out in the ninth.

Bob reminded me that we watched Game 7 of the 1960 Pirates-Yankees World Series together, and saw Bill Mazeroski go deep in the ninth and into baseball lore. "And we celebrated when the Yankees lost," he said. "But I'd never heard anything like Sunday."

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