Memorial Day and My Mets Fandom

Today is Memorial Day, a day in which we honor the men and women who served in the military and gave up their lives to protect the United States and its people.  Memorial Day is also special to me as a Mets fan, for it was on the day we observed the holiday in 1981 that I became a Mets fan.

On Monday, May 25, 1981, I was off from school.  I had been looking forward to Memorial Day for weeks because my father promised we'd have a barbecue in the backyard.  Something about having burgers while fending off mosquitoes always made eight-year-old me giddy with anticipation.  But unfortunately, that outdoor food and fly-swatting fest was not to be, as my father did not feel well and was bedridden all day.

Of course, as most children my age would do, I was more upset about not having burgers and potato salad that day than I was about the condition of my father.  Instead of counting down the hours and minutes to the unveiling of the grill, I spent all morning and early afternoon moping in the living room.  Eventually, I took advantage of the fact that my father was in bed, which left his favorite recliner that no one was allowed to sit on open for the taking.  So of course, I turned on the TV and plopped myself in his comfortable chair.  Since it was 1981 and we weren't a remote control household, I didn't feel like getting up to change the channel.  The last thing anyone had watched the night before was on WOR (Channel 9), so that's what I would make myself watch to take my mind off the postponed barbecue.

Channel 9 had always been the TV home of the New York Mets, but in 1980, fledgling cable network Sportschannel began to air Mets games as well.  Fortunately, the Memorial Day game in 1981 was scheduled to be broadcast on Channel 9 and the allure of the velour prevented me from getting off the recliner to change the channel.  So it was the Mets for me on that day.  And it's been the Mets for me ever since.

The Mets played the Philadelphia Phillies in the Memorial Day matinee and they showed no brotherly love for their division rivals, defeating them in a 13-3 laugher.  Although many players performed well for the Mets that day (Hubie Brooks, Lee Mazzilli and Joel Youngblood had three hits apiece, Dave Kingman hit a grand slam and starting pitcher Greg Harris earned his first major league victory), it was Mookie Wilson who captured my attention and made me thankful that we didn't possess a remote control.  Mookie reached base four times that day (two hits, two walks).  He also scored three runs and drove in two.  After leading off the game with a walk, Mookie proceeded to swipe second and scored the first of the Mets' four runs in that inning.  It was the first time I had been exposed to Mookie's baserunning abilities, and I was utterly amazed.  Six innings later, Mookie crushed a long drive to center off former Met Tug McGraw that went for a two-run triple.  His gazzelle-like speed mesmerized eight-year-old me to the point where I checked the TV guide - I had to get off the couch eventually - for when the next Mets game was going to be aired on WOR.

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Less than three weeks after discovering Mookie and the Mets, baseball went on strike.  For two months, I couldn't indulge in my new passion - my New York Mets passion, that is.  Fortunately, my father recovered from his illness and we were able to have many barbecues to pass the time during baseball's two-month hiatus.  Baseball returned to my TV screen in August, and I quickly eschewed burgers and hot dogs on the grill for Mookie and the Mets in front of my grill.

Thirty-six Memorial Days later, I'm still a Mets fan and I will be attending today's game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Citi Field.  But just think of how everything had to fall into place for my Mets fandom to begin the way it did.

Had my father not been ill, I never would have watched the Mets that day.  It would have taken longer for me to develop an interest in baseball, especially since my father wasn't a sports fan and couldn't tell me the difference between an infield fly and an unzipped fly.

Also, if someone had left the TV on a channel other than Channel 9 the previous night, I might have become a daytime soap opera fan instead of a Mets fan and this blog post would be about the wedding of Luke and Laura and not the running of Mookie Wilson.

And last, but certainly not least, had the Yankees been playing a day game rather than a night game in Baltimore, I might be bragging about ringzzzz today.  Fortunately, the Yankees had no day game on the docket and even if they had, they were blown out by the Orioles on Memorial Day 1981 so I wouldn't have looked forward to their next game as much as I was for the Mets after their philleting of the Phillies.

My father is now 81 years old.  He has taught me many things about life and love.  On May 25, 1981, he probably wanted to teach me how to make a well-done burger.  But on a day when he was too sick to gave me any instruction, he inadvertently taught me how to be a Mets fan.  And my life would not have been the same had I not developed that love and passion for the team.  I met my wife because of the Mets and I've made many new friends due to our shared love of the orange and blue.

