Let's go, already!

I don't write much about the Mets, although I follow them every day. There are a lot of better places to read about them from a fan perspective, like Metsblog, Hotfoot, Metstradamus, Metsgrrl, Brooklyn Met Fan, and many, many more. And now, when Keith, Gary and Ron seem to think and hope that this team has reached rock bottom in its positively listless performance in Atlanta this week [I remember thinking/hoping a few other times already this season that the Mets have bottomed out and have to start climbing up again], all I want to do is follow the games. I'd like to stop reading the papers, stop reading the websites, stop listening to talk radio [except for Steve Somers], stop watching pregame and postgame, and just limit myself to the real thing: the games [I'd like to, but I probably won't]. One at a time, day by day [pick your favorite cliche], just like the team should be thinking, and probably is.

Last September was painful. As a fan you felt absolutely helpless. Like your own lungs were collapsing along with the team's division lead. This year might be a season of Septembers. But it might not. I like to believe. So I'm going to do my best to block out all the hysterical, peripheral noise, and focus on baseball, which is what it's all about, anyway. Like John Lennon almost said, Baseball is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. Or something. Okay, that makes no sense, but it feels that way sometimes when I'm working in the studio with the game on the radio.

And I might buy a new royal blue hat. Maybe my old one, getting tattered and ratty, has run out of wins. Again, that makes no sense, but sometimes it feels like it makes no sense to be a Met fan, just like it makes no sense to rub and smear oily colored dirt on canvas, or work your life away in an unchallenging job you don't love just so you can rub and smear oily colored dirt on canvas, or give your son a shoulder ride whenever he asks because it makes you both smile, and you know he won't be light enough to carry that way forever. Baseball, art, love -- what is there that's worthwhile that makes sense? Or is easy? Ya gotta believe, right? Has this gotten treacly? Tough. Let's go Mets.