I hope Americans will take advantage of the Subway Series to overcome their narrow prejudices and recognize that not all New Yorkers are abrasive, arrogant jerks — that only the Yankees fans are like that. For we are all formed by the things we love, and to be a Yankees fan — as to be a Cowboys fan in football — is to be in love with dominance and success. Yankees fans swagger so much when they walk that, sometimes their gold chains get tangled in their back hair so that when they go off to visit their parole officers they are cranky and short-tempered.
But to be a Mets fan, on the other hand, is to be in love with the magic of spring. It is to be in love with youthful joy, innocent hope, and the promise of warm tomorrows. The meaning of the New York Mets was formed in the summer of 1969, when a band of young and utterly carefree players performed their famous miracle. Those Mets were like the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. They were exuberant boys, somehow touched by grace, who beat professional men.
So to be a Mets fan is to understand that the universe is a warm and wonderful place, filled with invisible angels and sprites and fairies who flit about amongst us doing good works. In 1986, a dancing fairy came down to guide that ball through Bill Buckner’s legs. Last year a mischievous sprite lifted Robin Ventura’s home run over the wall for a Grand Slam single, launching the Mets to victory in a 15-inning game against the Atlanta Braves. Over the past two postseasons, the Mets have won an amazing seven games in their final at bat, each one a reminder of the happy spirits who sprinkle their pixie dust at just the right moments.
Mets fans appreciate good players, like Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza, but their special love is reserved for those who have been touched by the magic. Every time the Mets make a postseason run, there will be one Golden Child among them, whose talents are simply inexplicable by ordinary means. The Golden Child always emerges out of nowhere. He is serene while others quake and choke. He is wise, while others are confused. He is pure, while others are scarred. This year the Golden Child is named Timo Perez. Last year, it was Melvin Mora. Neither of these rookies was even on the Mets for much of the regular season. But in September the wand descended, and for a few weeks they were otherworldly.
In fact, the amazing come-from-behind victories are not even the best part of being a Mets fan. The best part is thinking you have spotted another Golden Child and letting yourself dream of the glories that will surely come. In 1984, Dwight Gooden burst on the scene. His serenity and poise were incredible. The rules of earthly existence did not seem to apply. Like most Mets fans, I suspect, I got more pleasure out of watching him play that year, when he was a revelation but the Mets did not make the play-offs, than I did watching him in 1986, when he was just an ordinary superstar and they did.
Not all these golden lads pan out. Earlier this season, the Mets promoted an outfielder named Jason Tyner who seemed to have the glow, but he was traded. Several years ago, a young, amazingly talented player named Gregg Jefferies burst on the scene with an efflorescent September. But Jefferies was not pure of heart, and now, alas, he is a journeyman player, just another jock. I have a whole list of players in my head who seemed at first blush to be poetry, but who turned out to be prose: Dave Magadan, Butch Huskey, Ryan Thompson, Parke Wilson, and so on.
The only Golden Child who has remained forever pure is Sidd Finch. Finch was an ethereal young Buddhist monk who could throw a base-ball 168 miles per hour, and who had learned his craft while in India as a novice, throwing rocks at snow tigers who were threatening the yak pens. He was the subject of a long story in Sports Illustrated, and as I read that story, written by George Plimpton, I knew that it was an April Fools’ joke. There was no Sidd Finch. But it hit all the New York Mets notes — youth, innocence, purity, divine intervention — so that he felt real, and I still think back on his career with incredible fondness.
So when you look at the crowds at Shea Stadium this week, remember that these people are New Yorkers only on the outside. Inside, they are fanciful children, who believe in fairy godmothers and magic (even Jerry Seinfeld). I write this before the series has started, but I know that at some point Timo Perez — or Joe McEwing, another young man with classic Golden Child potential — will do something inexplicable, and the Mets, who don’t have nearly as many good players as the Yankees, will still win this series. In six.
DAVID BROOKS
