All Wet Again

A few weeks ago, I'd batted around going to a Mets/Cubs game amid an iffy weather forecast. I decided not to go and the game ended up being played, and the Mets won. Yes, there were also three Rain Delays, but I still felt like I'd missed out.

Monday night, I had tickets to the opener of the Mets/Cardinals series, amid an iffy weather forecast. In spite of the fact that there was a torrential downpour in Manhattan when I left my office, I decided to forge ahead to Citi Field anyway, since, according to the Mets Rain Hotline*, the game had not yet been called.

On the 7 train out to Citi Field, I saw plenty of lightning flying around but no rain, as though Noah Syndergaard had waved his Mjölnir and willed the weather away so that he could make his start. By time I arrived at Citi Field, it wasn't raining at all. In spite of the weather, it seemed like there was a fair enough crowd on hand, including a healthy presence of Underwear sniffing, Selflie-stick using Cardinals fans ready to thumb their noses at us brutish Mets fans while Mike Matheny wrote another book about how wonderful he is.

There was a tarp on the field, however, so a delay was in the offing, but I'd figured it wouldn't last long, and maybe by 7:45 we'd be underway. So I walked around the Field Level a little bit. The crowd was sparse, at least for the current times, sparse enough that by time I reached Fuku, the new David Chang outpost, there was, in fact, no line whatsoever. Usually, the line runs halfway down the Shea Bridge. Now, I've made mention of my misgivings toward David Chang, but I'll admit when food lives up to hype. I hadn't been to the Fuku at Citi Field, but I did have the opportunity to visit another location and, well, it's a really good sandwich. And the fries have this wonderful spicy seasoning. So, if there was no line, and I wasn't in a rush, well, here we are.

So I get my Fuku and head upstairs and I grab some napkins since I know I'm going to have to towel off my seat, and then Alex Anthony starts talking and I turn around towards the field and I see on the scoreboard in giant block letters:

POSTPONED

Oh dammit. 

So this, then, would be my first Citi Field Rainout. I seem to have had a good run of avoiding going to games that get rained out. I'd suffered through some delayed games, but none that were rained out outright, not since a Saturday night in 2008 at Shea Stadium when the Field Level literally turned into a lake and they waited a good 10-15 minutes after the game had been called to announce it to the some 50,000 fans in attendance that night, so they would keep buying things. The age old trick, of course. I thought there was a window to get the game in, but the Mets have more advanced meteorologists than I do and so if they didn't think it was possible, couldn't they have called things at 5:30 and saved me the trip? I feel a bit like I fell into one of Ratso Wilpon's rabbit holes because I showed up and spent money, so not only was I annoyed that the game got rained out (and I've once again been rooked out of seeing a Syndergaard start by some weird happening), but also because I'd been made a rube of by a weasel-faced turd that nobody likes.

Well, me, and about 15,000 other people who showed up and were still eating and drinking and buying things after the game had been called. To say nothing of the mass of humanity that formed at the ticket booth outside the stadium afterward. 

So, no game tonight, just another random escapade where I went to see a Baseball game and instead just went out to dinner at Citi Field. We'll try this again on Wednesday.

*Yes, there is in fact a Mets Rain Hotline. Only us true lunatic Mets fans know about it. When I tell people about it, they think I'm joking but it's a real thing. (718) 507-RAIN.