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Truly amazin' Come along for a ride on the No. 7 train, heading south
NEW YORK -- Sunday at Shea Stadium was about rising from the ashes in 1999 but it was also about 1986. It was about the lean years of 1977-83 and the lean years of 1991-95. It was about '73 and '69 and `62. Mets fans know their history. Yesterday lasted 15 innings and nearly six hours, much of it in a steady rain. It could have rained all night for all we cared. To the outside world, all New York sports fans are the same: Big and bad and crude and dangerous. But Mets fans do not swagger well. They suffer so deeply from a sense of inferiority that in the middle of home playoff games they inexplicably begin chants of "Yan-kees suck!" In the early 1980s the godawful Mets tried to appeal to their fans with subway posters that read: "The Magic is Back." A few months later the Yankees responded with their own subway posters, which said simply: "The Magic Never Left." Mets fans bowed their heads because they knew it was true. Well, almost true. The Yankees' incomparable greatness is not so much about magic (yes, there was Don Larsen in `56 and Reggie in '77 and Jim Leyritz in '96) as pure dominance. The Yankees are baseball's professional winners. Mets fans, like Dodgers and Giants fans before them, live with that every day. They will always, in the long run, be second best. They will always be this city's underdog. They wouldn't have it any other way. That's what it means to be a Mets fan. The Mets struggle for what they get. From the seeds of lovable losers grew the Amazin' team of 1969 and the '73 club that went 82-79 but reached Game 7 of the World Series. In 1986 the Mets escaped near-defeat against the Astros in Game 6 of the NLCS (they trailed 3-0 in the ninth) and certain death at the hands of the Red Sox in Game 6 of the Series (they trailed 5-3, two outs, no one on, in the 10th). The Mets, it seems, win by dint of magic and miracle. This year they lost 8 of 9 games down the stretch and were deader than Tutankhamen -- two games out with three to play -- when they righted themselves. Then came the NLCS, and three straight losses to the Braves. With the Braves leading 3-2 in the 15th inning of Game 4, Shawon Dunston's leadoff at bat stood in relief against the background of all that had happened in the days and years and decades before. Dunston fouled off pitch after pitch. Someone in the crowd said, "This is a Mookie at bat," remembering all the pitches Mookie Wilson fouled off against the Sox in '86 to keep the Mets alive. Four batters later the tying run scored on a bases-loaded walk. What are miracles but gifts? Then Robin Ventura hit that high fly that we in the stands later learned had cleared the fence. Strangers began hugging one another and holding on. Grown men wept with joy and kissed their sons. The Braves are up 3 games to 2 in this series and have great pitchers (Kevin Millwood, Tom Glavine) ready to shut down the Mets. But on Sunday, unharnessed, unmitigated joy moved through Shea Stadium. The loudspeaker blared out dance tunes and people tore off their shirts and shimmied in the rain. Let it rain. As the players mobbed each other and Shea thundered and shook, manager Bobby Valentine, whom Mets fans have chastised and adored and berated the way you can only chastise and adore and berate someone who is one of your own, came out and pointed to every section of the stands. "Thank you," he kept saying. An hour later, we crammed onto the subway and as it began to chug toward Manhattan the cheers began again. We clapped together our chafed palms and cheered through our hoarse, sore throats. Fifteen innings was not enough. On a New York subway you will see more shades of skin than colors in a rainbow; more nations represented than at a UN summit. On Sunday we were one family pounding rhythmically on the floor of the rambling train. Three stops away from Shea, the subway doors opened and a few new passengers came in. The conductor's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Junction Boulevard," she said, and then, "Next stop Atlanta." Together in that subway car we roared and roared. It could have rained all night for all we cared. The magic was back. Kostya Kennedy is a Sports Illustrated staff writer.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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