Ok, before I get slammed for praising the Mets here while I'm wearing Angels gear in my avatar, I should put out a disclaimer.

I have, since the time I was in the womb, been a Mets fan.  I was born in Brooklyn and lived in NY until I was 24 years old.  I can remember watching Mets' games with my dad, lying on the floor with our heads together and forming a V in front of the television.  I also remember my mother yelling at my dad because she thought we were too close to the television, and that I was going to wind up like him, wearing glasses and not being able to see anything two feet in front of me.

I remember when Mike Torres was a Met and he hit Dickie Thon of the Houston Astros in the head.  I remember my father lamenting about George Foster, calling him a waste, and why is it that when all the good players don a Mets uniform, they just take up space in the dugout?  I remember when Dwight Gooden was a phenom before the drugs.  I even met George Bamberger and had my picture taken with him during spring training in St. Petersburg, before the move to Pt. St. Lucie.

I remember reading box scores at the age of 2 and a half and then explaining to my dad, in complete detail, what happened at the end of the game, even though I had been in bed for an hour and a half before the game ended.  I remember that 24 inning game against the Atlanta Braves in July of 1984. I remember going to a game when I was 7, and during the 8th inning, we moved down a few rows to get closer to the field.  Of course, I also remember the foul ball that landed clear on the stair next to my old seat 2 batters after we moved, and the big fat man that claimed the ball. (To this day, I have not forgiven my dad for that.)  I remember when  Ralph Kiner used to tell the same stories over and over and over again BEFORE he had his terrible stroke.  I even remember when the majority of the games were on WWOR/Channel 9 more often than they were on SportsChannel. I even remember when it was stil WOR, before the second W.  Ha!

The only rub to my being a Mets' fan is that I curse the stinking team any time I wear Mets paraphernalia.  My mother bought me a Mets t-shirt at the age of 6.  Every time I wore it, and the Mets played, they lost.  No matter how I many times I made my mother wash that shirt so I could wear it again, if they were playing, they lost.  After about 2 months, I was banned from wearing the shirt on game days.  I could only wear it when the Mets were off (say a traveling day), or in the winter.  And who in their right mind wears t-shirts in the winters in NY? 

So I am a Mets fan forced to wear other colors when they play.  It's ok, though.  22 years later I have accepted my fate as a badge of honor.  What else can I do?

So, I am a Met fan.  As to the Angel gear, I am also an Angel fan.  I started following them after the strike, during the hey-day of Tim Salmon, Garret Anderson, Jim Edmonds, etc.  I followed them even after that horrible unifrom change to that blue and white winged ####.  I followed them even though they were dismal before Sciosia.  But the one thing that is different is that I can actually wear red, my angels visor, and other such, and the team can still win.  (OK, not lately, but that has nothing to do with me.)

Phew!  My apologies for the long winded proof I had to give.  But I've earned the right.

So onto last night.

I tell you, if Cox Cable didn't offer me the option to purchase MLB Extra Innings, I don't know what I would do.  Not being able to watch the Mets living in Southern California?  What a sin!  So when I moved here, I immediately ordered it. 

Last night was a prime example of why I'm glad I did.

The game didn't start well for Steve Trachsel (who, up until he signed with the Mets, I would watch on WGN when he played for the Cubs, just to see if the Cubs would lose like they always did when Trachsel pitched.  Don't believe me?  Go back and look at the stats.)  Giving up 2 runs in the first, I began complaining and throwing things at my television. (I'm 99.7% positive most Mets fans were doing the same thing in the first inning.  I did leave myself a margin of error, though.)  The game went back and forth, not much excitement; sure, there were some heart attack moments, and David Bell's three run homer in the 5th inning agitated me like no other.  The only thing I said about it was that "Well, at least it wasn't Pat Burrell."

The Mets responded though in a way I haven't seen this team do in YEARS, back to the days of the 1980's. (Yes, I am aware of the fact that they went to the World Series in 2000, but even that team didn't play like this one.)  They stuck it out, stuck it out, tied up the game, and then the bullpen, the long-suffering bullpen, held it down. 

And then it happened.  Finally.