Memorial Day will always be special to me, thanks to my now-healthy father, a chair of incredible comfort and the fleet feet of Mookie Wilson.  I still need that lesson on how to make a perfect burger, but my father can teach me whenever the Mets aren't playing.

The grill master to the left, the former eight-year-old couch potato to the right.

How This Mets Fan Became A Seahawks Fan

Gotta love my teams!

I became a sports fan at a young age.  When I was eight, I happened upon a Mets game on Memorial Day while my father was outside barbecuing.  The Mets defeated the Phillies in that 1981 game by the final score of 13-3, with Mookie Wilson running wild on the bases.  I became a fan of Mookie and the Mets that day.  The Mets were a terrible team when I became a fan and continued to be so until 1984, when they posted their first winning season since 1976.  Two years later, in my sixth season of fandom, I was rewarded with a World Series championship.

My football interests began quite differently than my baseball interests.  Although I’ve always been a New Yorker, I never rooted for the Jets or Giants.  I would watch their games (more Jets because they played their home games at Shea Stadium) just because they were on TV, but I didn’t get emotionally involved with either team.  That lasted until 1983, for on December 24 of that year, I found the team that would soon become “my team”.

Before the days of DirecTV and the NFL package, if you were an 11-year-old kid wanting to watch football, you just had your local teams and whoever was playing on Monday Night Football.  Of course, I couldn’t watch Monday Night Football at that age because the games were on too late and I had to go to school the following day.  So basically if I wanted to see a team that wasn’t a New York team, I had to wait until the playoffs to do so.  On Christmas Eve 1983, I did just that.  The Seattle Seahawks were hosting the Denver Broncos in a wild card playoff game and I decided to watch the game.  At the time the Broncos had a young rookie quarterback named John Elway and a top running back in Sammy Winder.  The Seahawks shut both of them down, blowing out the Broncos at the Kingdome, 31-7.  I was so impressed by how the Seahawks played that I watched them the following week, actively rooting for them to defeat the Miami Dolphins in South Florida.

The year before, I remember watching the Dolphins defeat the Jets in the AFC Championship Game, 14-0, with the Dolphins’ A.J. Duhe intercepting Jets quarterback Richard Todd three times on a rainy day that created a ridiculously muddy field.  Since most of my NFL viewing at the time was restricted to Jets games, I did not like Miami at the time.  The fact that they were playing this Seahawks team that I enjoyed watching the previous week made it easier to pull for Seattle in the New Year’s Eve game.  I knew that like Denver, Miami also had a dynamic rookie quarterback in Dan Marino.  But Seahawks quarterback Dave Krieg had a weapon of his own in wide receiver Steve Largent.  A huge 40-yard completion to Largent late in the game helped set up the go-ahead touchdown for Seattle in the fourth quarter.  The Seahawks tacked on a field goal and upset the heavily-favored Dolphins on the road, 27-20.

I was completely hooked.

Hall of Famer Steve Largent

Although the Seahawks lost the AFC Championship game to the Raiders, 30-14, I had become a fan.  I later found out that this was the first time the Seahawks had made the playoffs in their eight-year existence and felt even better about my choice to become a fan.  I guess you could say I became a bandwagon Seahawks fan during their first-ever playoff run in 1983 without realizing it.  Seattle made the playoffs again in 1984 after finishing the regular season with a then-franchise-best 12-4 record.  But this time, they defeated the Raiders in the wild card game (Denver had won the AFC West with a 13-3 record after Seattle lost its final two games of the regular season) and lost the divisional game to the Dolphins.

In 1986, the team that shared Shea Stadium with the Mets in my pre-Seahawks fan days was now playing its home game in New Jersey.  The Jets, who I kinda sorta rooted for prior to December 24, 1983, got off to a team-record 10-1 start that year while the Seahawks slogged through their schedule with a 5-6 record through their first 11 games.  After not making the playoffs in 1985, it appeared as if the Seahawks were going to miss the playoffs for a second consecutive season.  I had only been a fan (or a “12”, as Seahawks fans are known) for four seasons, but the team I expected to be competitive annually after their 1983 and 1984 playoff runs was testing my loyalty.  “I could have been a fan of the AFC-best Jets, but I decided to root for this team in Seattle who I can’t even see on TV every week”, I would say to myself.  It wasn’t easy being a Seahawks fan in New York in 1986, especially after the Mets had won the World Series and the Jets looked like they were on their way to the Super Bowl.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the playoffs.

