Aug 04 2016 03:48 PM
Those of you who go back to the MOFO days will remember lots of my stories about watching the Mets in their late 90s-early 2000s heyday were set in a Hell's Kitchen bar I used to watch them at allatime, the Bullmoose. Stood on a barstool to watch Zeile's would-be HR bounce back onto the field. Watched Franco whiff Bonds there, Piazza slam Clemens etc etc etc.
The bartender there Gus was an aspiring actor and a big Mets fan, as were many of the Moose's regulars. He was in a lot of my stories too (lost forever, unfortunately. I had little real-world concerns then that didn't involve the Mets and no problem hanging out in bars and eating wings allatime. Things are different now).
That bar closed and reopened as different stuff a million times since then. Gus the bartender though saved my tip money and opened his own place uptown near Columbia U. We had softball in Central Park last night, lost badly as usual, and wound up there to eat wings, drink pissy beer, and witness another gutwrenching MFY-Met game. Look what he's done with the place!
Gus wasn't there but a teammate who's a regular there today says the orange towel hanging beneath the numbers was covering the 31 until a ceremonial unveiling over the weekend. Ever uptown, patronize our friends at the Lion's Head (109 and Amsterdam, I think)
