A Happiest ‘Hi’ at High Noon

You are cordially invited to join your Faith and Fear family at Foley’s NY (18 W. 33rd St., between Fifth and Sixth Avenues) this Saturday, December 15, from noon to 2 PM, to celebrate the launch of The Happiest Recap book series.

The Happiest Recap is the four-volume history that details the New York Mets’ first 50 years through the prism of 500 Amazin’ wins. The first book, subtitled First Base: 1962-1973, covers roughly the first quarter of the Mets story — the most memorable, most fascinating, most intriguing and most deserving of being hauled out of subconscious-storage wins our ballclub put on the board during its wonder years. I call it the Mets Classic period, when everything we know about the objects of our affection were established in blue and orange ink. To quote from the introductory section of First Base:

When you can’t help but love the Mets, when you can’t help but wait on the Mets, when you can’t help but dream for the Mets, when you can’t help but put up with the Mets and when you can’t help but keep faith in the Mets, that’s the legacy of 1962 through 1973 come to life. The Mets are what they are in large part because of who they were at their start.

Future volumes will touch Second Base (1974-1986), round Third Base (1987-1999) and come sliding into Home (2000 & Beyond). Right now, we have First Base, and as Casey Stengel indicated to his players on the very first day of the very first Mets Spring Training when he took them on a tour of the diamond, you gotta get to first base before you can score.

And you will score a marvelous afternoon of baseball in December when you join us at Foley’s at noon on Saturday. Copies of First Base will be available for purchase and signing. The price will be $15 for one copy, $25 for two (because The Happiest Recap makes a great gift for you and the Mets fan in your life). A portion of proceeds from all on-site book sales Saturday will be devoted to helping fulfill the East School Wish List on Amazon. East School — the elementary school I wrote about in reflecting upon my visits to my hometown of Long Beach before and after Superstorm Sandy — absorbed a great deal of damage from the hurricane and needs all kinds of new supplies as a result. I hope this helps in some way.

Besides books and facetime with the author, there will be a drink special, appetizers of some sort, good Mets fellowship and all the baseball talk one can ask for as winter sets in. It will also be, per the insistence of my dear friend Sharon (who spurred the organizing of this event), a begrudging acknowledgement of my forthcoming 50th birthday, though consider The Happiest Recap the guest of honor and me its chaperone.

I hope to see you there and share a couple of Metsian hours in the middle of December. If you can’t make it, remember The Happiest Recap (First Base: 1962-1973) is available on Amazon in plenty of time for any holiday you like. As one Mets fan to another, whenever you got caught up in this thing of ours, I know you’ll enjoy the hell out of it.