Written By Mairead Carr,
You can read more of her work at her website In The World Of Mimi
When I was little, my dad would occasionally sneak downstairs to get away from the madness that was a house with four girls to watch a Mets game.
I remember one day when I went looking for him and found him sitting on the couch with a beer in his hand, watching the television.
I remember asking him what he was doing as I sat on the floor in front of him, and he started to explain the game of baseball to me. He told me just the basics and explained each play as the game unfolded.
It seemed confusing to me at first, but about once a week for the rest of that summer, my dad and I would spend at least half the game together, and in the process, making me a diehard Mets fan.
The Mets went to the World Series in 2000. I was still young during that series, so I wasn’t allowed to stay up to watch all the games in their entirety, but I remember the feeling of being let down when I was told the morning after that the Yankees took the rings home with them.
Six years later, the Mets were on yet another pennant race. I was old enough to watch through the last out, but since I was just barely a teenager, my parents didn’t want me staying up too late. My parents went away for the second half of the NLCS on business or a getaway, and my dad wanted to make sure I would go to bed on time while they were away.
He told me I could stay up for the games, but only if I listened to them on the radio next to his bed. He told me that that was how he used to spend his time with the Mets growing up, and I think he wanted me to have the same experience as he had.
I remember everything about the last call of that game, about how Carlos Beltran walked up to the plate with the bases loaded with two out in the 9th, and the sound of my heart breaking when Adam Wainwright threw that curveball over for a strike to end our run.
I called my dad in tears, and he sent me off to bed, dismayed that his boyhood team wasn’t going to win this one and saddened that he gave his daughter one of the hardest teams to root for in baseball.
I kept watching, hoping that our day was soon to come. Over the next few seasons, I watched the Mets collapse into ruin. Everything that could go wrong did, from disappearing division leads in 2007 and 2008, to an unbelievable amount of injuries in 2009 and 2010.
The Mets were in shambles, and all I could do about it was watch my favorite team lose everyday. In 2011, I watched the team turn it around and I was overly optimistic about the 2012 season. I thought this team had more guts than analysts were giving them credit for and I believed that in their 51st season, the Mets would be Amazin’ once again.
Yesterday was June 1st. Yesterday the Mets proved to Mets fans everywhere that this is the single best team to root for in all of baseball. Even a comparison to another team or fan-base would be insulting.
I watched every pitch, every out, and every play of that game. My dad, who’s been beaten down so much since he fell in love with this team years ago and still in pain from that single that broke up Tom Seaver’s perfect game, was sitting in another room for two-thirds of the game until I called him in to watch the rest of the game with me.
I had never felt more confident that tonight was our night. Johan Santana was a warrior. He is one of the few who could come off of major shoulder surgery and a year off from baseball and remain the ace of a team. On our 8,020th game, our ace Santana threw a change-up on for his 134th pitch of the night to strikeout the World Series MVP David Freese to no-hit the hottest team in baseball and for the first no-hitter in Mets history.
Like any good sports game, there were a few missed calls, but for Mets fans the game was perfect any way you cut it. The no-hitter couldn’t happen at a better time to a better player. Mets catcher Josh Thole was just activated off the DL that day and got to be a part of the battery that will live in on forever.
Mike Baxter, the kid who finally got a chance to play for his hometown team, sacrificed himself to make a heroic catch in the 7th to help Santana hold onto this game.
Everything about that game was the best way to give the Mets their long-awaited no-hitter. As we cheered in the living room about the wait finally being over, my dad was beaming while looking at the giant goofy smile that nothing could get off my face.
I’m sure he was thinking about all the games he watched when this didn’t happen, but I think he was also remembering holding me and teaching that little girl the game of baseball years before. I was thinking about it too, and how all the pain we have gone through as Mets fans has been erased.
I’ll never be able to thank my dad enough for teaching me the magic of baseball, and I don’t think he knows how to thank me for sticking with it, but I think Johan Santana gave us each of us the “you’re welcome” neither of us can say.
