Opening Day!

 Spring training is over, today is Opening Day at Citi Field.  The Mets will host the Milwaukee Brewers. (The season was supposed to start yesterday but the weather.. sigh…)

Search this blog and you will find many, many posts about baseball in general and the Mets in particular.

You know my pedigree.  My father was raised in Brooklyn, in the shadow of Ebbets Field.  My mother was a Bronx girl.  On their first official date (they’d known each other for several years) he took her to Yankee Stadium to see DiMaggio play.  Yes, a Dodgers fan in enemy territory…he must have really wanted to impress her.

I grew up a Mets fan, but unlike many of my fellow sufferers, I also like the Yankees.  Given my history, how could I not?  But whenever there’s a Subway Series, I root for the blue and orange, not the pinstripes.  I know where my loyalty lies.

This season, 1986 will be on my mind, as the Mets retire two numbers — on April 14 they will retire Dwight Gooden’s #16 and on June 1 they will retire Darryl Strawberry’s #18.

In some ways, 1986 feels like yesterday, but it was so long ago … I was just starting my career, Drew and I had just gotten engaged … I remember watching Gane 6 of the World Series in Drew’s parents’ basement.

And that was the year the Mets did a promotional video, a gem worthy of being played on mTV, that new cable channel.  Great theme song, nice story line, wonderful celebrity cameos …

  

Yeah, it was fun to watch that video, even more fun when they actually made the World Series.

Game 2 at Shea Stadium began with  one of my favorite performers.

Remember this moment? Game 6, bottom of the 10th, the Mets behind 5-4 …

  

Magic.

And then Game 7 …

  

They went back to the World Series in 2000 (a Subway Series against the Yankees!) and 2015, but alas …

Maybe this year …

At least we can look forward to moments like this.

  

Yeah, the only team in Major League Baseball with mascots that play the trumpet …