2004 Baseball

Marlins 7 Mets 6

Saturday Afternoon
Shea Stadium
With Sujan and Paris

We got two free tickets as a gift from a parent in my class and bought the third for Sujan’s Orange County pal Paris from a friend of the aforementioned parent. A self described “old hippie”, she referred to me as a Stone Mets fan which should make old Stone Grooves across the nation rejoice.

Paris made Sujan’s day by surprising her with a stack of Kevin Elster (Sujan’s young girl crush) and Mookie Wilson cards. For one day at least, Dave N. had been supplanted in the giving of baseball cards award.

The Mets were on a recent hot streak that kept them right around .500 and within spitting distance of first place. They took a 5-2 7th inning lead which quickly evaporated on a 3 run Damion Easley pinch hit homerun off of Mike Stanton. Before the pitch, I said that I was going to leave if Easley hit a homerun. I should have, but I stuck it out through the cold rain. This was an ugly game to lose for the Mets. Too many bad pitches, too many stranded runners, too many mishaps.

In the bottom of the 9th, down by 2, the crowd was crying for returned big baby Armando Benitez. When Piazza hit his second homer of the game to lead off the inning, the fans could feel it. They’d seen enough Benitez implosions firsthand to know that another one was lurking right behind the corner. But, he retired the next three hitters and the Mets were done. Maybe this is the year Papi puts it all together for an entire season, postseason included. (No postseason chance after all for Papi Benitez.)

This was the second game in a week (in two different cities) where I was hassled in the men’s Room for wearing an Orioles cap. The bizarre aspect is that no one said a word to me (except cheers from other Orioles fans) when I wore the cap to the Yankees game in between the two National League games.

Fans across the country rejoice at yet another chance to ridicule the author.

Posted by dan at June 5, 2004 07:16 PM