My name is Dana Brand and I'm a
Professor of English and American
Literature at Hofstra University.  In the
summer of 2007, I published a book
called Mets Fan which became a
sensation among Mets fans. My book
was about my experiences as a fan of
the team from the time I was 7 in 1962
through the end of the 2006 season.

I enjoyed writing Mets Fan so much that
I decided to write another book about
the Mets.  It was supposed to be a feel
good book but the Mets didn't
cooperate.  
No Mets fan feels good after the past
three seasons.  But my goal is to bring
you back in contact with the eternal
Mets, a bizarre and perhaps unworthy
baseball franchise that continues to
receive the passionate loyalty of
millions. I want to give you some idea of
why we became Mets fans in the first
place, and why so many of us remain
long after saner people would have left. I
also want to bring you back to the
sounds, sights, and cramped seats of
Shea, a place that we will always miss
and mourn, however much we enjoy the
better food and  legroom of the new
place. If you want to remember, or if you
want to tell your kids what it was like to
see a game at Shea, you'll find all the
details and all the emotions right here.  
Even if you're not a Mets fan, this book
will give you some sense of why people
care about baseball and why they
cherish the places where it is played.

You can also order the book on

Barnes and Noble

or directly from

Taylor Trade Publishing

and the book is now in bookstores!
PRAISE FOR
THE LAST DAYS
OF SHEA!

“The Last Days of Shea is a truly
terrific book.  Filled with passion
and sincerity, it offers a deeper
understanding of what it means
to be a fan.”  Gary Cohen --
SNY Mets broadcaster

"To me and millions of others,
Shea was beautiful.  I loved it
when it had blue and orange steel
plates on the outside and I loved it
at the end.  My memories of the
place will last forever.  In this
wonderful homage, Dana Brand
ties together our experiences of
Shea, in a celebration of a place
that, in memory, will always be
far more substantial than most
historians will care to admit."  
Howie Rose -- WFAN
Mets broadcaster

“Dana Brand's, The Last Days of
Shea is a must read for any
baseball fan.  The communal
experience of living and dying
with your team is something fans
experience everywhere.  But there
is something unique about Mets
fans.  The Last Days of Shea  
chronicles the ending of a
ballpark but, even more
importantly, it reveals the spirit
and resoluteness of Mets fans as
they bring their "ya gotta
believe",  attitude to their new
home.”  Ron Darling --
SNY Mets broadcaster
JUST RELEASED!

“When I read Dana Brand’s books,
I feel as if I’m learning about the
heart and soul of the Mets fan.  
The Last Days of Shea is a great
tribute to Shea stadium and to the
spirit of the fans who made it such
a wonderful place to play
baseball.”  -- Jerry
Koosman, pitcher, New
York Mets, 1968-78

“Dana Brand is one of the true
Believeniks, and he's earned his
Shake Shack burger the hard way:
an x-ray of his heart would show a
Shea-shaped scar." --
Jonathan Lethem, author
of Motherless Brooklyn
and Fortress of Solitude

“Why care so much about a
baseball team?  Dana Brand has
figured out a way to articulate that
pleasurable or frustrating
heartache and make it
understandable and even
forgivable.  If Mets Fan was filled
with delights, The Last Days of
Shea goes deeper: its real subject is
loss and grief, and its prescription
the consolations of philosophy.  
Brand is a first-rate personal
essayist, who has chosen baseball
as his focus the way Baldwin chose
race or Hoagland nature.  As
Hazlitt and Liebling wrote about
the art of boxing, so Brand writes
about the psychology of the
baseball fan.--  Phillip
Lopateauthor of
Waterfront: A Walk Around
Manhattan and Writing
New York
READ MY
BLOG
TABLE OF
CONTENTS

Foreword by Gary Cohen

Author's Introduction

"For Shea" (from Mets Fan)

The Second to Last Home
Opener

56,227

The Curveball

Wait Till Next Year

Making It Through the
Offseason

The Team

Waxing:  How the Mets are
More Popular than the
Yankees

Pitchers and Catchers

The First Exhibition Game

The 2007 Season Begins

June

The Summer of Our
Discontent

Ralph Kiner Night

The Real Meaning of Ralph
Kiner Night

Saving the Apple:  We're
Mets Fans, We're Goofy,
Get Over It

The Mystery and Myth of
Motivation

A Sunday in September

No Choke

My Birthday Party

This Team Does Not Suck

Washington at Valley Forge

Remember the Maine

It Isn't Fair

Explanations

What Did I Wan't?

