Keidel: Mets Fans, It's Time To Fully Respect Your Superstitions
By Jason Keidel
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It was a tough blow, but hardly a death blow.
It feels more profound because the Mets played nearly two games in one night, and lost. They lost several leads, and squandered an epic effort from the bullpen in extra innings.
It hurts this Yankees fan to even admit this, but Alex Rodriguez, who was by far the best analyst on the broadcast on Tuesday night, said it best.
A-Rod asserted that Game 1 of the World Series was far more poignant for the Kansas City Royals than the Mets. He's right. The American League champs needed to win more than the Mets did. Had the Mets held on in the ninth, they'd be strutting into Game 2 with Jacob deGrom and a great chance to head back to Queens with a 2-0 lead.
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Had the Mets won both games in Kansas CIty, that would have been the last the Royals would have seen of Kaufman Stadium until 2016.
Now you've got a serious World Series.
It makes for more heartburn and heartache, but you couldn't think the Royals would just roll over. They're too feisty, with the longest conveyer belt of bullpen arms we've ever seen.
The Mets didn't play poorly on Tuesday night. The Royals just played a little better. After that bonehead play by Yoenis Cespedes in the first inning, you saw a game as tight and crisp as the autumn air, which is what you want, if not expect, from a Fall Classic.
Sure, you wanted your Mets to stomp the Royals like they did the Cubs, but the Mets were literally flawless against Chicago. Think about it. They never trailed in four games against a club that won 97 games in the poisonous National League. They beat a team in the Pirates that won 98 games, then beat a team that won 100 games in the Cardinals, only to be snuffed out by your Mets.
Maybe the layoff cooled the Mets' lumber a little. But Matt Harvey was fine. Tyler Clippard was solid. And Bartolo Colon pitched his big buns off. There was more than enough pitching production to win. And once the Royals let that ball down the first base line trickle through the wickets, you had visions of Bill Buckner.
But that juggernaut, the 1986 Mets, needed seven games and several miracles to beat the underdog Red Sox. Those Mets were the best team of that decade, and even they struggled.
I'm only going to say this one more time. Call it a parable, a warning, or just a story.
My first piece for the fledgling WFAN.com, nearly six years ago, was an interview with Chazz Palminteri. An avid listener of WFAN for decades, Chazz was as kind and gracious with this trembling sportswriter as anyone I've met in or out of sports. His secretary treated me like the pope. I asked why, when so many celebrities hire so many angry narcissists who treat everyone like garbage.
"Those people don't work for me," he said, flatly.
A Yankees fan, he told me about a night in October 2003, in his cavernous house, when he was watching the ALCS. The Yankees were trailing in Game 7, 5-2, after six innings.
So distraught over the notion of losing to the Red Sox, who were still toiling in the Bambino's hex, Chazz left his living room. Rather than watch on his sprawling flat screen, speakers the size of brownstones, he slithered into his kitchen, where he began to watch on a breadbox-sized TV planted in his pantry. He peered through a glass door, into his pantry, as the Yankees began a comeback. His wife came down and he begged her to leave, as his Bronx Bombers were scoring runs off Pedro Martinez. Can't mess with the mojo.
Cowering in his kitchen, often watching with one eye open, Chazz said he never moved from his spot, never opened the door to the pantry. And then Aaron Boone stepped up to the plate in extra innings.
Maybe you don't believe in that stuff, but I bet you do. I do. Most sports fans are either neurotic or superstitious enough to believe in a well-placed cap or a throaty spouse or the family dog staying in the blue bed or the door cracked open at exactly 80 degrees.
So, as I mentioned in Tuesday's column, the Mets were 5-0 while I was tweeting during games. And I mentioned that if their fans didn't show any love, I'd consider taking the night off from Twitter. I did. And the Mets lost.
Just look how it happened. I stop tweeting, then Daniel Murphy's home run streak ends. Jeurys Familia blows his first save and surrenders his first run of the playoffs. Matt Harvey tires after just 75 pitches, pulled after 80. Cespedes forgot how to play the field for a frightening moment, letting a fly ball bounce to the wall, and the game's first run to score. (That was a very generous ruling of an inside-the-park HR. That would have been an error anywhere else.)
I'm neither dumb nor delusional enough to think I'm the main reason the Mets lost, but any sports fan worth his (or her) salt knows you keep the cosmos aligned. If something is working, let it work. But all I ask is for Mets fans to ask me to tweet during these games. No adulation or admiration. You don't even have to follow me. Just offer the courtesy of asking. I'm a Yankees fan. My life won't end, my heart won't break, if they blow the World Series. But I love New York and I love New Yorkers. I want our suffering natives to see a parade up the Canyon of Heroes. This is about you, not me.
So far four people have asked. If at least 20 Mets fans ask me, @JasonKeidel, to return to the keyboard and tweet the Mets to victory, I'm at your service. It's the least you can do for a Yankees fan who's helped get the Mets where his team couldn't go.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
