The Last Time (This Time)

I finally got to the point I wish I could hurry along to in bad Mets seasons: the moment where the disappointment and anger drain away, I’m just sad things didn’t go better, and I remember that I should try to enjoy what little season is left.

On Wednesday night Emily and I used the last two ticket vouchers I had left over from one the summer’s many rainouts, which the Mets rather decently allowed to be exchanged for much better seats than the ones I lost out on that night. So we sat somewhere new to me — down the left field line, not far beyond the pole where the protective netting ends — to watch the Mets tangle with their age-old, endlessly frustrating nemeses the Miami Marlins.

(By the way, I don’t particularly recommend that swath of seats. They aren’t angled quite correctly and the rise between rows feels smaller than it is elsewhere, meaning a lot more craning your neck to look around inattentive/rude/large people’s heads in front of you so you can actually see the batter.)

Despite my equanimity about what’s become of the season, the night didn’t go particularly well. First off, we were surrounded by a crowd that was amazingly uninterested in the fact that there was a baseball game in their midst — they were busy talking over each other, corralling wayward children, standing up to get drinks, not sitting down after getting drinks, taking selfies, looking at their phones, talking about what they’d seen on their phones, talking about getting more drinks, standing around dotting i’s and crossing t’s about the getting more drinks process … you get the idea. To check if I was exaggerating — which I’ll admit happens now and again — sometime in the third inning I asked Emily to look around and locate someone who was actually paying attention to the game, and she couldn’t.

Granted, it was the Mets and Marlins with garbage time upon them, so the stakes weren’t particularly high. Still, Taijuan Walker was out there pitching a very fine game, with all of his pitches working in ways they mostly haven’t in the season’s second half, and Michael Conforto broke the stalemate with a missile of a home run into the center-field seats, 469 feet away — the longest home run hit by a Met in 2021, we were told. Bryan de la Cruz didn’t even bother turning around after Conforto made contact; Conforto bashed forearms with Pete Alonso and beamed in a way he hadn’t in some time. Some of our neighbors even took brief notice.

Walker soldiered on into the eighth and gave way to Seth Lugo, one of too many Mets to go from asset to liability in 2021. Lugo surrendered a run-scoring double to cut the Mets’ lead to 2-1, struck out pinch-hitter Nick Fortes, and then gave up a little parachute single over the infield to Miguel Rojas that scored two, erasing the Mets’ lead and Walker’s chance for a win. Rojas was tagged out trying to advance to second; as the Mets trudged off the field “Piano Man” started to play, and if I didn’t already detest that song, well, that juxtaposition probably would have done the trick.

It was 3-2, but it felt like 30-2, and that was the way my final in-person look at the 2021 Mets ended. Still, it was a crisp and clear fall night, there was Mister Softee with blue and orange sprinkles, we got Seinfeld shirts, and there was even baseball in the middle of all that — even if most of our seatmates seemed at best peripherally aware of that last fact. The baseball part didn’t go the way I would have wanted it to, but hey, welcome to the 2021 Mets season. Given the brewing labor war, I have no idea when I’ll see the Mets again, or what the team will look like when I do. But I’ll be glad when I do.

Maybe they’ll even win.