The baseball itself was secondary. I loved our family outings to Shea Stadium -- the old guys with the orange mittens to wipe off our pale yellow seats, the regulars a few rows in front of us who showed up at every game, armed with signs, the hot dogs and pizza that dulled my disinterest in the game. On school nights, I would disappear into my room to do "homework" with one eye on the little Sony television my dad had gotten through some bank promotion. No hot dogs, but still, the Mets were my team.
The loyalty barriers in New York are a not as sharply defined as geographical divide between Cubs and Sox fans, but I don't recall knowing any Yankees fans. For years I thought there were only two kinds of beer -- Reingold at Shea ("my beer, the dry beer"), and my father's green bottles of Heineken at home. And my brother was the coolest big brother ever, with his weathered mitt at the ready and his laser focus on entering every stat in the free program. More hot dogs for me.
My thinking on a lot of things has changed over the years, but despite having lived most of my adult life in Chicago, and even acknowledging a split in my loyalties, I still refer to myself as a Mets fan. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. The sparkling Citifield may have good eats, but it doesn't hold a candle to the old, gritty Shea. I can still remember the '69 roster, but probably couldn't name a 2016 Met without phoning a friend. I can still taste the hot dogs, still hear my mother warning me I was going to get sick.
This year, though, I am feeling the pull of my post-childhood nostalgia, stoked, to be sure, by the Mets' untimely elimination. I can still hear the not too distant roar from Wrigley Field outside my apartment on Chicago's north side. I remember the excitement of attending the first night game. As always, the baseball itself was secondary. It was more about the hot dogs, and even more about the news I had received that day, that I was pregnant with my first child. A child who, coincidentally, has always had Cubbie blood running through her veins. A child who is flying in this Sunday to attend a post season game, with me.
Sure, I am excited about the game, and the prospect of the Cubs finally winning the World Series, and even the hot dogs. I can and will embrace the Cubs without ambivalence. But forgive me if it's not really about the baseball, and mostly about spending this day with the young lady who, 28 years ago, as a small cluster of cells filled with endless possiblity, attended the first night game with me, her dad, and her uncle, the die hard Mets fan who has always found a place in his heart for his nieces' and nephew's beloved team.
Endless possibility. That little cluster of cells has exceeded my wildest dreams. Maybe this year, Cubs fans, my adopted team will do the same.
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