It’s twenty minutes until game time. I won’t be at Shea tonight. In a few minutes, I’ll be shutting down my laptop and going into the pit at the opera house for a rehearsal. But my husband and daughter will be there…with BELLS ON.
Screaming their heads off.
Clapping until their hands are sore.
Chanting until they lose their voices.
I don’t normally find much food-for-thought from Mike and the Mad Dog, quite frankly. But coming home from my first rehearsal of the day, I had their show on and found it very interesting that these two guys–neither of whom are really Mets fans–were taking Mets fans to task for flaking out on their team.
Basically, they were chastising the fans for (1) not showing up at Shea this week to begin with and (2) being so quick to give up and sound the death knell on their team.
While Mike–the die-hard Yankee fan–could have been gloating about his team being assured a spot in the Playoffs, instead he took up the subject of the Mets, reminding listeners that they are still in first place and that they are–with these three games against the lesser Marlins–still in control of their destiny.
If he could, he went on to say, he would have Shea officials not put up the out-of-town scores. The players, he suggested, should not even pay attention to that information. They should just do the job they need to do: get down to the task of winning their own ballgames.
I was very surprised to find inspiration from this show and decided right then and there to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back to the "Gotta Believe" mentality ASAP.
And I did.
I may not be at Shea tonight, but I’m wearing my jersey, Mets socks, and Wagner and Pedro bracelets. Tomorrow and Sunday, I’ll be at Shea.
In the meantime, for those of you whose confidence is flagging, I challenge you to think of it this way: it’s THREE GAMES.
Rather than looking backward at what they gave up, let’s look forward at what little they have to DO from this moment forward: they need to win THREE GAMES.
I liken it, psychologically, to this quote:
You remember the Duke of Wellington was talking of the Battle of Waterloo when he said that it was not that the British soldiers were braver than the French soldiers. It was just that they were brave five minutes longer. And in our struggles sometimes that’s all it takes-to be brave five minutes longer, to try just a little harder, to not give up on ourselves when everything seems to beg for our defeat.
LET’S GET ‘R’ DONE and LETS GO METS!!!
Perfect Pitch 