What Reggie Jackson Said
to Me About the Mets'
Collapse

Say It Ain't So:  The
Mitchell Report

The Signing of Johan
Santana

The Sign Man

Going into the 2008 Season

The VW Bus and the
Maserati

The Last Home Opener

The Last Days of Carlos
Delgado?

My Mother and the Mets

What Willie Said

Day Game

The Firing of Willie
Randolph

Tuscany Tile and the
Wisdom of the East

In the Booth

The Guys in the Booth

Subway Series:  Going to a
Yankees Game at Shea

The Mets' Bar Mitzvah

Winning Ten in a Row

The Last Play at Shea

The Worlds' Fair

The New Stadium

Shea Memories

Crowds

Going to the Game With My
Teenage Daughter

A Letter to the Future

The Sweet Summer of 2008

Going to the Game on
August 20

Going to the Game on
September 10

Everything At Stake

Good Vs. Evil

Going to the Game on
September 22

Going to the Game on
September 24

Oy Danele

September 25

Going to the Game on
September 27

The Last Game

Again

The Whale

War of the Worlds

Visiting Shea on January
21,2009
The Citi Field
Bookshelf
Mets fans are literate people and they don't
have enough good books to read.  To do
what I can to encourage good books about
the Mets, I'm going to be listing links to
what I think are good recent books about
the Mets.  The links are to websites, but I
will post reviews of all of these books this
summer.  I will rename this feature as soon
as I learn that they will be selling Mets
books at Citi Field.  The books are listed
alphabetically by author.
Coburn, Joseph and
Foronjy, Katherine.  
Mathematically Alive (a
film). My review.

Darling, Ron.  The Complete
Game.

Hernandez, Keith, with
Silverman, Matt.  Shea
Goodbye.

Kanarek, Jacob.  The Mets
in the Seventies: From First
to Worst

Prince, Greg.  Faith and
Fear in Flushing:  An
Intense Personal History of
the New York Mets My
review.

Ryczek, William. The
Amazing Mets, 1962-69

Silverman, Matt.  Mets
Essential

Silverman, Matt and
Springer, Jon.  Mets by the
Numbers
LINKS
"Here is where all those seasons happened.  Here is where we ran onto the field in 1969.  Here is where the ball
went through Buckner’s legs.  Shea is where I’ve been.  I will miss it as I miss a parent or a grandparent.  I
know it has to go.  But I wish it could have been there for all of my life.  I will endure its passing, but I would
have loved to have been an old man in these seats, under these lights."  From "For Shea."  in Mets Fan, 2007
1969
To Honor the 40th Anniversary of the
Greatest Baseball Miracle of All Time,
please enjoy this essay
from Mets Fan
Friend me on
Facebook (Dana
Brand)!
Stay tuned for the official announcement of

THE FIFTIETH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE
NEW YORK METS:  A
CONFERENCE AT
HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY

Chaired by Professors Dana Brand and Richard
Puerzer
April 26, 27, and 28, 2012
ORDER THE
BOOK ON
AMAZON!
THE FIRST
REVIEWS!