Bottom of the 16th inning, and Carlos Beltran, who has been criticized repeatedly by local and national media for not producing the way he did during his superb playoff run 2 years ago (and for making the amount of money that he does), launched a bomb over the right field wall.  And I mean a bomb.  As soon as the ball hit the bat, I knew.  And I jumped up and down, screaming.  My husband thought I was nuts, acting like it was a playoff game or something.  But to me, the home run just screamed vindication.  Vindication for all the times the Mets made a big free-agent sigining and those players not playing with that conviction that landed them that money.  Not playing with that same type of heart.

Beltran, Carlos Delgado and Paul LoDuca have turned my fathers years of lamenting into something other than false hope.  He called me at the end of the game (mind you, it was about 10:30 pm PT when this game ended) and said "Did you see that?  Did you watch it?  DID YOU SEE THAT??".  I haven't heard that kind of excitement in his voice about this team since I was a kid.

Take note, MLB:  These Mets are for real. Take note baseball fans: Don't look now, but the Mets, well, they'll be coming for you, too.

So the next time someone says to you "How about them Mets?" as a means of trying to strike up a conversation, just politely say "Don't you worry about those Mets.  They're coming for your team, too, whether you like it or not."

A few years back, ESPN began running little promotional ads that would always end with "Without Sports....".  There was one in particular, in which a little boy was attached to his St. Louis Cardinals blanket, not unlike Linus of the Peanuts comic strip.  As they show him growing up, in various different situations (playing poker in college, moving out of his parents house, etc.), the blanket is prominant in every scene.  At the end of the commercial, it shows the man, all grown up and presumably married, with his daughter, now carrying around the very same blanket her dad was given as a child.

Though it has been quite sometime since I've seen that commercial (I give it a few months until it re-airs, when baseball becomes the dominant sport until football season), I was reminded of it yesterday while I was talking to my dad.

Every day, my dad, who also happens to be one of my best friends, not to mention my next-door neighbor, picks up my daughter from school and drops her off at my house.  Every day, he will call me when he enters my apartment complex to let me know he is there and to get my lazy butt downstairs so I can talk to him and retrieve my filthy child.

By the time I arrive downstairs, my father has already opened the door for my daughter to get out of the car and is standing there waiting to ask my how my day has been, what have I been doing all day, and am I planning to watch or tivo the NY Mets game.  No matter what, the conversation always turns to baseball, mainly the Mets, between my father and I.  Always. It has been that way from the time I was a little kid.

Yesterday was no exception.  By the time I walked down the three flights of stairs, my father was already standing near the bottom of the staircase with my daughter.  After the pre-requisite "Hi, how are you?", and my daughter clamoring all over me with the dirt that she has procured from the school yard, my father blurts out "So, Florida isn't ready to part with Dontrelle Willis yet, damn it."

Having not even given me a chance to pull a cigarette out of the pack, I gave him a quizzical look, proceded by "What the hell are you talking about??"

"Florida's GM isn't ready to put Dontrelle on the trading block yet, so now we are stuck with good old (Aaron) Heilman probably going back to the starting rotation.  How much trouble are the Mets going to be in now?  Although I'll be happy to see him get out of the bullpen.  He sucks.  He just sucks.  Now the damn team is going to go down the tubes," my dad lamented.

"Oh, they'll be fine.  If (Cliff) Floyd ever learns how to hit the ball again, this team will be fine.  So the Mets will win every three games out of five, because you know they will never win when Trachsel or Heilman pitch.  They hardly ever win when Trachsel pitches...he's not pitching tonight, is he?" I asked.

"No, no, no, Glavine's pitching tonight, so we actually stand a chance of winning," my dad concluded.

"Okay, good," I said.  After taking a pull of my cigarette, I asked, simply "5 o'clock, right?"

"Right.  Okay, well, I have to go home now and go walk the dog.  I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay, enjoy the game, I'll talk to you tomorrow.  Love you."

"Love you too.  Bye Laurie (my daughter), I love you."

"Grandpa, I love you too, but you need to get home or you're going to miss the game and then get mad that you missed it.  I don't want you to be mad.  And I don't want Mommy to be mad either.  So go, go home and watch the game so we can go upstairs and Mommy can watch the game," said my daughter, all of 6 and a half.

It was in that moment that I realized just how much baseball connects the three generations of my family.  It was at that moment how much sports really does bring families together.

So while all us bloggers sit here and rant and rave and analyze every little bit about the sports that we love, remember that it was most likely someone very close to you who developed you into the sports fanatic that you are.  Because while those sports will most likely be around forever, the people who you love won't be.