The Wrong Decision

I had tickets to Friday night's game at Citi Field. It was on my plan. I'd made plans to go with my other half, which would be her first game of the season. But several mitigating circumstances intervened. The first was the horrendous and torrential rain that fell in New York basically all day on Friday. Generally, even when it rains like this, the Mets will keep the game scheduled until the last minute for a variety of reasons, among them the potential for the mythical "window," and the desire to get the gates open and get some people in the stadium to buy food and whatnot—a favorite trick of Ratso Wilpon's.

The other circumstance was, well, I'm getting older and after what had turned into a particularly strenuous week at work, I was tired. I was tired and I wouldn't have minded at all if they cancelled the game and allowed me to go home and take a nap. But that rainout alert never came, in spite of multiple alerts from the Emergency Alert system and reports of flash floods all over the city. 5:00 passed, and in fact 6:00 approached and my other half begged out, meaning that if I were going to go, I was on my own. Had we thought about it ahead of time, I might have swapped the tickets out altogether. 6:00 passed and I was delayed at work outright, so if I were going to go, I'd be late. But I left and got on my way, feeling very indecisive.

I got as far as the 7 train platform at Grand Central, a point at which I could take one train and go to the game, or get on the other train and go home. I weighed the options. The potential for rain still existed. But I did want to go to a game. But Rafael Montero was starting for the Mets, which generally has been a losing proposition. But what if this was the night he got it together? But I'm tired. But it's Friday. Eventually, I decided to just go home and swap the tickets out for another date. It was already the 2nd inning by time I got home, which probably would have been about the same time I would have arrived at Citi Field.

Immediately, I got in bed and took a nap. By time I woke up, it was somewhere in the 6th inning and I wasn't particularly surprised to hear that Montero was awful and the Mets were losing 7-3. I felt better because I wasn't there to see it, to say nothing of having to suffer the indignity of sitting through a beating at the hands of the Mickey Mouse Marlins.

But then the Mets came back in the 7th, another rally where they just kept hitting singles and doubles, and working counts, and forcing walks. Wilmer Flores was heavily involved, as was Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael Conforto. It was 7-5 when T.J. Rivera, who'd earlier homered, hit a 2-run double to tie the game off of Brad Ziegler, who seemed to not know what had hit him. A pitching change, 2 outs and an intentional walk later, it appeared the game would remain tied, but Kyle Barraclough, after intentionally walking Granderson, couldn't find the plate against Flores and unintentionally walked him to force in the lead run and put the Mets ahead 8-7. A couple of quiet innings from Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia later, the Mets had pulled off a real nut-kicker of a win against the Marlins, coming back from a 6-run deficit to win, 8-7.

Well, shit. I guess I should have gone after all. Even though it clearly had begun raining again by the end of the game and some time later in the evening, probably about when I would have arrived home, it really started pouring. I did feel badly about not going since they won. That, I suppose, isn't surprising. Had the game held and the Mets gone down in flames, I probably would have been thrilled that I wasn't there to subject myself to it. It's rare that this happens (I am reminded of a Daisuke Matsuzaka game a few years ago I skipped and ended up missing a 3 hour, 50 minute game that the Mets lost terribly) but sometimes you make the wrong choice. That's a bad job by me.