I still remember like yesterday the day Darryl Strawberry left the Mets for the Dodgers. I was waiting to get a haircut in fifth grade when the news on the television at the barber shop told me Darryl had jumped ship. I melted out of my chair and sank to my knees.
Straw was my first sports love; it was as if my best friend had moved away. (That actually happened a couple years later, and I don’t recall it hitting me nearly as hard as losing Darryl.)
Going through that was rough when I was 11, but it was a necessary lesson about two years into being a sports fan: Nothing lasts forever. Players leave, teams change, eras come and go. I eventually came to grips with it – years later, I even bought a Dodgers Strawberry jersey.
Now somewhat jaded at 32, with Dan Marino and Patrick Ewing and LeBron James the Cavalier in my rearview mirror, this sort of thing honestly doesn’t faze me anymore. Our teams are inextricable parts of our identities, but the players on them shuttle in and out like friends from various chapters in our lives.
As such, I always just have to shake my head at people’s knee-jerk reactions when a star player leaves for another team. If you’re 12, sure, it’s a crushing blow. But if you’ve been watching sports for any legitimate portion of time, how can’t you know by now this is the way it goes?
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This week’s random thoughts. A little boxing, a little baseball, a little Kobe Bryant as a rapper.
Last November, I thought after watching Sergio Martinez detonate Paul Williams in Boardwalk Hall that I had seen The Next Big Thing.
Almost a year later, the growing suspicion that we’re never going to see that actually happen has become a bigger personal disappointment to me than anything else in a sport that tends to consistently disappoint, far surpassing the interminable wait for Pacquiao-Mayweather.
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Later than usual with this, and just one thought and some NFL picks. Been a busy week and had some other stuff to write, including one article I’m hoping to see on the Dime Magazine site this week. 
It’s no secret that the older we get, the more jaded we are, especially when it comes to the way we watch sports.
I remember watching the final game in 1991 for a 77-84 post-Strawberry Mets team like it was Game 7 of the NLCS, as David Cone struck out 19 batters and had the chance to tie the record, but retired Dale Murphy with a groundout to end the game.
I remember sitting on the literal edge of my seat on the couch, praying that Cone would dig deep and join Clemens in the record books.
Twenty years later, my perspective has of course changed. The Mets, famously, have never had a pitcher throw a no-hitter, and R.A. Dickey took one into the seventh inning this afternoon. And I opted not to watch it.
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I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see Oliver Perez pitch again. But last Saturday night in Harrisburg, I found myself watching him warm up about 30 yards from Bryce Harper, ships passing in the night.
Besides the red jersey, Ollie looked just as I remembered him. It was like when you run into a long-lost friend you haven’t seen for a while; there’s that moment where you instinctively take inventory to see what, if anything, has changed.
I noticed that every sixth or seventh warmup toss would glance off his glove. Ollie would run after it, pick it up from wherever it landed, and start playing catch again from wherever he ended up. I was told later this is something he does by design to get some running in at the same time he does his long-toss. I’m not sure if that’s legitimate, but Ollie has always had his quirks.
Though to me, it pretty much just looked like a guy chasing after a baseball.
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There are going to be plenty of tributes to personal favorite Carlos Beltran once he’s no longer a member of the Mets, which looks like it’s going to be any day now, but I figure I’d get a slight head start. I’ve never met Beltran, but I have a few anecdotes to share.
And as Kanye West said, people never get the flowers when they can still smell ‘em.
*****
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The one time I met Anthony Weiner in person was in the Shea Stadium parking lot the morning before the Trade Deadline in July 2005. At the time, he was stumping for a mayoral bid.
“It’s true,” Weiner said with an air of certitude to a group of constituents. “The Mets have traded for Manny Ramirez, and they’re going to have a press conference at noon.”
Obviously, Rep. Weiner is about as reliable with baseball news as he is with his dalliances on the internet.
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When I heard about the Angels attempting to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for most assembled people wearing Mexican-style wrestling masks earlier this month, I was unsurprisingly mystified. After all, such a night combines quite a few things I’m into: Masks, wrestling and wackjob baseball promotional nights.
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I watched Bryce Harper go through the motions last Friday night, his attention to detail and serious countenance connoting a longtime veteran of the sport.
I listened as the 18-year-old Harper, sporting a ridiculous mustache, crafted a respectful and droll media presence, relaying with an underlying trace of irony to a group of reporters that he was “trying to get better every day” — repeating that four times in the course of a minute.
A little later, I was down in the tunnel talking baseball with Hagerstown hitting coach Marlon Anderson when I heard a bit of commotion coming from the visitors’ clubhouse. I looked over as a shirtless and smirking Bryce Harper emerged from the clubhouse, pointed at a teammate and hollered, “Better be careful, or that bag’s gonna be gone when you get back.”
This was the Bryce Harper I’d been waiting to see all night.
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I often have my packages delivered to my parents’ house since I live in an apartment, and when my father recently dropped off a delivery I had been eagerly awaiting, I immediately tore it open and pulled out a jersey I would consider a holy grail.
My dad took one look at my new Barry Bonds “Turn Ahead the Clock” jersey and said, “Son, that’s the ugliest jersey I’ve ever seen.”
I couldn’t quite argue. Beauty is most certainly in the eye of the beholder, and yet even I had to admit this thing was hideous.
Hideous like a fox.
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They seem to have specialty shops of every kind at the shopping mall surrounding the diamond at Citi Field. For example, I’ll bet you never knew there was a Mets Kids Store at Citi. Or maybe you did, but I sure didn’t — at least until my good friend Mike, a devoted Mets fan, had his first daughter three days before my first trip of the year to Citi Field.
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