A Piece of History

I’m not one of those die-hards.

Although I’m probably the only female in possession of a Tom Seaver bobblehead, I don’t paint my face for games. I don’t bleed orange and blue (sadly, being an expansion team, by 1962 all of the tasteful color combinations were taken) or hang the team flag outside next to the stars and stripes, like some of my neighbors do.

I don’t have season tickets. Although if I lived closer to the stadium, I might consider it.

I’m just a fan. And not a very good fan, either. If the boys are embarrassing themselves, I’ll grab the remote and see what else is on.

I don’t know how exactly I came to be a Met fan, since I was raised in a Yankee house (and not the North/South sort of Yankee, or the bean). My older brother couldn’t care less about sports, but my father and younger brother were glued to the set when the pinstripes took the field.

While I was in my room, watching “that other team” on my tiny black and white TV.

My first…no, make that my second…or maybe my third rebellion.

It happened some Saturday afternoon in the very early ‘70s, but I don’t know the moment when I discovered that there was another team playing on Channel 9 instead of the hallowed Channel 11, or why I found the Mets more appealing. Sure, the Mets had won a World Series, but the Yankees had done that so many times before. Had decades of winning seasons before the “Amazin’s” were even a twinkle in Casey Stengal’s eye.

They seemed to play with so much more heart than the Yankees. More verve. Like they were happy just to be there. And of course I was madly in love with outfielder Rusty Staub.

My parents even took me to the stadium. Once. And I think it came with some kind of speech from my father, that I should consider myself lucky to get him to go see “that” team. (Oh, how it must have rankled the season the Yankees were having their stadium renovated and they had to play their home games at Shea.)

And I went a second time, as an adult, with Husband before he was my husband, and a few of his friends, and sat in the nosebleed section through an entire double-header on the hottest day of the summer. It hit a hundred that afternoon, I’m sure, and we were stripped down to the legal minimum, bandanas soaked with water around our heads and necks.

And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

But a new stadium is on the horizon. Closer than that, in fact. The earth movers have already broken ground just beyond the outfield fence. And Shea is going to become a parking lot. Just like Joni Mitchell predicted.

And I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but I want a piece of history. Probably at some point there will be an auction for charity. And I’m already hearing about some 800 number or web site where you can pre-order your commemorative souvenir – a certificate of authenticity framed together with, say, a chunk of the outfield or a piece of someone’s locker. Home plate and that stupid giant home run apple should rightly go to Cooperstown. (If anyone gets any ideas about keeping the stupid giant home run apple (it’s an ugly-looking papier-mache-type apple that pops up out of a giant top hat whenever a Met hits a dinger), they should be taken out and shot). Probably everything else will wind up on e-Bay or in various bigwig’s attics.

I’d love to have one of those orange seats. Or a blue one. I’m not that picky. It will probably be damned near impossible, or I’ll have to mortgage a body part to get one, but maybe I’ll investigate.

But everyone’s going to want a seat.

Maybe it would be fun to have a piece of the dugout, or, maybe the last ball used at Shea. A tile from one of the shower stalls.

No. This is what I want. John Franco (a local guy, raised in Brooklyn, and for many years the heart and soul of the team) planted a tomato garden just behind the outfield fence. Along with giving up his beloved number 31 as a gesture of good faith when Mike Piazza came on board and wanted to keep his existing number, this was just another example of his goodwill and what being a member of a team and caring about your neighborhood (even if it was Shea Stadium) was about. Kind of reaffirms my faith that although professional ballplayers get the reputation of being overpaid and overpampered prima donnas, that underneath the Under Armor, they’re still human.

I’d like a handful of dirt from the garden. Or maybe a few tomato seeds.

I know, it’s not very glamorous. It’s not a seat or a base or a panel from the outfield fence that somebody might have crashed into to save some important game.

But it’s a piece of the spirit of Shea Stadium. The human story.