The Jets lost their last five games to finish 10-6 and the Seahawks won their final five games to go 10-6 as well.  There was only one problem.  The Jets had defeated the Seahawks during their 10-out-of-11 streak early in the season.  That meant they owned the tiebreaker over Seattle.  The Jets made the playoffs.  The Seahawks made vacation plans.

I hated the Jets then.

Seattle eventually made the playoffs in 1987 (losing the wild card game in overtime to the Houston Oilers) and finally won its first AFC West title in 1988 (losing the divisional playoff game to Cincinnati – damn you, Norm Johnson, for killing the rally by missing an extra point!).  So that was four playoff appearances in six years.  Things were looking up for the Seahawks.  And then everything went downhill.

From 1989 through 1998, the Seahawks failed to make the playoffs every year.  The 1992 team finished the year with a franchise-record 14 losses, but even when they were bad, they weren’t bad enough.  New England got the No. 1 pick in the draft, while Seattle got No. 2.  The Patriots drafted All-Pro quarterback Drew Bledsoe with the top overall pick.  The Seahawks took quarterback Rick Mirer.  Needless to say, New England got the better deal.

I was now entering my second decade as a Seahawks fan.  I had made it through the Tom Flores and Dennis Erickson eras and I even survived Brian Bosworth (even if the Boz couldn’t survive the schooling given to him by Bo Jackson in an infamous Monday Night Football game).  As a Mets fan, I was used to losing seasons, as the team had gone through six straight of those from 1991 to 1996.  But it was hard to say “I’m a Seahawks fan” for a full decade and having people respond with a blunt “why?”.  Of course, being a fan means hanging with your team through the highs and lows.  I was a 12.  And mediocrity was not going to stop me from continuing to be a 12.

Brian Bosworth couldn't stop Bo Jackson, nor could he prevent me from abandoning my loyalty to the Seahawks.

My patience was finally rewarded in 1999 in the form of a second AFC West title.  I had waited 11 years for the Seahawks to play in January again, just like I had for the Mets, who by coincidence ended an 11-year playoff drought in 1999 as well.  Seattle played Miami at the Kingdome in their first home playoff game since 1984, but lost a heartbreaker to Dan Marino and the Dolphins, 20-17.  It would be Marino’s last win as an NFL quarterback.  It would also continue Seattle’s streak of not winning a playoff game to 15 years.

Seattle didn’t make the playoffs again for another four years.  When they did, heartbreak followed.  They lost in Green Bay in overtime after the 2003 season.  Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck told America during the coin flip that “we want the ball and we’re gonna score”, then proceeded to get the ball into the hands of the Packers’ Al Harris, who returned the interception for a season-ending touchdown.  The following year, Hasselbeck kept the ball out of the hands of his opponents during a last-minute drive in the wild card round.  But he couldn’t put the game-tying touchdown in the hands of his own receiver, as Bobby Engram dropped a pass in the end zone on fourth down, giving the St. Louis Rams an unexpected victory in Seattle.

It had now been over two decades since I became a 12.  And after the 1984 season, all I had seen was playoff loss after playoff loss.  Then came the 2005 season.  And 22 years of fandom were finally rewarded.  First, Seattle finished the regular season with a team-record 13 wins.  Then they ended their 21-year winless drought in the playoffs by defeating the Washington Redskins and Carolina Panthers.  The latter win, a 34-14 thrashing, put Seattle in its first Super Bowl.

I had rooted for this team for more than half my life.  And I was finally going to see them play in the ultimate game.  But all my superstitions (standing up for the entire game, makeshift voodoo doll of Ben Roethlisberger, etc.) failed to help the Seahawks win the Super Bowl.  Perhaps I should have sent the referees a box of chocolates instead.  That way, they wouldn’t have bumbled their way through bad call after bad call.  The Seahawks lost Super Bowl XL to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 21-10, and it was back to the drawing board for Seattle and this New-York based 12.

Seattle won division titles in 2006 and 2007, but could only win one playoff game each year, falling to Chicago and Green Bay, respectively.  The team then posted four consecutive losing records (although the 2010 team made the playoffs with a 7-9 mark, then set off seismometers with an unlikely playoff victory over the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints) and it looked like the early 1990s all over again.

