How can a moment like this not bring a die-hard Mets fan to tears?
One of my all-time favorite sports movies is “A League of Their Own”, which chronicled the installation of women’s baseball during World War 2 in order to keep the nation’s spirits up while many of the professional men’s players were away fighting. From reading a little about the actual history, the movie was pretty dead-on accurate, only really changing the names for the movie (i.e. Wrigley chewing gum became Harvey candy bars; Wrigley Field became Harvey Field, etc.). One of the coolest things about that movie was that the tryout scenes were actually filmed IN Wrigley Field. But I digress…
Friday night was historic, there is no doubt, and like many other Mets fans, I watched Johan’s final strike, accompanied by Gary Cohen’s call, over and over and over, a grin on my face so wide I thought my face would burst. I was also sobbing like a fool.
Was it 50 years of waiting for the Mets to make no-hitter history? Considering I wasn’t even born when the Mets first formed in 1962, for me the answer is no. For me, it was the sheer joy of watching history being made, all of the Mets on the field burst into celebration, and watching Johan Santana and Terry Collins fight back tears as they hugged each other afterwards. I cried anew each time they showed the final out, I cried watching Johan pat his chest at the fans in thanks, I cried watching Terry Collins cry in the press conference afterwards, where he told Kevin Burkhardt that he did indeed tell Johan that he was Collins’ hero.
Which brings me to Terry. How can you not love this guy? You can see it on his face every day. He genuinely CARES about his guys. Just watching him in tormented agony on Friday as to whether he was going to do Johan harm by leaving him in (Santana finished the game at a career-high 134 pitches), and then realize he just didn’t have the heart to take him out. He wanted him to finish what he started, to make Mets history and to bring unbridled joy to Queens for the first time in many years.
Moments like these are what make sports great. Don’t be afraid to shed a few tears for your teams…it’s what being a true fan is all about.
