"The Mets didn't play ball in October, and I learned to be OK with that, despite dedicating my waking hours from late March through late September to their ultimately insufficient quest to play ball in October. Maturity being what it is, I grew distant enough from the grating, granular shortfalls of the 2025 season to allow that losing out on a playoff spot by a tiebreaker is sometimes just how the ball bounces (or gets lodged at the base of an outfield wall)."
"Had I mentioned that, it likely would have earned me a pair of stares before the conversation quickly pivoted somewhere else, probably toward that episode of Welcome Back, Kotter where Vinnie Barbarino murmurs, "gimme drugs, gimme drugs," over and over to howls from the studio audience. However one sorted the technicalities of longest and oldest, it was an overdue meetup, as they all are at this stage in life, and like all our too-rare get-togethers, I couldn't tell you what we talked about, exactly."
A Mets fan accepted the team's absence from October play after dedicating waking hours from late March through late September to their season. Maturity softened the sting of granular 2025 shortfalls, allowing acceptance that losing a playoff spot by a tiebreaker can be arbitrary. The fan spent October enjoying other teams, friends, and non-baseball conversations. During a lull between the ALCS and World Series, the fan met two longtime friends at a Long Island diner. The meetup brimmed with nostalgia, comic references to Welcome Back, Kotter, and fuzzy recall of exact topics. Shared humor and companionship provided consolation beyond game results.
Read at Faithandfearinflushing
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]