Casual
BROOKS, DAVID
Casual TINKERBELL IN SIX I hope Americans will take advantage of the Subway Series to overcome their narrow prejudices and recognize that not all New Yorkers are abrasive, arrogant jerks—that only...
...It is to be in love with youthful joy, innocent hope, and the promise of warm tomorrows...
...Yankees fans swagger so much when they walk that sometimes their gold chains get tangled in their back hair so that when they go off to visit their parole officers they are cranky and short-tempered...
...This year the Golden Child is named Timo Perez...
...The rules of earthly existence did not seem to apply...
...But it hit all the New York Mets notes—youth, innocence, purity, divine intervention—so that he felt real, and I still think back on his career with incredible fondness...
...I have a whole list of players in my head who seemed at first blush to be poetry, but who turned out to be prose: Dave Magadan, Butch Huskey, Ryan Thompson, Parke Wilson, and so on...
...Neither of these rookies was even on the Mets for much of the regular season...
...In fact, the amazing come-from-behind victories are not even the best part of being a Mets fan...
...The Golden Child always emerges out of nowhere...
...Last year, it was Melvin Mora...
...Every time the Mets make a postseason run, there will be one Golden Child among them, whose talents are simply inexplicable by ordinary means...
...Mets fans appreciate good players, like Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza, but their special love is reserved for those who have been touched by the magic...
...Over the past two postseasons, the Mets have won an amazing seven games in their final at bat, each one a reminder of the happy spirits who sprinkle their pixie dust at just the right moments...
...Casual TINKERBELL IN SIX I hope Americans will take advantage of the Subway Series to overcome their narrow prejudices and recognize that not all New Yorkers are abrasive, arrogant jerks—that only the Yankees fans are like that...
...He is pure, while others are scarred...
...So when you look at the crowds at Shea Stadium this week, remember that these people are New Yorkers only on the outside...
...Not all these golden lads pan out...
...But to be a Mets fan, on the other hand, is to be in love with the magic of spring...
...Finch was an ethereal young Buddhist monk who could throw a baseball 168 miles per hour, and who had learned his craft while in India as a novice, throwing rocks at snow tigers who were threatening the yak pens...
...The only Golden Child who has remained forever pure is Sidd Finch...
...Last year a mischievous sprite lifted Robin Ventura's home run over the wall for a Grand Slam single, launching the Mets to victory in a 15-inning game against the Atlanta Braves...
...But in September the wand descended, and for a few weeks they were otherworldly...
...The best part is thinking you have spotted another Golden Child and letting yourself dream of the glories that will surely come...
...The meaning of the New York Mets was formed in the summer of 1969, when a band of young and utterly carefree players performed their famous miracle...
...Like most Mets fans, I suspect, I got more pleasure out of watching him play that year, when he was a revelation but the Mets did not make the playoffs, than I did watching him in 1986, when he was just an ordinary superstar and they did...
...In 1986, a dancing fairy came down to guide that ball through Bill Buckner's legs...
...There was no Sidd Finch...
...He is serene while others quake and choke...
...He is wise, while others are confused...
...I write this before the series has started, but I know that at some point Timo Perez—or Joe McEwing, another young man with classic Golden Child potential—will do something inexplicable, and the Mets, who don't have nearly as many good players as the Yankees, will still win this series...
...They were exuberant boys, somehow touched by grace, who beat professional men...
...DAVID BROOKS...
...In six...
...So to be a Mets fan is to understand that the universe is a warm and wonderful place, filled with invisible angels and sprites and fairies who flit about amongst us doing good works...
...His serenity and poise were incredible...
...Earlier this season, the Mets promoted an outfielder named Jason Tyner who seemed to have the glow, but he was traded...
...Those Mets were like the 1980 U.S...
...But Jefferies was not pure of heart, and now, alas, he is a journeyman player, just another jock...
...In 1984, Dwight Gooden burst on the scene...
...For we are all formed by the things we love, and to be a Yankees fan—as to be a Cowboys fan in football—is to be in love with dominance and success...
...He was the subject of a long story in Sports Illustrated, and as I read that story, written by George Plimpton, I knew that it was an April Fools' joke...
...Inside, they are fanciful children, who believe in fairy godmothers and magic (even Jerry Seinfeld...
...Olympic hockey team...
...Several years ago, a young, amazingly talented player named Gregg Jefferies burst on the scene with an efflorescent September...
Vol. 6 • October 2000 • No. 7
