It was great to hear from so many people after leaving them the link to find this blog. Everyone is enthusiastic that I am participating in Fantasy Camp. Some people asked which team was hosting this camp and I quickly realized that I had neglected to inform you, the reader, of which team it is.
That team is the New York Mets.
Let me start from.... the start.
I was born in Stamford, Connecticut on October 28, 1961 at 10:03 p.m. Roughly 10 hours earlier that day, approximately 30 miles to the southwest ground was broken for a new sports arena in Flushing, New York. The arena, originally known as Flushing Meadow Park was later named Shea Stadium. So, right away I had a connection to this team.
I didn't discover the ground breaking coincidence until the day when I was flipping through one copy of my aunt Bea's 1967 Mets yearbook which showed a photo of that day with the date below it. It was at this very moment that I realized that this was no accident.
My aunt Bea, my mother's older sister, wasn't always a baseball fan. She BECAME a baseball fan while working as a housekeeper for the Gross family of Cos Cob, CT. The Grosses loved baseball and they loved the Mets. On her off days she would stay in the apartment which was on the first floor of the home in which I grew up in Stamford. I would sit and watch games with her on WOR-TV, channel 9 and was quickly indoctrinated into the frustrations of watching her favorite team flounder hopelessly on the television.
Then, 1969............happened.
I was 7 years old and I didn't really catch up to the team's great fortunes until they made their run in late summer. Bea rode the wave as they won the first ever Eastern Division title. Then came the first NLCS against the Atlanta Braves. My FATHER's Atlanta Braves. Well, the trash talking barely got started before the Mets had swept the Braves 3-0 and were on their way to play the talent-laden Orioles from Baltimore. The O's won game 1 and then.......you know. Koosman, Weiss, Swoboda, Clendenon, Ryan, Agee, Jones, Seaver, Hodges and company snapped off four straight wins and Bea was ecstatic. She was at games 3, 4 and 5 in seats that belonged to the Clam Box Restaurant, which the Grosses owned and operated. They were the seats we used when I went to games for years to come. Like I said, I wasn't "fully vested" in the Mets yet, but I knew that this team was going to be important to me.
I didn't know that my blood had turned from red to orange and blue until October 1973. I had followed the team from day one of the season all the way to the end. That team was mediocre at best, but good enough to win a division championship. Then they beat the Reds in the NLCS and SHOULD have won the World Series against the A's. I blame pitching rotation selection by Yogi Berra for that defeat. Wayne Garrett popped out to short for the final out of the series and in an image I can still see as if it happened yesterday, I felt a big tear trickle down my cheek as I watched the A's celebrate their second series championship in a row. That is the moment when I realized I would never feel this connected to another sports team.....ever. "Losing feels worse than winning feels good" was never truer than it was to that 11-year old. Or the 51-year old kid writing this post.
Well, that's how it started, doctor. Same time next week? Great. Here's a check for the co-pay. See you next week.
I must admit that right now the folks at Southwest Airlines are probably not getting 100% of me right now. As Monday approaches the percentage will slowly decrease. Luckily, I have Sunday off as a lead-in to the vacation. Fear not Southwest and AirTran passengers. You will notice no discernible drop in efficiency or customer service whatsoever.
Earlier today I had an appointment with my physician for some blood work to make sure that my medications are up to date. I take very few prescription drugs. I am very lucky in this respect. I know that many of my peers take so many pills on a daily basis that their medication holders resemble a brand new container of tic tacs which are at every grocery store checkout.
So all I'm doing right now is making sure that I don't walk into anything, step on anything, drop anything on a foot or hand, or catch a cold or the flu. I'm about two steps shy of going down to the post office and purchasing enough bubble wrap to wrap around my 6'1" frame. I was grilling on Monday night (Yes, I know it's January. It's also Minnesota) and slipped slightly on the glare ice which had formed in front of the gas grill. I immediately took a LONGER, SAFER route back into the house and repeated this route back and forth until all of the burgers and hot dogs had reached their proper doneness. Talk about never forgiving myself for missing next week's festivities.
Last night I spent too much time viewing youtube videos of past Fantasy Camp events, posted by attendees from recent years. I was supposed to go bed much earlier than I did and ended up turning off the computer at 1:45 a.m.
I am readying the 35mm SLR and HD video camera for who knows HOW much video. I figure it can all be deleted or edited to make it appear that I doubled off the center field wall in every at bat and that I made every single fielding play at either first or third base. There must be an app for that, right?
Well, that's all for today. Tomorrow is.............Thursday. Thursday, that's right. It's all kind of a blur right now.
And I am totally down with that.
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