That Didn't Work

In my younger, wilder days, I thought nothing of going to Mets games 2, 3, 4 or sometimes 5 days in a row with Doubleheaders mixed in. Nowadays, going to games on back-to-back nights is kind of a stretch for me. I'm old, I'm tired and sometimes it just doesn't go very well. But through happenstance I found myself with several unused tickets from my plan which, of course, are exchangeable. But there were a limited number of games I could actually exchange into, because of games I'd already had tickets to, or games I couldn't go to, or games that are blacked out altogether. As such, I was sort of pigeonholed into getting tickets for Tuesday night, knowing that I'd already had tickets for Monday. Not that I was thrilled, but I did invite out some old friends and forged ahead.

It was fortunate that I had friends with me because the way the game unfolded, it would have been really bad if I were by myself.

I somehow found myself in section 405, out in Right Field, and I'd blindly assumed I was in Section 405, row 5. This was one of those weird sections where for whatever reason they shoehorned a row of seats into the middle of the concourse. I arrived there before my friend and when he arrived, I noticed he was having a lengthy discussion with an usher. When he arrived, he showed me his ticket. It said row 4. I then looked at my ticket.

Whoops.

Sheepishly, we moved to the proper seats, though I'm not certain anyone was actually sitting in the wrong ones.

This, by the way, was the extent of the entertaining part of the game. Zack Wheeler didn't have it to the tune of getting his ass lit up by the Cubs and their "innovative" lineup that included Anthony Rizzo batting leadoff and Jon Lester batting 8th. Rizzo smoked Wheeler's 2nd pitch of the night over the apple, which led to the inevitable Cubs Fan Circle Jerk. Though the Mets did tie the game in the bottom of the 1st, Wheeler just hit a wall in the 2nd. I'm not certain whether or not he got rooked on some close pitches to Albert Almora or Rizzo, but he walked both of them with two outs, forced in a run, and subsequently gave up a Grand Slam to Ian Happ, and the Cubs fans were literally humping each other in the aisles. It was kind of embarrassing and it didn't get any better from there.

After that, I kind of tuned out. In the early parts of these blowout games, there still exists some blind hope that the Mets might come back, but as innings move on and the Mets do nothing, that feeling sort of fades. The Cubs didn't help by piling on; later on Jason Heyward hit a Home Run, Baseballs Jesus hit a Home Run and got all the Cubs fans pregnant, and that little red-ass Willson Contreras stole a base up by 9 runs, which in my book is deserving of a fastball between the numbers.

So, instead, I decided to have a beer with my friend and we had some philosophical discussions about Theater and other non-Baseball related topics, and then at some point we figured this was a dead ballgame and we may as well leave. I believe it was 12-1 at that point and it was almost 13-1 but for Jay Bruce pulling back a Home Run—I do give him credit for continuing to go all out in a hopeless situation. That was my parting shot for the night. I realize it ended up at 14-3.

The moral here is...well, I'm not sure. Don't press my luck too much by going to back-to-back games against the Cubs? I will say that the fact that I was there on Monday night did take the sting off of this game somewhat. And, once again, at least the Cubs fans weren't directly confrontational. As usual, in games like this, you try to find the little victories.