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Twenty years ago, my life changed forever. I was ten years old, living in Queens, and I was just old enough to be aware of the growing excitement around what would eventually become a central part of my life: the New York Mets.
That summer was probably the best of my life. I can remember only happy times – going to games with my parents and brothers on perfect Sunday afternoons, playing whiffle ball in the street, and the joy of getting my first orange & blue foam finger. When October came, and the Mets did something amazin’, I got to take off from school and go to the parade. Life was good. Life was perfect.
By 1990, the Mets were the worst team money could buy (to borrow the title of a fantastic book). I was going to high school, which terrified me. By the time October rolled around, my mom had succumbed to cancer. My dad started drinking himself to sleep. It went so fast, that feeling of being ten years old and everything is a-okay. Now it was a shitty home life and a shitty adolescence and a shitty baseball team, to boot.
By 1998, I had flunked out of two universities and wasted enormous sums on drugs and alcohol. I was beginning to put my life back together, though. I left NY in ’98, and I left a lot behind, good and bad. I found love in a woman who helped me become the man my parents expected me to be, and life was better. The Mets still sucked, but every April hope springs eternal, right?
By 2000, the Mets were pretty good again. They went to the World Series. The feeling wasn’t the same as it was in ’86. I was older and cynical and god knows I knew how fast things could change. So when they lost to the Yankees, I sort of expected it. And I despised myself a little for it, too, because I should have enjoyed the moment. The Mets quickly went back to being the laughingstock of the NY sports world.
Now it’s 2006. It’s been 20 years since I had that feeling of being part of something special. It’s coming back around again, though. The Mets beat the Braves last night. They’re running away with the division after only two weeks, and I have a man-crush on David Wright.
All those years of losing, both in baseball and in life, they’re worth it now. Because right now, this very moment, I am ten years old again, and life is good.
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