Apr 02 2013 07:47 AM
From Lupica
NY Mets talk of the town for one day, recreate memories for die-hard fans like NJ governor Chris Christie
The governor of New Jersey is that kind of Mets fan, one who remembers it all, who can still tell you all about it with the excitement of a kid, which is the kind of excitement that is always supposed to rule the day on Opening Day.
Collin Cowgill rounds third base after hitting a grand slam on Opening Day
| The Mets were stretching their lead now against the Padres, doing that on this day when they were the better baseball game in New York, scoring three in the bottom of the fourth and making the start of this season sound and feel and look so much better than the way the last one ended at Citi Field. Maybe the Mets are a year away — at best — from really mattering again, the way smart Mets fans think they are. Just not on this day. This one day sounded and felt and looked like a lot of Opening Days at the ballpark that used to be on the other side of the parking lot. This was before Collin Cowgill’s grand slam officially blew the doors off the game. But already it was a kind of baseball afternoon to remind Mets fans, the ones who still want to believe, what it was like in those times in their history when they were the ones who owned baseball New York, before all the hard times on the Mets side of the Triborough. “I’m a Mets fan who remembers,” the governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, is saying now in the bottom of the fourth. “Where do you want to start? I was 7 in 1969. Mary Pat and I got married in March of ’86. I watched the 16-inning game against the Astros (Game 6, NLCS) in our little apartment above the liquor store in Summit, N.J. while I was going to law school.” On the field in front of Christie, the afternoon is getting good and loud now. Jon Niese — starter and winner on this day — has walked and Cowgill has doubled and Daniel Murphy has singled. Eventually Marlon Byrd will single home Murph to make it 7-1. But I had asked Gov. Christie about 1986. Opened that door to his memory and imagination. And so for the moment there is the game he is watching with his wife and children and the games he remembers out of another time in his life. From the other side of the parking lot. So Christie laughs and talks about watching Dwight Gooden’s first start in April of ’86, against the Pirates, about his wife coming home from work to find him eating dinner in front of the television. “Mary Pat looks at me and says, ‘We’re going to watch a baseball game in front of the TV? Really?’” Christie says. “And I say to her, ‘But honey, you have to understand, Doc Gooden is pitching tonight.’?” Then Chris Christie is talking about Atlee Hammaker of the Giants hitting David Cone and breaking his thumb when Cone was trying to get down a bunt the next year, 1987, when bad things seemed to happen to all the Mets’ starting pitchers. His thumb exposed like that,” Christie says. “Who taught him how to bunt?” Christie can tell you about that, and Bobby Ojeda’s accident with a pair of shears in ’87. And about the night in September of that year, old Shea was rocking again because the Mets were still going to come all the way back and catch the Cardinals. Only that was the Friday night when Ron Darling tore ligaments in his thumb diving for a bunt by Vince Coleman, the first hit off Darling in that game, and then Terry Pendleton hit a home run that didn’t just feel like a game-ender, but a season-ender. Christie was visiting his in-laws in Pennsylvania and kept going out to his car to listen to Mets-Cardinals, which is where he sure was when Pendleton hit his home run. “That,” he said, “was not a good night.” The governor of New Jersey is that kind of Mets fan, one who remembers it all, who can still tell you all about it with the excitement of a kid, which is the kind of excitement that is always supposed to rule the day on Opening Day. Now he was at Citi Field for another one, the Mets getting ahead 7-1 behind Niese. All that before Cowgill hit his grand slam to left, Cowgill only slowing down on the bases when he realized the ball was over the fence. So this was a day when all the good news was on the Mets side of the Triborough, the first Opening Day doubleheader like this in the city in nearly six decades. Because on the Bronx side, the Red Sox were roughing up CC Sabathia for four in the top of the second, on their way to an 8-2 win. Niese got two hits, Cowgill did, Byrd did, Murph did. So did the new catcher, a wise old head named John Buck, and Ruben Tejada. Capt. Wright got a hit and scored a run. It was only the Padres, of course. And it didn’t take long for Mets fans to find out that Bryce Harper of the Nationals, the class team in the NL East, had hit home runs his first two times up. The Mets didn’t win anything except the Opening Day in New York. It was still a good thing to wander around a ballpark so much more fun and welcoming than the palace across town, through the rotunda that honors Jack Roosevelt Robinson, even go out for a few minutes and stand outside where the outfield at old Shea once was; remember when this corner of baseball New York, the part at the Willets Point station and between the chop shops and Roosevelt Ave., really was the best place. “We’re not there yet,” a Mets fan, a great Mets fan, named Chris Christie said Monday. “But we will be.” On Monday it was the only way to look at things. Right before Cowgill hit his grand slam, they even started to chant “Let’s Go Mets!” at Citi Field. Then the ball was over the fence and for one very loud moment this side of the parking lot was like the old one, this one day was like the old days for the New York Mets. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseb ... z2PJV0e7nl |