Mets Brighten Autumnal Darkness for Their Fans

Meanwhile, in the Bronx -- Weird Apparatus Mid-Week. Better be gone by Opening Day/ Photo Courtesy of Mike From Whitestone

On a murky, rainy Tuesday, I was with a gaggle of baseball-writer types at a friend’s apartment in the city.

Our hostess provided a nice lunch and we celebrated the 96th birthday of our colleague, who saw Lou Gehrig play.

Late in the lunch, I started getting texts from two rabid Mets fans.

“Céspedes back! 4 years!” one wrote.
“Finally, some good news!” the other wrote.
“This could get us almost all the way up to the next election,” the first one added. 

I broke the news to the dozen writers, including Mets, Yankees Tigers and Orioles fans.

"Céspedes should play right field,” one of them said. "With that arm, that’s his best position.”

We debated that, and the $110-million price, for four years. Money well spent. (Not our money, to be sure.) 
We talked baseball til it was time to go home.

Forty-five minutes later, I was driving through my home borough of Queens, in the dark, in the rain, right past the Mets’ ball park. (I know it has a corporate name, but I hate banks -- more since the crash.)

The huge message board was hawking stuff – probably a hazard for drivers trying to negotiate the shifting lanes and insane rush-hour drivers on the Whitestone Expressway.

But I took a quick glimpse anyway – commercials, some U.F.C. event, season tickets.

Céspedes, I said. Brag that you just locked up Céspedes for four years.

That would have been big-time celebrating – lighting the candle rather than stumbling in the dark, which the Mets have been known to do. But nobody in the Mets' office had pushed the button to tell the Whitestone Expressway about Céspedes.

I kept my eyes on the road but my mind was on April, when Céspedes, that imperfect star, will start swinging for the fences, and catching almost everything hit near him, and throwing out knuckleheads who run on his arm.

The Mets remain a contender particularly if their young pitchers recuperate.

I thought about the ball park buzzing, buying a hero at Mama's stand, watching Cabrera's sure hands and Granderson's smile and DeGrom's and Syndergaard's locks flapping in the breeze. 

I felt better than I have in a month. We would get through the winter. Baseball will be back.

I suspect Yankee fans feel the same way about the prospect of the first full season of Gary Sanchez.

Yankee fans are human. They got to live, too. They look forward to driving around with John and Suzyn calling the game, the way Mets fans feel about Howie and Josh.

In the winter, in the red states, in the blue states, in the big markets and the small markets, fans are lying dormant, dreaming their dreams. (What dreams can Cubs fans possibly have, now that their tormented circadian rhythms have been forever disrupted?)  
 
That's baseball. On a gloomy afternoon, somebody sends a text, and the ever-hopeful fan thinks, I can make it through the dark months. We will survive.  

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Come on! Hawk Cespedes, Even Though Distracting Manic Drivers on the Whitestone