Unexpected Blues

Blue.  Met Blue.  Like a cloudless rich blue sky you find on the other side of mornings. It's the Blue that reminds me of the Mets from my younger days.  The Blue with an Orange inter-locking NY on their caps symbolic of over a century of baseball in NYC; that when worn with their traditional pinstripes takes me back in time.  These uniforms take me back to a day my mind was unencumbered with the minutia of a self aware adult. 

Our logo.  It is my belief I can say without being Mets-centric about it, the Met logo is among the best in all of Baseball.  The baseball with the city's skyline, symbolic of all 5 boroughs; the bold Mets script underlined with a bridge, as we are called the City of Bridges; a neatly tucked orange NY and orange baseball stitching complete, for me, a thing of beauty.

This year the Mets tinted our traditional home white uniform with a touch of the original ivory from our first decade in the League.

My traditional home pinstriped white uniforms, canvas to my summer afternoon Blue and NYC dusk Orange bring back memories of Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack and Skip Lockwood pitching from our Shea mound.  I think Rusty Staub, John Milner, Felix Millan and Buddy Harrelson.  Tug McGraw, Cleon Jones, Eddie Kranepool and Jerry Grote come racing back into my recollections.

In those days the Mets played the Yankees once a year in an exhibition called the Mayor's Trophy game.  The game was never televised.  The Mayor's Trophy Game is most responsible for introducing me to an amazing baseball game tuning device called radio.

As I watched the Mets take on the Yankees this evening,  these things I described above are what came to mind as I watched big 6 foot 7 inch Mike Pelfrey nurse a 3-0 lead (at the time).  The Blue and Orange captivated my thoughts tonight in what turned out to be a great throw-back game in the sense my mind wandered free from the thoughts that keep us ensnared in that bear trap called adulthood; and with that looking upon these players with a critical eye.

I myself am not a fan of the Mets use of the alternate all white homies, nor do I like the incorporation of black into their scheme.  Perhaps that is why I wax nostalgic when they go traditional.

Sure today's win over the New York Yankees is satisfying.  I would be lying if I said it wasn't.  But what's most important to me is that we start playing some consistent baseball.  A win is welcome anytime we can get it.

To be honest with you, the win today over our cross town rivals is secondary to what I took away from the day as a whole.  I was 9 years old again.  The aesthetic improvements made to Citi Field made the place more recognizable to the Met fans and it feels a lot more like our home now.  Glory to that.

Of all things that battled for my attention today/tonight; Blue - Met Blue; A blue, more recognizable to me than the color of my own hair overwhelmingly stole my attention as the sky above me turned to NYC Orange at dusk.

That's the power of Baseball and a small glimpse into the effects this team has over me.  I've had this kind of day at the park before.  They just seem to occur less frequently, although that may be a perception wholly clouded by emotion on my part.  Whatever the reason, I've learned to keep these days filed under the reasons I love baseball.

I know we won today and it was against the Bombers.  But that's not what today was about.  Today stands apart with other selected games that reinforce one's unconditional passion for this game and our teams.  The National Pastime showed up at Citi today; Front and Center.  That's not what I anticipated walking through the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.  But that's what Baseball did to me today.

Blue.  Met's Blue.  When the Mets took the field today my ticket failed to indicate I'd be taken back to more simpler days and innocent times I've ever had rooting for my Mets.  I saw Blue, and Orange, and Pinstripes, and it was good.  Baseball does that.  It takes you away sometimes.  There is no other place like a ball park that gives you a sense what ever is outside the park in unimportant or exists at all.  And that's where I was today ~ Safe in my second home as a kid.

That Blue also represents reality.  If you're looking skyward from the streets of METropolis, that deep rich blue sky is really the eye of a hurricane.  METropolis has been battered since their 9-1 home stand.  Today's Blue sky is merely the eye passing through.  One game and one day at a time is all we can do because the Mets season has been that stormy.  The backside of this hurricane is still coming and there will be more damage.  Players will lose their dignity, fans are losing their faith, managers may lose their jobs and GM's may lose everything they've built too.  Do not let today's Blue skies give my fellow Met fans false hope.  There is more damage to come.  The other side of this storm will come rambling through and we need to see how this organization will respond to the emergency.  Before that happens, I thought it wise to take the brief break in the storm system to resupply myself with good memories and improve fortifications before Flushing by the Bay gets whipping again.

Surf's up dude!!

BTB

*** I have the ESPN Fan Panel Show burned to a disk.  As soon as I learn how to get this friggin thing uploaded so you can hear it, you'll be the first to know.  How did it go?  I think it went well.  I'm laughing at myself over a mistake or two I made.  But over all, I guess i did OK.  I had a blast though!

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