The second to last game at Shea Stadium was scheduled for this past Saturday. But everyone there and at home knew it would ultimately be the last one that mattered if things didn't break right for the home team. The sky was overcast. The parking lot was filled with enough nervous energy to put a blind date at ease. And, it was a blind date of sorts. It was the first time that we Mets fans would see the 2008 club in a do-or-die situation. It was the first time that we would really get to see Johan Santana. We had heard he was great. All of our friends had told us so. The greatest, in fact, they said. We had heard about this calm. His cool. His smile. His great sense of humor. We had heard so many great things about this guy. And, Saturday was the time when we would meet him at Shea for a few hours to find out what he was really about.
The tepid-temp'd air was soupy with the mist of 2007 tears, the evidence of a Nor'easter that wasn't quite, and a the perspiration of a 2008 Division-turned-Wild Card race. It was damp but electric at Shea in the minutes before the first pitch, which was delayed slightly due to the weather. There was no place I would rather have been. And, even better, it was far clearer than the day itself that there was no place that Santana would rather have been either.He was the Alpha dog. He was the Omega dog. He was everything you hope for when you pay an athlete in surplus of a hundred million dollars. Santana had pitched on Tuesday night and thrown a career-high 125 pitches in a complete game victory over the Cubs to make today possible. Yet he came out as fresh and aggressive as if it were Opening Day. He dominated. He pulled the string on anxious Florida Marlins hitters with the sly wink/nod braggadocio of a three-card monte dealer outside of the Hollis subway station. He moved the ball around the strike zone with the precision of a conductor at Carnegie Hall. He was brilliant.
On his not-so-broad shoulders, the Metropolitans were carried to the final day of the regular season (where they would lose). He went the distance, though, on Saturday. Never wavering. Never coming close to surrendering the ball, even in the ninth when he allowed (and I purposefully say "allowed" rather than "surrendered") the tying runs to reach base in the final frame. The Mets bullpen saw it's first action that afternoon just then, but Santana quickly rendered such action moot when he retired the final batter of the game. It was a complete-game, three-hit shutout. Johan struck out nine. And the Mets lived to fight another day.
Of course, everything that happened the following day stripped this performance of implication. But it didn't take away its meaning. At least not for those of us who were lucky enough to be there. In fact, the impotence of the season's final day only casts such a gem from Santana in harsher relief. It only highlights how crucial his nine-inning effort was. His was the last win at Shea Stadium. It was my last trip to Shea Stadium. My last memories of Shea will be good ones even if these images can't help but take on melancholy undertones given what we happened the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment