FanPost

#LTM – The Greatest Met Fan I’ve Ever Known

Note: I deliberately submitted this after the deadline as I’d really rather not be considered for the contest. Best of luck to those who submitted an entry.

One time honored tradition in baseball has it that a father passes down their love of the game to their sons. Only sons? I say bah on this. This is for all you daughters and granddaughters out there.

I have no definitive memory of when I became aware of baseball and the NY Mets. I started following them regularly in 1968. I do know exactly who is responsible for my fandom though. That would be the Greatest Met Fan I’ve Ever Known – my Dad.

A little background: My earliest memories of my father were of an ambitious man who worked hard to support his family. Born, raised and lived in the same town his entire life, he also worked tirelessly for what he believed was the betterment of the town. But the most important thing was family – me, my Mom (they were married 58 years), my sisters, and later the grand-kids and great grandson. – His family was his whole life. He was of that generation though that didn’t show emotion, didn’t discuss feelings and just got done what needed to get done.

In my younger years, he often worked 2 jobs and/or had something going on the side but in his down time, he watched baseball. Dad was an old Brooklyn Dodgers fan. He was actually offered a minor league contract by them when he was 17, but turned it down because even though he was a slick fielding SS in HS, he didn’t think he would ever hit enough for the Big Show.

His love of the NY Mets just barely eclipsed his lifelong hatred of the NY Yankees. That hatred was in no small part because of the Dodgers inability to beat the Yankees in all but one of their World Series appearances in the 40's and 50's. Instead of rooting for another NL team when the Dodgers left for the west coast, Dad instead tuned into the Yankee games to root against them. We had this neighbor down the street who loved the Yankees. After the Pirates won the 1960 WS, he fashioned a skull and cross bone on his friend’s front lawn and lit it on fire. Never admitted it was him, but the neighbor knew. The whole neighborhood knew.

1962 came and with it the NY Mets. I became aware of baseball because it seemed from the time I was little, there was always a ballgame on the TV, especially on weekends. Mom would go do some grocery shopping or some such errand and leave us with Dad, with the ballgame on. I learned baseball from him watching those games. Also learned how to make a ‘neat’ VO and water, which was Dad’s drink of choice back then. Hey, it was the 60’s after all.

1969 was a magical year. My favorite player on that team was Buddy Harrelson – I’m sure in no small part because he reminded me of my father who also was a light hitting, wiry, fast, SS. I was hooked on all things Mets when they won that World Series. Took me quite a few years to realize it isn’t that easy and getting to the Fall Classic was going to be few and far between for my team.



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My first game at Shea was in 1968. Can’t remember who was pitching but they won. Dad would regularly get tickets to the last game of the season at Shea – which was Fan Appreciation Day back then. I was at Willie Mays day, end of the regular 1973 season. I can still remember listening to Willie give his farewell speech. My older sister (an avid Met fan as well), still has the program from that game. I’m still bummed they lost that World Series in 7 games.

By this time as a young teenager, my father was involved in so many things that he wasn’t home enough to watch many games with. With three daughters and no sons, he was content to leave all the ‘girly’ stuff to Mom. He did however teach me how to keep score on an official scorecard. I often watched games doing just that for probably the next five years.

Grew up, graduated, got my first full time job, moved out, and got married. My conversations with my Dad over those ensuing years were mostly centered on baseball. I can still remember 1986’s Game 6 – calling Dad while screaming: ‘Did you see it? THEY DID IT’. Man, we were so ecstatic. Keith was my favorite player on that team and until this day remains my favorite Met of all time. Dad’s was Gil Hodges – ex-Brooklyn Dodger, manager of the Mets first championship team, plus he met him at Ebbets Field somewhere under that stadium. Can’t really remember the details, other than my father saying when he shook his hand he had the biggest hands he ever saw. Said his just disappeared in Gil’s.

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Dad retired in the early 90s and with that decade came the home computers. Dad was old fashioned in his ways and as far as he was concerned a mouse was a rodent and a window was something you opened for the breeze. He would faithfully read the sports section of the paper he had delivered daily but then took to calling me up several times a week asking, ‘What’s new?’ What’s new, meaning all things baseball as he knew I was perusing the internet daily by then for all baseball related news.

The World Series of 2000 was still something until his dying day that was not uttered in my father’s presence. Man, he hated the Mets losing, but losing to the Yankees? Worst thing ever, as far as he was concerned.

2006 came and with it the launching of SNY. By this time, my Dad took to alternately calling me and my sister before the games, as well as during the games. We’d often ‘watch’ a couple of innings together. If the Mets had the lead in the 9th, he’d call me asking ‘Whatcha think?’ My husband isn’t much of a baseball fan but he would often comment: ‘Phone didn’t ring late, I guess the Mets lost?’ Yup, Dad hated watching them lose to the extent that if it looked like no chance, he’d tune into YES hoping to watch the Yankees losing. 2007-2013 were torture. We used to joke about getting back to post season because ‘I ain’t getting any younger.’

My Dad was tenacious and he was tough. Tough enough to survive two triple bypass operations in one 12 month period over 20 years ago, severe kidney disease for the last 25 years and cancer 14 years ago. Father Time stops for no one though. Early 2012 he was diagnosed with a recurrence of that cancer. Went through chemo and radiation but the surgeons didn’t think his heart was strong enough for surgery to remove the tumor. Still didn’t slow him down. Done with the treatments, he rebuilt a Delorean for a friend, helped my niece with repairs and upgrades to a house she bought and drove to his first and only trip to the Kentucky Derby. That entire time he was in Kentucky he called me several times a day to make sure he wasn’t missing out on any Mets news.

Coming into 2014, Dad reveled in the end of the Yankees dynasty almost as much as he did the Mets rebuild and their young pitching. Mid-season we knew the Mets weren’t going anywhere. As disappointed as Dad was with that, he was also happy it appeared the Yankees weren’t going anywhere either.

July of 2014, we found a surgeon at NYUM that was confident he could get the tumor out with a high rate of survival for making it through surgery. Dad went for it but it wasn’t to be. He made it through the surgery but they couldn’t remove the tumor. By this time, his blood counts were no longer holding and bi-weekly transfusions became the norm. He’d call me from those 4 hour procedures at the hospital and we would discuss the Mets and baseball for hours. I stopped talking though in relation to the Mets' future. I didn’t mention ‘when Harvey returns next year.’ I knew.

As he became weaker and was confined to home, the calls increased. Now though, they morphed beyond the normal baseball discussions. He talked about memories of his young life growing up and his hopes and dreams along the way. I heard stories of old neighbors, funny anecdotes, stories of family members long since gone, people who screwed him, people he got back at (yeah, he was that kind of guy), and everything in between. It was an entire life filled with things I never knew. It was also an incredible gift I’ll cherish forever.

We celebrated my Dad’s 80th birthday in early November and we talked lots of baseball. He hardly ate. And I knew.

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my parent’s house as we made plans to shift the traditional Christmas Eve dinner at my house to their house. But I knew.

Early December 7th there was all kinds of Mets and Yankees rumors so I expected a call from Dad. But the phone never rang. And I knew.

Later that evening the call I did get was that my father was on the way to the hospital via an ambulance. And I knew.

Other family members and I took turns sitting 24/7 with him at the hospital. I took the evening and overnight shift going into the 10th. The hospice nurse kept checking in and at one point she told me ‘He’s resting very comfortably now.’ And I knew.

I had the TV on low, some program on SNY that I can’t remember. Might have been a Mets Yearbook because at some point I remember watching clips of Buddy Harrelson. Only fitting, I thought to myself.

I left the hospital in time to sign in at work at 7:00 am that morning. My phone rang at 11:00 am and before I looked at the caller ID, I knew….I knew.

I miss him. I don’t have the words to express just how much I miss him. So many times over the past several weeks I’ve had to stop myself from picking up the phone to call and let him know the latest Mets news. I truly don’t know how long it will be before I stop doing that.

This I do know for sure: if not for the Mets I would have never gotten the chance to know my Dad as well as I did. I will be forever grateful those ball games were on that black and white TV in the living room all those years ago. For me, baseball transcends America’s favorite pastime. It was – it is – a forever link to the man I called Dad.

I know it’s going to be bittersweet when the 2015 season starts. I dread that phone staying silent.

Dad, if you’ve got any pull at all, ‘I ain’t getting any younger’.

As always, LGM!

This FanPost was contributed by a member of the community and was not subject to any vetting or approval process.