DEADHEAD STICKER ON A CADILLAC

Late in 1984 I abandoned the unexamined life.

By 1985, one of the things that came under reconsideration was my lifelong love of baseball.

For the first time since I was a few steps out of toddlerhood, my beloved Mets were playing meaningful baseball.

Keith Hernandez came over from the Cardinals, Darryl Strawberry emerged with a colorful name and a long loping lefthanded stroke, and Dwight Gooden arrived as a force of nature.

The team finished second to the Cubs in 1984, and with the off-season importing of Gary Carter from across the northern border, 1985 was shaping up to be special.

But early in the season, I could not find any real enthusiasm in my heart. I could not reconcile the absurdity of having my emotional temperature regulated by the performance of a bunch of well-paid athletes.

As the season wore on, I made my peace with the notion, and quickly reembraced the sport and the team.

By September, I was spending evenings sitting in my car in a hurricane-ravaged parking lot, my apartment without power for 10 days, listening on the radio to key pennant race games.

The 1985 team came up short to the Cardinals. In 1986, the Mets won 108 games, and played a couple of memorable game 6’s on their way to the World Series title.

And now tonight, in a conflation of 1985 and 1986, the team is again facing the prospect of losing out to the Cardinals, this time in a playoff environment, in the arena of another game 6.

My intellect tells me that there are no miracles in store this year. Or rather, that the miracles might belong to the Cardinals, and ultimately, the Tigers. The Mets’ pitching staff has taken some critical hits of late, and a number of the key young players on offense are clearly tired from the strain of the longest season in their young lives.

So if heartbreak is necessary, it won’t be acute. I am ready for it.

Let’s go Mets.

Let us go Mets...