"Brand not only does a
tremendous job describing
his feelings of Shea
Stadium, he also captures
the true essence of what it
is to be a Mets fan"  
Bill Price,
New York Daily News,
9/2/09

"The Last Days of Shea is ...
a touching memoir...  Dana
Brand is ... the Proust of
Mets bloggers."
Michael Kimmelman, The
New York Review of
Books, 11/19/09

"If someone is going to have
the last word on Shea, I’m
glad it is Dana, who went to
the Polo Grounds and to
Shea before I was born. He
expresses his feelings and
the feelings of Mets fans as
well as anybody who’s ever
taken up a pen and tried. ...
Ol’ Professor Shea gets as
close to the Mets soul as
anyone ever has."
Matt Silverman, author
of Mets Essential, 100
Things Mets Fans Should Do
Before They Die, and co-
editor of the recently
released The Miracle Has
Landed:  The Amazing Story
of How the 1969 Mets
Shocked the World
READ SOME SAMPLES!
The Curveball
(You know which one.)
The New Stadium
(Shea when it was new.)
Going to the Game on September 10
The Last Game
CLICK HERE TO WATCH A SHORT
VIDEO OF ME READING FROM THE
BOOK AND HERE TO SEE A SHORT
INTERVIEW!  (You can contact me
at danaabrand@yahoo.com
ARCHIVED RECENT  APPEARANCES

October 16
I was featured, along with Al Weis and his family, in an article by Mark
Herrmann in  Newsday, commemorating what happened on October 16,
1969:  You Could Look It Up, 40 Years Ago Weis Was a Hero

October 16,
I was an in-studio guest on "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" an episode
of Colin McEnroe's Show on Connecticut Public Radio.    Take Me Out to
the Ballgame.  Other guests included Will Leitch of NY Magazine.  This
is a particularly successful discussion of the psychology of baseball
fandom.  Listen to it or download it here.

November 1
10pm, I will be on Sports Talk Live with Frankie the Sports Guy at 1240
WGBB AM

November 19
The Last Days of Shea was the focus of an article by Michael Kimmelman
in the New York Review of Books entitled "At the Bad New Ballparks'
Check out my
BULLETIN BOARD
for more information about my
upcoming appearances.  I am happy
to do interviews or read or speak at
your library or group.  You can
contact me at danaabrand@yahoo.com
Read about my
first book, Mets
Fan (2007) by
clicking here.









Billy Joel's
Last Play at Shea
starring Billy Joel, Paul
McCartney, and a lot of
other famous people, is now
showing in a few select
theatres and it will probably
be released soon on DVD.
Read about it here.  I appear
as a talking head in the film.  
The film has received rave
reviews from The New York
Times and other major
publications and I
recommend it highly to
anyone who likes Billy Joel,
the Beatles, the Mets, Shea
Stadium, New York City, or
just the idea of the
miraculous emerging from
the ordinary.You can read my
reviews here:  
billyjoel.com/thefirstreview.

http://www.billyjoel.com/news/
citi-field-premiere-billy-joels-l
ast-play-shea-dana-brand

You can also read my chapter
on The Last Play at Shea
in my book, The Last Days of
Shea.
HOLIDAY OFFER
FOR 2010!!

THE PERFECT
GIFT FOR METS
FANS

If you’d like to give very
personally inscribed
copies of either or both of
my books to a Mets fan this
holiday season, here’s
what you need to do:

1)  E-mail me at
danaabrand@yahoo.com.  
Tell me how many copies
of which book you want
(The Last Days of Shea or
Mets Fan) and tell me the
name of the person to
whom you’d like me to
inscribe the book(s).  If you’
d like the inscription to be
particularly personal, tell
me a little about the
fandom of the person to
whom I am inscribing the
book.  Also please give me
the address to which I
should send the book(s).  

2)  I will get the book(s) in
the mail to you
immediately.  I will also
send you an e-mail telling
you how much you owe me
and where you can send
the check.  The price for
one book (either book) will
be $17.50 including
postage.   If you order
more than one book, the
price will be less than
$17.50 per book, since I
can mail several books in a
single package.  

3)  As the people who
responded to this offer
last year can tell you, I
write really good
inscriptions.  I enjoy doing
this.  These books are
labors of love and it is a
pleasure for me to share
them.

Happy holidays to
everyone in the Mets
community!!
METS FAN is
now available
in digital form
from Google
E-Books for
only $9.99!!!!
Order it here.