This afternoon, jet-lagged from my nine-hour flight home from Rome, I drove up the Van Wyck and saw Citi Field with the lights on and with a smattering of fans on the Promenade deck. I had a warm sense of being home.
I knew the Mets had played badly the two and a half weeks I was away, but I had seen things in the reports of recent games that have made me look forward to coming home and playing lyrical optimist as a counterpoint to everyone else’s despair. I still don’t think Mets fans should give up hope when they are seven games away before September 12. That would be obscene at this point. And I don’t want them trading away any of our brightest points of light. There is enough good stuff on this team to justify … hope.
Anyway, I turned on the radio as I passed the stadium and heard that Ollie Perez was pitching. I didn’t have to wait to be told to know that we were more than ten runs behind.
I have to see what they did for the Hall of Fame ceremony. I shake my head with the rest of you in sadness. But the season isn’t over. And I feel as if I am home.