Until a man named Russell Wilson was selected in the third round of the 2012 draft.

Through shrewd drafting and a will to win that was instilled by head coach Pete Carroll, the Seahawks started the 2012 season with a 5-4 record heading into their game with the Jets.  Yeah, those Jets.  The same Jets that kept the Seahawks out of the playoffs in 1986.  And the same Jets that also screwed the ‘Hawks in 1998, when Vinny Testaverde scored a “phantom touchdown” by getting his helmet into the end zone in a December game against Seattle but failing to push the ball over the plane of the goal line.  But there was one difference between this game and previous games against the Jets.

It was November 11, 2012, and I was going to this game.

You see, I was turning 40 that week, and my wife decided it would make a fine birthday present for me to finally attend a Seahawks game in person.  We had never been to Seattle and we decided to make a long weekend out of it.  Oh, here’s another factoid about that Seahawks-Jets game.  Did you know my wife was a Jets fan at the time?  Did you also notice how I said “was”?  She stopped being one after the game.  The Seahawks won the game and her heart that day.  Seattle didn’t stop winning until the middle of January.

After we attended the Seahawks-Jets game at CenturyLink Field in 2012, my wife traded in her Jets green for Seahawks blue.


Although the team was knocked out of the playoffs on a last-second field goal in Atlanta, they accomplished a number of things in 2012:

• They ended a streak of four straight sub-.500 seasons, finishing with 11 wins – the third highest win total in franchise history.
• They won their first playoff game on the road since December 31, 1983, which, if you recall, was the first game in which I actively rooted for the Seahawks to win.
• They won over a new fan in my wife, making it easier for me to be a Seahawks fan in New York.
• They planted the seeds for greater success in 2013.

With a little Seattle rain, those seeds grew into the season I waited 30 years for.  Three decades after deciding I was going to root for this team from the Pacific Northwest, they reminded me why I became a fan in the first place.  I went through early success as a fan in the mid-to-late 1980s.  Then I remained a fan through a decade of mediocrity.  Through all the lean years, I never wavered and I never gave up hope that someday I would be rewarded with a Super Bowl title.  I came close to feeling that unbridled joy eight years ago.  I finally got to experience it this past Sunday.

I watched my first Seahawks game on December 24, 1983.  I rooted for the team for the first time a week later.  I waited over 30 years to taste the nectar of victory.  And on February 2, 2014, I finally got that taste.  It was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted.

I became a Mets fan when the team was not very good, but it only took six seasons before they gave me a championship.  I became a Seahawks fan when the team was having its first bout with success.  It took a lot longer to climb to the top of the mountain with them.

It isn’t easy being a 12 in New York.  But it sure is a lot of fun.  And it’s even more fun now that the team has finally won a Super Bowl.  I’ve never been more proud of this team.  Go Hawks – today, tomorrow and forever.

We are the champions, my friend!  (Photo by Ted S. Warren/AP)

Keith, The Mets & Me: A Thirty-Year Love Affair

I became a Mets fan on Memorial Day 1981.  My father wasn't feeling well that day so we had to cancel our annual Memorial Day barbecue, leaving eight-year-old me to find something to do since I was home from school that day.  My ill father was in bed all day, so I decided to lay back on his comfortable-beyond-words recliner and watch TV.  The last person who watched the tube had left it on Channel 9 and since 1981 was the pre-remote control era of television (at least it was in our household), I didn't feel like getting up to physically change the channel, so I just watched was on WOR at the time.  It was a Mets-Phillies game.  And it was beautiful.

The Mets destroyed Philadelphia, showing no brotherly love for their division rivals in a 13-3 romp.  Although many players performed well for the Mets that day (Hubie Brooks, Lee Mazzilli and Joel Youngblood had three hits apiece and Dave Kingman hit a grand slam), it was Mookie Wilson who captured my attention and made me thankful that we weren't a remote control household.  Mookie reached base four times that day (two hits, two walks).  He also scored three runs and drove in two.  After leading off the game with a walk, Mookie proceeded to swipe second and scored the first of the Mets' four runs in that inning.  It was the first time I had been exposed to Mookie's baserunning abilities, and I was utterly amazed.  Six innings later, Mookie crushed a long drive to center off former Met Tug McGraw that went for a two-run triple.  His gazzelle-like speed mesmerized the eight-year-old me to the point where I checked the TV guide (I had to get off the couch eventually) for when the next Mets game was going to be aired on WOR.

