Make them play it again, 2-2, with the Dodgers out in the seventh

As a Mets fan, I was livid from the moment Chase Utley knocked over Ruben Tejada somewhere around second base Saturday night. As a baseball fan, I was appalled how the umpires called the Dodgers’ runner safe on an appeal that the Mets’ shortstop’s toe came up a smidge short of touching the bag before…

Planely speaking, Citi Field was on the right path

On the inbound path to Citi Field, my dear wife Karen and I along with fellow New York Mets lover and good friend Steve Vicik Jr. and his lovely wife Kristen passed a whole lot of access to La Guardia Airport. Yes, Flushing Meadows is right next to one of the Big Apple’s major air…

Plenty of neat places at Mets’ Citi Field

The first time my dear wife Karen and I caught a game at Citi Field, they won behind a one-hitter by R.A. Dickey, the day after Johann Santana pitched the first and still only no-hitter in our beloved New York Mets’ history. But that was on a tour bus trip from Syracuse just a little…

Wet, those six innings were

We enjoyed the five hours we spent at Citi Field in Flushing, N.Y. this past Saturday, my dear wife Karen and I with our New York Mets-loving friend Steve Vicik Jr. and his lovely wife Kristen. But it was wet. How rainy was it as our Mets and the Cincinnati Reds played to that 1-1…

Wow, the Mets have memories

You walk into the main entrance of the New York Mets’ Citi Field and into the Rotunda. There’s an elaborate tribute to Jackie Robinson, the first to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Many considered these Metropolitans to be a replacement for his Brooklyn Dodgers, who’d left for Los Angeles, when they were…

What do you get when you put Mets fans together?

From six years of bowling on the same team with Steve Vicik Jr., I knew that my fellow Mets fan and his wife Kristen would be great traveling partners to hop in my Chevy Cruze with my dear wife Karen and I for the daylong journey from Syracuse to Citi Field on Saturday. Steve lived…

A rainy road trip to Citi Field

I bought the four tickets to see our New York Mets play the Cincinnati Reds online two months ago, so my dear wife Karen, my great friend and bowling teammate Steve Vicik Jr. and his wife Kristen were sort of excited when our Saturday in June finally rolled around. Rain in the forecast for the…

I tip my hat to the new Mets pitcher

I have beefed before in these parts for my relative distaste for the new flat-brimmed baseball hat. Give me the curved crown and tradition, please and thank you. I realize that the bigger, flatter brim is the thing around the world, and is worn, well, everywhere you look. I see it taking up more and…

Does a major league player deserve paternity leave?

Daniel Murphy missed the first two games of the New York Mets baseball season. He took paternity leave because his wife delivered their first child early on opening day. He gets three days off to share in the joyful family milestone. It’s written into the agreement between management and the players union. And yet there’s…