Why am I enthralled by the Mets’ playoff run this year?

Let me start by saying I am a Mets fan. I have been since birth, or at least since my dad and grandfather took me to my first game at Shea Stadium when I was 4 or 5 years old.

Truth is, I never had a choice.  My family is from Brooklyn. My parents and grandparents rooted for the Dodgers till they departed for California.  After that, they turned for solace to the expansion Mets, the new National League team that was supposed to replace the Boys of Summer.

Of course, the Mets never did replace the Dodgers. The early Mets were lousy, so lousy they were funny. Then, led by Tom Seaver, they got good. Really good. So good they won a World Series.  Then they got lousy again. Then they got good enough to get into a World Series again (again led by Seaver), and then they got lousy again for a really long time. Then, led by Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter, they got really, really good and won another World Series. Then Doc did drugs. And Darryl did drugs. And the team fell apart, and they got really lousy again.  Then, they brought in Mike Piazza and got good again, so good they went to the World Series but lost (to the Damn Yankees!).  And then they got not so good. Then, led by Wright and Reyes and Delgado and Beltran they got good again, then Beltran struck out and they got lousy again.  Now they have four giant guys (the smallest of whom is 6’2”), who throw baseballs so fast flames come out of the seams, and they are good again.

Over this time, I’ve gone from awestruck toddler to Seaver-hero-worshipping grade-schooler to baseball-playing and baseball-watching teen to non-playing, distracted adult fan to middle-aged reading-the-box-scores dad.  Forty-four years of following the Mets. I’ve gone from playing catch with my dad to literally being old enough to be the father of every guy on the Mets pitching staff (except for Bartolo Colon, who I think is old enough to be my dad).

As I’ve watched the Mets in this year’s playoffs, it’s reminded me that there was a time when I wanted to be a major league baseball player. A very long time, in fact. I played baseball from as early in my childhood as I can remember till college, when I didn’t make our school’s varsity squad. Was a major league career ever a reasonable expectation? Obviously not. But it didn’t dissuade me. I was too small and not fast enough, but I worked hard, very hard. In the off-seasons, even through the coldest days of winter, I went outside every day with my bat made heavier with a weighted “donut” and took an hour worth of swings to build up my strength and bat speed.  All the while, I kept my eyes focused on a singular spot, training myself to keep my head steady while swinging.  I read books on the mechanics and physics of batting and watched videos that simulated the path of the ball from the pitcher’s hand to the plate to train my eyes to never lose sight of the ball. I played stickball in the days before and after my own baseball seasons ended and Strat-o-Matic baseball on days when rain prevented going outside.

Did it pay off? I like to think it did. I was a good player. Better than many. Not as good as others. I was co-captain of our high school team, hit for a high average and did my job as a leadoff hitter by getting on base a lot.

But then I went to college, and all that hard work, all my dreams of being a major leaguer, ended abruptly. I didn’t make the team. As crazy as it sounds, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had never not played baseball, and now all of a sudden I was confronted at the age of 18 of a lifetime of not playing staring me in the face. I remember quite well how awful that felt.

Not long after, several friends suggested that I play intramural softball. I’m not sure why. It may have even been their way of trying to cheer me up. I rejected the suggestion out of hand. To me, it was like suggesting that a man who lost his wife should try to fill the void by bringing home a female mannequin and dressing her up in his deceased wife’s clothes.

So, I put away my glove, my hats, my cleats and my bat. I became a fan only and not a player.  As the years wore on, I watched less and less, as my own life has gotten busier and busier. I never stopped rooting for the Mets, but I watched fewer games and followed them more often than not by reading short newspaper articles or box scores.

But then I became a dad. And then my team got good again. Not just good, but a good fueled by youth. A good propelled by guys who, honestly, aren’t much older than I was when I last played, guys so young that I’m now more than old enough to be their father.

Somehow that has resonated with me.  It’s struck a nerve somewhere in my overtired, middle-aged soul and reawakened that part of me that remembers Spring not for flowers but because it was the beginning of baseball season, the part of me that can still hear the “hisssssssss-thwapp!” of a baseball being thrown and caught, the part that remembers what it’s like when you connect on a ball on just the right part of the bat and it really does feel like you’re cutting with a hot knife through butter.

Who knows? Maybe this is all just nostalgia brought on by being chronically sleep-deprived. Or by being a middle-aged man who is prone to being overly sentimental because of the testosterone loss that ravages men as we exit our twenties, pass through our thirties and forties and head for our fifties. Or by being a dad who is now overly-attuned to the time when his toddler son will be ready to be taught about “America’s Pastime” just as my dad taught me.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m a Mets fan and these guys are good again.

I don’t know.  All I know is, “Ya Gotta Believe.”