I’m clinging to my seat in my Dad’s living room. My Dad and I are straining to get the best possible look at the 27″ screen. I’d love to be at Shea to say that I had been there when the Mets punched a ticket to the World Series. This series has epitomized the New York Mets’ season: always fighting for a lead, and staying in games late. We had already seen perhaps the best play in Mets’ history earlier in the game, when Endy Chávez took a home run away from Scott Rolen. Surely, the Mets would find a way to win this game. There was no way that Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright would make the pitch to send St. Louis to the World Series.
It’s the bottom of the 9th, and Wainwright, a Cardinals rookie, is ready to deliver what could be the last pitch sequence of my season. Carlos Beltrán strides to the plate to battle Wainwright. Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS had been a stalemate since the second inning, when the Cardinals tied the game at 1-1. But the Cardinals broke through on a Yadier Molina two-run home run in the top of the 9th to take a 3-1 lead, so the stage was set for the Mets to respond.
The entire inning had been building to this moment. Jose Valentín and Endy Chávez had both singled to start the inning, which turned my living room into party central. Two runners on with nobody out and the tying run coming to the plate sounded like a pretty good foreboding of what was to come. Then two quick outs and an intentional walk set the stage for Beltrán. He stepped up to the plate to raucous cheers. The Mets faithful stood to watch what many hoped would be their last game against the National League. “Just put it in play, Beltrán,” I thought.
Beltrán had been the Mets’ most clutch player all season long. He had been no stranger to late-inning heroics, and had hit 41 home runs during the regular season. This, however, was the playoffs, and Mets fans would only remember one at-bat. With bases loaded, Beltrán quickly found himself in an 0-2 hole. With one pitch separating the Cardinals from the World Series, was it any doubt that Beltrán would get a curveball? As Beltrán stood in, Shea Stadium was rocking to cheers of “Let’s go, Mets!” Yadier Molina — the Cardinals catcher — ended a series of signs with two fingers. Wainwright nodded and got set to deliver the pitch. “Curveball, curveball” I shouted with hopes that Beltrán would hear me. The ball left Wainwright’s hand and started its flight towards Beltrán.
That 0-2 pitch had thousands of eyes on it, but only two mattered. A curveball dropped at Beltrán’s knees. “How could Beltrán watch that?” my father and I exclaimed in unison. My dad grew up in Philadelphia, so he definitely reveled in the Mets’ loss, but even he was left incredulous by Beltrán’s frozen stance. The Mets’ season ended one game from the World Series with the opposing St. Louis Cardinals celebrating at Shea.
“It doesn’t get much shittier than this,” I said, head in hands.
How could the Mets have squandered Chávez’s sterling defense and the brilliant effort turned in by the pitching staff throughout the series? I sympathized with Beltrán only in that I, too, was a bit dumbfounded by the ending to the season. It all happened so fast. One second, the Mets were on the edge of their first trip to the World Series since they lost to the Yankees in 2000, and the next they were going home. In my despair I did find a silver lining though. I found out what truly drew me to being a Mets fan.
Growing up in New York I had always been bombarded with the perpetual struggle that was the result of my baseball loyalty. During my lifetime it has never been much of a fight, because the Yankees have dominated baseball for the better part of the past couple decades. Some argue that the Yankees and Mets buy their way into contention, but the distinct difference between the two teams has been the degree of success that their respective histories entail. The Mets have been habitual losers, and nothing epitomizes that more than a game in which they caught most of the breaks and still couldn’t get it done.
Herein lies the fatal attraction. How could you not love a team that always found itself in the spotlight, but had a penchant for coming up short? The ’06 NLCS was not the Mets’ first encounter with postseason shortcomings. The Subway Series in 2000 pitted the Mets and Yankees in a series that never lived up to its hype. In 2007, the Mets found themselves in a division race that ended on the last day of the season, leaving the Mets on the outside looking in. They are a team that is still looking for its first no-hitter and their first postseason birth in a new ballpark. This team knows how to lose, and what makes it tolerable is the thought that maybe they can eventually get it done.