Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Our Town

I discussed with Eric after the game Sunday night whether I could use this as my title even though the Mets failed to sweep, and he said no. I have defied them. The Empire State Building has the Mets' colors and whether we won 2 of 3 or all 3, right now this is clearly a Mets town. For the 1st time ever, the Mets were clearly the better team headed into the Subway Series and the pressure was on them to take 2 out of 3; and they did. And, of course, none of it came easy. A 3-2 win Friday night in possibly the quickest game ever played, followed by what should have been an easy win until Wagner gave us a scare as his custom to do with 4 run leads in the 9th inning of the Saturday game. (As an aside, anyone who thinks Wagner was trying to protect his ERA with that bonehead play is a moron. You are absolutely out of your mind, Abe.) And then going for the sweep on Sunday, the Mets fell into last season's trap, as they couldn't get anything going against a pitcher making his major league debut and John Maine stunk again.
For me the Subway Series is as close as we get to a playoff atmosphere before October. The energy in the stadium is incredible, as the crowd hangs on every pitch. Much like the playoffs, these games are the only times I find myself counting outs in my head whenever the Mets have a lead. But there is something about this series I had never really thought about: Why is it called the "Subway Series?" This was the question asked of me by a Japanese tourist who was visiting NY outside the stadium, as I walked to my car. He was confused because they call it the Subway Series despite the fact that it seems many of the fans used their cars to get to and from the game. I explained that I thought that the subway was considered to be a defining characteristic of NY and that the stadiums each have subway lines that connect to them. Eric confirmed that this was the correct analysis as did Wikipedia. Still, I found it interesting that I had so naturally referred to Mets-Yankees games as the Subway Series for 10 years without ever stopping to think about why it was called that. Maybe the real reason is so that Japanese tourists would ask questions.
Total Mets' games attended: 10
Record: 6-4 (4-4 at home)
Money spent on games: $85
Total games attended: 13 (6 total stadiums)
Money spent on all games: $127

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