Less than three weeks after discovering Mookie and the Mets, baseball went on strike.  For two months, I couldn't indulge in my new passion - my New York Mets passion, that is.  Fortunately, my father recovered from his illness and we were able to have many barbecues to pass the time during baseball's two-month hiatus.  Baseball returned to my TV screen in August, and I quickly eschewed burgers and hot dogs on the grill for Mookie and the Mets on my grill.

Run, Mookie, Run!

Although my father hails from Puerto Rico, an island paradise that loves its baseball, he has never been much of a sports fan.  He knows the object of the game, but can't differentiate between an infield fly and an unzipped fly.  So naturally, you can imagine how difficult it was for me to get him to take me to a Mets game at Shea Stadium.  Every conversation would start the same way ("We're not doing anything this weekend, right?  Can you get us tickets for this game?") and unfortunately, they would also end the same way ("No.").  It took over two years for me to finally make it out to Shea to meet the Mets, meet the Mets, step right up and greet the Mets.  And when I did, it was because my Little League team went as a group.  The date was June 15, 1983 - thirty years ago today - and it became a memorable day not just for the then ten-year-old me, but for all Mets fans.

When we got to the game, I remember how disappointed I was that Mookie Wilson was not in the starting lineup (Danny Heep took Mookie's place as the leadoff hitter and centerfielder for the game.  It was only the second time all year that Mookie wasn't in the starting lineup for the Mets.)  My fleet-footed hero didn't start, but Craig Swan did, taking the mound for the Mets against future Hall-of-Famer Ferguson Jenkins.  Unfortunately, Swan was not graceful that night.  By the time I got back from my second bathroom break in the second inning (my Little League teammates were not amused that I kept stepping on their feet every time I tried to squeeze by them in our upper deck seats), Swan was out of the game and the Mets were down 4-0.

The bullpen pitched very well after Swan’s early exodus and the Mets rallied to tie the game.  Mookie did pinch-hit in the fifth inning, but struck out against Jenkins, denying me the opportunity to see him fly around the bases.  Of course, his one-day replacement in center field, Danny Heep, followed Wilson's strikeout with the game-tying hit, causing my Little League teammates to tease me by saying that Heep was going to be the centerfielder of the future.  I'm glad they were wrong.

Neither team scored after Heep knotted the game, necessitating extra innings and causing some of the parents and chaperones to wonder if they should take the kids home.  They decided to stick around for the tenth, but told us all that if the game went to the 11th, we would have to leave.  We did get to see the game to its conclusion, but it wasn't the conclusion I wanted.  The Mets lost the game to the Chicago Cubs in ten innings by the score of 7-4.  An error by first baseman Rusty Staub and a timely bunt by Bill Buckner set the Cubs up for their big inning and my bigger disappointment.  But errors by Mets' first basemen were about to become a thing of the past, thanks to a brilliant trade engineered by general manager Frank Cashen.

A Gold Glove, a sweet swing, a killer 'stache.  Keith Hernandez brought it all to the table.

Earlier in the evening, the Mets announced that they had acquired first baseman Keith Hernandez from the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in a trade for pitchers Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey.  I remember how happy the sparse crowd of 11,631 was when the announcement was flashed on DiamondVision.  I also remember how confused I was that the biggest cheer of the night was reserved for the “big TV screen in left field” rather than the events taking place on the field.  But as the years went by and my love of the Mets grew, I realized just how special Keith Hernandez truly was, both as a player and as a team leader.

As you all know, the trade for Keith Hernandez set off a chain of events that led to a World Series championship three years later (a World Series that turned my man Mookie into a Mets legend for all time).  Hernandez's arrival gave instant credibility to the languishing franchise, although it took until the following season for that off-the-field credibility to translate into on-the-field wins.

In hindsight, it didn’t matter that the Mets lost on June 15, 1983.  It was one of 94 games they lost that season anyway.  That day was important to me for more than just a game.  That day began my love affair with Shea Stadium and my subsequent appreciation of Keith Hernandez.  I should have known the Mets had acquired someone special when I listened to the sweet voice of Bob Murphy after the game during the radio post-game show when he said “the Mets lost the game tonight, but they have gained a superstar.”  Thirty years ago today, the magic that was the Mets entered my life.  It has never left.