Grading on the Curve

Years ago, after too many not-yet-spring days spent at Shea watching it rain, waiting in horrible lines for bad coffee or both, my wife instituted a rule: No ballpark visits before May. In recent years, as I’ve become older and grumpier and more fragile, I’ve made her rule my own. I hope Opening Day is lovely, but I’ll see you when the trees have green leaves and the conversation is about returning the heaviest coats to the back of the closet.

So I was surprised bordering on shocked when Emily looked at the weather report and said it was going to be 60 and sunny on Saturday and we ought to go to the game. Off to StubHub I went, and at 1:40 pm we were sitting down the third base line in abundant sunshine, waiting to see how the Mets might fare in a second go-round with the Milwaukee Brewers.

The answer? Not to our satisfaction, though we’ll get to that. And maybe stick an asterisk or two on the verdict. We’ll get to that too.

One of the joys of the early baseball season is a simple one: getting used to the world reorienting itself around the game. Your nights and scattered afternoons are booked. Your phone alerts and Google searches return to looking up schedules and checking on prospects and fretting over medical reports. The first time back at the park is like that too, whether the visit comes in May or (gulp) late March: Is there going to be a 7 express? How do we do this again? And do the old routines, once remembered, still apply? Is there a byzantine new rule about things you can or cannot bring into the ballpark? Are there new displays? Attractions? Things to eat?

We got ourselves to the ballpark just fine (no 7 express though) and found the lineup now announces itself on video boards as you ascend the escalator. (A little gaudy but not bad.) The Mets museum has been relocated to beyond center field in favor of a far larger team store. (Eh, commerce gonna commerce.) We found some birra tacos and sweet corn (tasty), drank a cider and a beer and then got down to witnessing the business on the field.

From where I was down the third-base line I had no idea that Luis Severino‘s location was lousy, which it was — all I saw was baseballs struck by Brewers not finding their way into the right gloves at the right time. A lot of the contact was soft early — even the newly villainous Rhys Hoskins‘ first-inning double was more about location than velocity — but the later contact was not soft at all. When Hoskins connected in the third I didn’t even bother watching the ball’s flight, but just said a bad word and kicked at the cement.

The Mets fought back in fits and starts, with Francisco Alvarez socking a no-doubter home run in the second and high-stepping around the bases like a show pony, a sight that always makes me laugh and that I’d sorely missed. But the Brewers just kept pouring it on, with their crisp defense a sharp contrast to the Mets’ sloppiness, and by the time Severino was excused further misadventures I was just hoping someone in blue and orange would put some lipstick on this pig.

Lo and behold, the last three innings turned out to be pretty exciting.

The headline, inevitably, is that Yohan Ramirez threw behind Hoskins, a blatant bit of retaliation that earned him an ejection and a standing ovation from a crowd heartily sick of a steady diet of crow served up by our new least favorite former Phillie. The cheers for the heretofore anonymous Ramirez made me think back to Yoan Lopez earning plaudits from his teammates two Aprils ago for buzzing Nolan Arenado after Cardinal pitchers kept hitting Mets with baseballs. But I also needed to look up the details to remember Lopez had been the earner of said plaudits — my brain supplied “guy who was Adonis Medina before Adonis Medina.” Which, ehhh, really isn’t wrong.

As for the rest of the contretemps, I was amused to see Carlos Mendoza peddle the inevitable “no intent, pitch just got away” bullshit like a 10-year veteran skipper. Nothing that’s happened in the last two days has struck me as news: Rhys Hoskins straddles the hard to define but very real line between “hard-nosed competitor” and “kind of a dick;” Jeff McNeil‘s incessant chirping doesn’t endear him to his fellow players (ambush Francisco Lindor with some truth serum and see what information you return with); teams will protect their own and then swear, wide-eyed as choir boys, that they did no such thing; and retribution is pretty cold comfort when you’re getting your brains beat in.

When Adam Ottavino let in yet another run in the eighth I just sighed, and even let myself be mildly amused by Ottavino’s Eeyore demeanor, which is his affect even when things go well. Who knew that said run would turn out to be kind of important?

An amusing Fry family factoid: My mother watches every game, lives and dies on every pitch, and loves the Mets. But she cannot stand Brett Baty, whose serial failings draw a cold stare and a scornful “chew some more bubble gum, Baty.” So when Baty stepped into the box against Hoby Milner in the eighth I just shook my head, knowing my mother wouldn’t grade Baty on the curve for having to come off the bench to face a guy who’s not only a lefty but also a sidearmer. I still have no idea how Baty did what he did, but after he finished circling the bases I texted my mom a bunch of exclamation points, which she replied to with an only mildly grudging “OK Brett. Take a bow.”

Edwin Diaz entered to pitch the ninth, which was a nice moment even if a) he didn’t look his sharpest and b) there’s always something a little embarrassing about closer pomp and circumstance when there’s nothing to save. Though I must confess that when Diaz faced Hoskins I had a dreadful vision: Diaz would drill Hoskins, there’d be a brawl, and Diaz would emerge from it with his knee busted again — maybe the same knee, maybe the other knee, hell why not both knees? This is the kind of thing one imagines telling a therapist who’d then suggest that there are 29 other baseball teams and surely not all of them go about their business attended by an apparently permanent black cloud.

The bottom of the ninth saw the Mets get to within 7-6 but no closer, but that was another little personal victory: the one run (when we needed two) came on a Pete Alonso homer into the left-field stands, not a classic high arcing shot but a line drive whose destination was never in doubt. I’ve long mourned never seeing an Alonso homer live, which actually isn’t true: Greg (who knows these things) tells me I have seen one, though he allowed that it required replay review. I’ve now unambiguously and undeniably seen the Polar Bear doing what he was put on this earth to do, and it made me happy even when Starling Marte swung through a slider a few minutes later and it was time to go home.

The Mets lost, but they’re playing baseball again, Emily and I got to sit in the sun and see that baseball right in front of us, and the game was not without its pleasures and even offered a few surprises. Besides the ones covered, did you know the Mets now offer the 50-50 raffle? When I first encountered a 50-50 raffle at some park now forgotten I assumed it was an amusing local tradition; it took me a while to understand it’s a ballpark thing pretty much everywhere except New York. Now that that’s changed, there was no question that I was in for five tickets (or that I wouldn’t win, but oh well).

The Mets also inexplicably decided not to rig the ballpark singalong vote, leading to the man-bites-dog sight of “Piano Man” coming in behind the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.” To be honest, “Mr. Brightside” moves at too speedy a clip to work as a singalong, plus everybody thinks they know the words but they actually don’t. No matter: It’s not “Piano Man,” which I’d rather be waterboarded than have to listen to. The Mets lost, but I was spared having to endure my least favorite song, and that’s not a bad way to start the year, even if other statistics point to work that needs to be done.