You Gotta Believe

With Tug McGraw urging his teammates on and celebrating victories with what soon became the catch phrase of 1973 Mets, "You Gotta Believe!!!" the Mets kept zigging and zagging away from would-be tacklers, and taking an occasional side-swipe, headed for this most unlikely of pennants.

These past two weeks have been a roller coaster ride for fans of the New York Mets baseball team. Just ten days ago was the thrill of the team winning the National League Pennant. Two days later, the Kansas City Royals won the American League Pennant, and the World Series kicked off in Kansas City last Tuesday. Unfortunately for Mets fans, the thrill was not to last:

Game	Date	Where	Mets	Royals
1	Tuesday 27 October	KC	4	5
2	Wednesday 28 October	KC	1	7
3	Friday 30 October	NY	9	3
4	Saturday 31 October	NY	3	5
5	Sunday 01 November	NY	2	7

By yesterday (Sunday), with the probability of the Mets overcoming the Royals looking quite grim, StubHub was filled with tickets for sale and prices rapidly dropping. Despite being a (nearly) life-long Mets fan, Barry had never seen a World Series game live, and just the opportunity to do that was a real thrill. So by early Sunday afternoon, we bought tickets, even though we knew we would likely watch the team lose.

That last game ended up being especially painful. At the end of the 8^th inning the Mets were winning 2-0. Then, in the top of the 9^th the Royals scored two runs, bringing the game to a tie and into extra innings. Neither team scored in the 10^th  and 11^th, but then the Royals scored 5 – yes 5 – runs in the top of the 12^th. When the Mets had two outs and no runs in the bottom of the 12^th we, like most others, chose to leave. It was almost midnight, which felt more like 1:00 am with the clocks having just been changed to standard time, and we listened to the rest of the game on the radio in the car.

Even with the ticket prices having dropped, going to this post-season game was quite a bit more expensive than attending a regular season game. But neither the cost nor the fact that the Mets did not win is the reason we might hesitate to do this again. This game was an entirely different experience than all the other games we have attended over the past few years. The first major difference could be seen in front of the rest room entrances: a handful of women and a long line of men, the opposite of what is usually seen. Women do go to baseball games, but perhaps when it comes to the World Series, which is so outrageously expensive, their numbers are much smaller. The second major difference was the noise level and decorum of the fans. While I appreciate that the stakes are high when the World Series is being played, the volume and content of the language left me with a headache by the time we left Citi Field. As the game wore on, I was wondering at what point those guys sitting right in front of us would finally lose their voices entirely, but it was not to happen, and at one point they nearly got into fisticuffs with a group sitting across the aisle.

I had spent too much time in my younger years hearing about baseball because some members of my family had a rather intense (to put it mildly) love/hate relationship with the game and players. Three years ago when I “discovered” baseball as a pleasant outing, the Mets were just the Mets and Citi Field was a perfect place for a patient undergoing chemotherapy to spend an afternoon. Fans can even buy kosher potato knishes and hamburgers and hot dogs to enjoy during the game. But a World Series game is something of a different experience, not necessarily one I would care to repeat. Truth is, had the Mets been winning this series, the ticket prices would not have been as low as they were. Yet these were not fans who were satisfied to just be able to attend a post-season game: they are counting on much more.

I will leave to Joshua and Barry a detailed discussion of the game and the implications for next year. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll be going to World Series games with Joshua? After all, “They don't call them the Miracle Mets for nothing. You just gotta believe.”

 Love,

Rebecca