But, "grace and beauty", that just sounds like flowery nonsense I'm spouting. Is that really why I miss baseball and why nothing else rivals it? I'm not so sure.
It's not the dumb cliche "I love the green grass" and all that garbage. I just miss the way I live during the baseball season. I miss staying up until 1 AM to watch games on the West Coast. I miss live look-ins on MLB Tonight. I miss bending over backwards at parties to keep up with games- running outside for cell service, huddling around TVs with members of the host's family- none of whom I had previously met (the latter was how I watched the All-Star Game last year). I miss blaming Beltran for everything.
I miss bitching about when the Mets game would be on FOX or ESPN. I miss the constant compulsion to tell my friends the score. I miss all the anecdotes that get told in the SNY booth and I miss Ralph Kiner's occasional appearances. I miss going into my "hub" during games I'm watching at home- logging onto Twitter and onto an Amazin' Avenue game thread to comment on them. I miss researching new minor league callups.
I miss friggin' going to games. I miss Box Frites and El Verano Taqueria and Shake Shack and the Home Run Apple and the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. I miss the excitement of arriving at Citi Field. I miss the damn good food at McFadden's. I miss looking through the Mets Hall of Fame, and the team store. I miss the between innings scoreboard antics- the Verizon Speed Text challenge (which I am a proud former winner of). I miss the T-shirt launch. I miss the wave and people bitching about people doing the wave. I miss Cow Bell Man.
I miss getting hyped up about the Subway Series and the All-Star Game and defending myself when my lofty predictions fall flat on their face. I miss highlight reels at the end of every month. I miss checking the score of the Met game during school- and listening to the game on the way home even if it means begging the bus driver to turn on WFAN. I miss reading through the Media Guide intensely. I miss fleeting trips to first place, and long-term trips there. I miss questioning All-Star selections. I miss 11:30 AM pregame shows for the rare noon games. I miss turning on YES every once in a while to "see how the other side lives" (note: not well, Michael Kay sucks). On that note, I miss getting to talk about how much Michael Kay sucks, and getting to laugh at Yankee failures.
I miss preposterously long extra inning games. I miss rain delays, and laughing at how they get corporate sponsors. I miss scoffing at the idea of a designated hitter, feeling strange when we use it in interleague games in AL parks, but then feeling victorious when they come to Citi Field and have their pitchers bat. I miss asking how the hell he could've blown that call and why the hell we don't have full instant replay in baseball yet. I miss the #Keithism tag on Twitter. I miss guessing on the trivia question of the game, and voting on the text poll. I miss the feeling that I could turn on SportsCenter and maybe, just maybe, see a Mets highlight or two. I miss magic numbers and tragic numbers and September call-ups and August waiver pickups.
I must say- I speak of these things as if they're never coming back. They are. They're coming back sooner than we know it.
That doesn't mean I don't miss them though. I want them back sooner rather than later, because, well, I really do miss them!
