Metropolitan opera

Names come and go, but the story remains the same

You are a small boy and you are a Mets fan. You are a Mets fan because your mother was a Mets fan and because she told you the truth about those Yankees. At age five you have a life stance.

You're a Mets fan because the first baseball game you ever went to was at Shea Stadium and because you live right on the Shea Stadium line of the Long Island Railroad, just a few Queens stops away from the yard.

Now you're 10 or you're 12 or you're 14, and you take the train to the stadium all the time. You hide in the bathroom to dodge the ticket collector. You hide under seats. These are the days of Craig Swan and Lee Mazzilli and Hubie Brooks and Mookie Wilson.

The Mets are very bad, which is another reason you love them.

You grow up at Shea. You learn to avoid ushers and to find seats behind home plate. You eat soft serve in upside-down mini helmets and can't believe your luck. You keep score at every game. Fernando Valenzuela comes to town. Pete Rose is on a long hitting streak. The Mets lose and lose and lose.

After the bad comes the good: Hernandez and Strawberry and Gooden and Carter. You are there in '86 of course. You're a bigger boy now. You go to games on dates. You'd never date a Yankees fan.

Terry Pendleton wounds you with a home run in 1987. Mike Scioscia hurts you with one in '88.

The bad comes again: Bonilla and Coleman.

You and a friend go in on a Mets home season-ticket package.

And then the good: Piazza, Leiter, Valentine.

There has been more bad than good.

The Yankees win and win and win.

You are there in 2000, of course.

Now you have grown up and you have decided to get married. She is a Mets fan.

Weeks before the big day, you have a bachelor party. Of course it begins at Shea, walking up those weathered concrete ramps. It's a stadium you love because it is your own. So many passing faces -- old faces, young faces, faces beneath blue and orange caps -- seem familiar. You've been here 400 times. Maybe 500.

Today there are eight of you, all men, celebrating the lees of bachelorhood. It is May 25, 2002 and the sun is out. You are sitting high in the red seats of the upper deck because that's where you want to be.

One of the men with you was by your side when you ran onto the field in 1986.

Three of the men with you played on your Little League team.

One of the men with you comes back to your seats with a beer and a hot dog, the best meal you know. "To your health," he says.

The Mets take a lead. A squeeze play pads it. It's 4-1.

Times are not as they were. The team the Mets are playing is from Florida, the Marlins. In your boyhood there was no team further southeast than Atlanta. People used to make fun of those Braves for being bad.

Preston Wilson, the stepson of Mookie, plays for the Marlins.

But not everything has changed. Tim Raines plays for the Marlins, too. He used to beat the Mets when you were a boy and he was with the Expos.

And something else: Mookie is now coaching your team at first.

In the late innings the Mets make errors. In one horrible sequence, right out of the early '80s and early '90s, they surrender five runs and lose the lead. It's 6-4.

They rally in the ninth (they always rally in the ninth) and there is a runner on base with two outs. The score is 6-5. The first baseman comes up. But he is not Hernandez. He is not even Kingman. He is Vaughn and he strikes out.

It is your bachelor party and the Mets have broken your heart a little bit, which really is how it should be. Some things you can count on.

The party is just beginning. You all go down to the train platform and talk about the game. "Why did he hold onto the ball?"

"He should have let that little grounder go foul."

"Why didn't Valentine send him?"

The train arrives and the eight of you clamber on. Ten minutes later you get out at your old hometown station, the bachelor party's next stop. You leave the train and realize the conductor never took your ticket. You sprint up the steps off the platform, your scorebook tight in your hands. You do feel like a bachelor. You feel like a little boy.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy takes sides every Wednesday at CNNSI.com.

 

Related information

Stories

Kostya Kennedy's Insider Archive

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video