Perhaps Tuesday night’s Calvinball exhibition [1] stunned the Mets and Royals into dizziness. Maybe it left them feeling abashed. Possibly it was a bit of both.
Whatever the reason, the two teams played a baseball game that was relatively quiet and normal for most of Wednesday night. Christian Scott [2] was good albeit not in a particularly efficient manner, turning in five scoreless innings before Tobias Myers [3] yielded a game-tying run in the sixth. (I’ll cut Myers a little slack: It was driven in by Salvador Perez [4], who does that, and Myers wiggled out of further trouble in the seventh.) Meanwhile A.J. Ewing [5] led off the bottom of the first with a line-drive home run off opener Steven Cruz [6] but the Mets then did nothing against bulk guy Randy Dobnak [7], leaving the game tied 1-1 with two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the eighth.
Which was when Calvinball re-entered the story: Alex Lange [8] allowed a single to Francisco Lindor [9], walked Carson Benge [10], and surrendered a little bouncer to Jorge Polanco [11] that Lange and Jac Caglianone [12] played into an infield hit. That brought Jared Young [13] to the plate with the bases loaded, and on 2-2 Lange clipped him in the elbow with a slider to give the Mets the lead. Up came Brett Baty [14], who spanked a changeup over the infield for two more runs. Enter Jose Cuas [15], whose first pitch went to the backstop for another run and whose sixth pitch becamse a little parachute that brought in yet one more.
The Mets led 6-1, and turned the ball over to newcomer Xzavion Curry [16], who replaced Met for a Day Matt Seelinger [17], who replaced Met for a Day Guillo Zuniga [18]. Curry gave up a run but struck out Bobby Witt Jr. [19] to end it [20]; the Mets are apparently recalling Dan Hammer [21] for Thursday’s matinee, so Curry may well be the fourth straight mayfly Met middle reliever.
My advice for Hammer: Don’t unpack.
* * *
You may recall that I’ve started playing a game I call Cap Bingo. The rules are simple [22]: During each month of baseball season, you try to spot caps (or other gear) from all 30 MLB teams in the wild.
Medical stuff and travel has meant a slow start to July’s game, but boy did Citi Field help out on Wednesday night. There were Royals fans, of course, which was welcome as the Royals are a moderately hard spot in NYC Cap Bingo. But there were also caps and jerseys and shirts for plenty of teams that had nothing to do with the game.
There were Yankee fans looking snooty and pleased with themselves, as they generally do. There were scattered Dodgers caps, as Dodgers fans are everywhere now, and Phillies and Red Sox sightings. But then there were the weird ones. I saw at least four fans in Astros garb, which … no idea, actually. I spotted multiple Orioles fans, including one in an ALONSO jersey. (If you were a Mets fan, sir, that’s a lot of money for spite.) There were two different Mariners sightings, a much-loved Expos hat (counts for the Nationals), and an old-school Cardinals top. And, on the trip back from Citi Field, I spotted a guy in a purple and yellow YOUNT jersey, followed in the Times Square subway station by the capper: a Colorado Rockies City Connect 2.0 jersey.
The Rockies and the Texas Rangers are the hardest squares in NYC Cap Bingo; both are basically impossible to spot unless they’re the visiting team. And yet someone attended a midweek Mets-Royals game in a Rockies City Connect jersey — and not even the good design, but its second-rate replacement.
The world is truly full of wonders.
* * *
I was at the game as part of a work outing, so high and far away in section 529 that the Mets were little dots and all the action was below me, smushed into two dimensions. Only the best-struck balls made a detectable sound, giving the game a strange pantomime quality.
This wouldn’t be my choice for regular viewing, but as a one-off it had a certain charm, offering a chance to study the shifting geometries of the fielders. You could tell by the Mets’ and Royals’ positioning and pace when a ground ball was of little concern or a fly ball was ticketed for a glove, and you could see both pattern and routine break down when a ball’s path meant trouble.
The game was sleepy for most of its duration, so the roster of my colleagues kept shrinking, down to two and then one and then none at all — I had the upper reaches of 529 to myself as the Royals did ill-advised things with baseballs and the Xzavion Curry era began. (And, perhaps, ended.)
Again, not the way I’d always like to attend a ballgame, but for one night it felt perfectly nice.
I don’t miss much about Shea Stadium — I often described it as a DMV that happened to have baseball played in it — but one thing I do miss is the ramps between levels, and how we’d form a joyous mob on them after a big win, cutting this way and that while chanting LET’S GO METS!
Citi Field mostly has staircases instead of ramps, with one exception: the switchback ramp that descends from the left-field corner all the way to the street. It isn’t the same as Shea — it’s far more open to the outside than the old yard’s ramps, and if you start descending from the Promenade you’re under open sky. Not as good for chanting, but you do get a gorgeous view: If you move your head from left to right you take in Manhattan in the distance, then Flushing Bay with LaGuardia across the water, and lastly the Whitestone and the Throgs Neck against the sky.
I had that view to myself, with the Mets having won, and as I cut back and forth I may have offered it a quiet little Let’s Go Mets.