{Sidebar: one of the biggest differences between living on Staten Island from living in Brooklyn is Brooklynites are much more neighborly. As a kid growing up in Boro Park, I knew everyone who lived on my block. In the summer, the people of my block all sat outside on folding chairs in front of their house and socialized. When I first moved to SI my wife and I started siting on our front steps in the evening. We always wondered why our next door neighbor gave us dirty looks. It wasn’t until a fellow Brooklyn refugee informed us that on SI you sit in your backyard not your front porch, I guess that’s why I know about four people on my block and Staten Islanders want to know why they get no respect}

headed to the parade you don’t venture into Manhatan to often as the terminal was packed with cluelesss Highlander fans having trouble figuring out the Metro Card system.

Every morning I go to the Dunkin’ Donuts on Chambers St and the young ladies at the counter see me and get my X-tra large just milk ready for me. Well today the DD was packed with parade goers who gave me dirty looks because of my Mets cap. No one made a peep though as seeing me chatting with a couple of cops and traffic agents in the store, they figured I was a cop as well, but when I walked to the front of the 10 deep line, handed the girl at the counter my Mets DD debit card to swipe for my purchase and turned to leave, I flashed my card and pointed to my cap and said “Stay thirsty my friends”

I was an 11 year old 6th grader at P.S. 105 in Boro Park Brooklyn. Our teacher, Mrs. McGuire, brought in the big ass city issued black and white TV so we could watch part of Game 5 of the World Series with the New York Mets one win away from completing one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. 

Last night on PRO BASEBALL CENTRAL, Lenny Nesslin of LenNYs Yankee blog and Rich Mancuso of NY SPORTSDAY were our guests as we discussed the Highlander-Angles ALCS. At one point during our discussions Myself, Joe Mc Donald and Rich, three big time Mets fans, wondered if the worst day of our baseball life, a Highlanders-Phuck Phaces World Series comes to fruition, who would we’d root for or in other words what is the best case scenario for Mets fans?

Between the three of us, it was unanimous; there is no way in world that we could ever root for the Phuck Phaces. Now it’s not like we are going to be donning “SWISH-O-LICIOUS t shirts or lighting votive candles in Monument Park but the consensus was the Highlanders were the lesser of two evils. Now if it’s Highlanders-Hollywood Bums, then there is no question that we will join our owner in rooting for the former tenants of Mc Keever Pl, in fact we are hoping if the Brooklyn Dodgers of Los Angeles win the World Series we can get a good seat at $iti Field for the raising of Dodgers World Series flag on opening day and the unveiling of the George “Shotgun” Shuba statue outside the RF gate.

Back to this date in 1969. It’s times like these that I feel bad for the younger generation of Mets fan. Believe it or not kids, the Mets were THE TEAM in town once upon a time. As a young gutter snipe growing up in Brooklyn, Highlander fans were mocked and ridiculed. It was all Mets all the time in the papers, the NY Daily News ran COLOR front pages just for the Mets. COLOR FRONT PAGES!!!! The moon landing didn’t get a COLOR FRONT PAGE!!!! ( I guess you realize that COLOR FRONT PAGES in the Daily News were a HUGE event)

I remember hearing Curt Gowdy calling Game 5 and hearing the fans screaming in that last inning. But the images that stick with me as I watched on TV was Cleon Jones making the catch in LF and dropping to one knee and the fans pouring out of the stands and covering the field. The next day the stories were of fans tearing up the sod and digging up home plate and the pitching rubber. Where are those artifacts today?

The post game celebration was legendary not just for the new World Series champs but for me as well. The site of Seaver, Kossman, McGraw and my man Kranepool pouring beer and champagne on each other led me to the kitchen where my mother was making dinner. (Mom was never a big sports fan but with three sons the woman washed more uniforms than most clubhouse personnel in fact she excelled in getting grass and blood stains out of white uni tops) and to the fridge to grab one of the old man’s Rheingolds. My mother then screaming at me “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and me telling her, “Relax Ma, I’m not going to drink it, I’m just going to pour it on my head like the Mets. They won the World Series Ma! They’re World Champs!!!!!

I was very lucky as I went to a ton of games as a little kid and many were during the season of ‘69. My brothers being 20 years older than me, took me to games and most of the time we sat in box seats in the field level. Whenever I’m asked about my fondest memories of Shea Stadium the memory that always sticks with me are the Friday night games I went to when the Dodgers or Giants came to town. There was a Madi Gras atmosphere at Shea. Mrs. Payson was always stationed at here seat next to Mets dugout. There was a Dixieland Band that would roam the stands, fans would yell LET’S GO METS thru their Mr. Met megaphone, and in between innings Jane Jarvis would entertain us with melodies on her Thomas organ. No awful teenybopper music screeching from the sound system, no one talking on their phone or checking their CrackBerry during a second and third no out jam, no racing garbage trucks. None of that, just baseball and baseball fans enjoying both their new found love, the Amazin’ Mets and lamenting the love their loss, the Bums and ‘Jints.