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Going by the Book  |
 The Polo Grounds, first home of the N.Y. Mets |
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At left, Casey Stengel, first Mets manager; the new book about the Mets by Howard Blatt |
of TheColumnists.com
See, the baseball season is about to begin as I write
this. I can smell the peanuts, taste the beer and have the usual
trouble digesting those cold hot dogs.
I can see those flags flying in the breeze and that lush green
of ball park grass, so much brighter than anything I could ever
get in my own back yard. I can see the white of the home uniforms
and the bright colors of the visitor’s caps, especially
when the Cardinals are in town.
I can feel the tingle in my joints as the first batter swings
three baseball bats as he approaches the plate before throwing
the two bad ones away. I can sense the arguments in the press
box already when a ground ball bounces off Derek Jeter’s
glove and the oldtimers call for an error and the kid sportswriters
demand a hit to protect the king of their time.
There is a sense of nostalgia as I drive into the ball park in
a new year, a new beginning, a fierce protection of what had
gone in the past.
Baseball is about all of these things and hits and runs and homers
and strikeouts. But unlike any other sport, unlike a Final Four
or a Super Bowl or a Stanley Cup, baseball is about yesterdays.
What makes the game so much fun, so unique, so enormous on the
American psyche is the connection between generations, father
and son, father and daughter now. Grandparent and grandchild,
sitting in those stands measuring today’s stars with those
who have gone before.
A .300 batting average in 2002 will mean the same as a .300 batting
average meant a hundred years ago. Excellence. A 20-game winning
season in the 21st century is what it was in the 19th and 20th
century, domination over the batters most of the time.
Names rattle off easily from the lips of fans as they stuff themselves
with cold food and warm sodas. They talk of Ruth and Cobb, Walter
Johnson and Christy Mathewson, Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig, Mantle
and Maris as if they had finished the most recent season with
Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa.
Baseball is joyous for what goes on in the field of play and
what is generated in the field of thought. Memories matter as
much as practicality.
An old sportswriter pal, Howard Blatt, understood all of that
as he recently put together a book about the 40 years of the
Mets called “Amazin’ Met Memories” (Albion Press),
a joyous romp from opening day of the first Mets season in 1962
when starting pitcher Roger Craig was pinned inside a broken
down elevator with a dozen teammates in St. Louis.
The Mets were different, see, and 120 losses in their first season
proved that. It didn’t matter that Craig was lost in the
elevator because so was the game. The best thing the first year
Mets ever did was get rained out of their scheduled Opening Day.
It was downhill after that.
They lost nine in a row before Jay Hook saved them with a win
and Casey Stengel, the first man to understand them and create
them, bellowed, “We’re gonna win the pennant.”
Well, they didn’t. There used to be 10 teams then and the
Mets finished tenth. Don’t make fun of finishing tenth.
Even the Yankees did it once in 1966.
The 1962 Mets started off on a happy note because Stengel sold
the fun of the game, Richie Ashburn was a delightful leader and
Marvelous Marv Throneberry came along to personify imperfection
better than anyone else in the game maybe ever has.
Forty years later the Mets could have a couple of Hall of Famers
in Mike Piazza and Roberto Alomar. They could have a hitting
slugfest with their powerful lineup. They could add more glory
to the 1969 and 1986 World Champions and the close-but-no-cigar
clubs of 1973 (losers to Oakland) and 2000 team (losers to the
Yankees) with this team.
It would simply add more stories, more legend, more glory to
the team’s remarkable history. Blatt collected some of the
standard Mets stories of the past, came up with some new ones
and squeezed it all inside some 400 pages.
Bud Harrelson wrote the introduction and he explains how a skinny
kid shortstop would take on a baseball bully like Pete Rose in
a 1973 playoff game. Harrelson played 16 years in the big leagues
when a look at his little frame would indicate he couldn’t
work as a ball park usher that long. He is remembered around
New York for his fine play and an aborted chance as a manager
but he is lionized for his battle with bully Rose.
Baseball is so different than any other sport. One game, one
play, one shining moment (Bobby Thomson) or one sorry moment
(Bill Buckner) and a man’s life changes and is magnified
forever.
Springtime is measured by some by brighter flowers, longer days,
warmer sunshine. Addicts like me just smell those hot dogs, hear
those cracks of a bat and compare those rookies of now with those
gods of the past.
Baseball. The word is as joyous as love.
© 2002 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The book cover is from Albion Press. The Polo
Grounds painting is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895
Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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