Meet James.

Mets baseball helped him get through his son’s stillbirth at 8.5 months, early in the 2014 season. That season changed him as a fan and as a person. Here’s how.

Tell me your full story.

I’m happy to talk a little bit more about 2014, when we lost our son. It was about two weeks into the season, and very sudden and unexpected, caused by a previously unknown condition my wife has. From the get-go, I decided to not hide it – I know a lot of folks, especially guys do, and no judgment there, but that wasn’t me. I knew I’d need help healing, so I spoke up. In this day of social media, even one of the Mets players on that year’s team reached out privately and we remain friends to this day. Folks who are still friends reached out with similar stories and experiences to share in my grief and help. True community, no trolls.

That friendship with the player came in handy in July when I was in Seattle, when the Mets played the Mariners – that day was supposed to be my son’s first ballgame. The tickets had been purchased months previous and to have a supportive face say “Hey” and check in meant everything. Also, I had a few Twitter friends in the crowd that day and it was good – I needed community that day and I found it.

That year, I learned that while I love my Mets and I treasure every memory, they didn’t replace the good things, the good times, and those not nearly as good. The end result is a die hard fan who finally brought some priorities into line that had been askew for myself for awhile. Over the next, we were blessed with a diagnosis and treatment for my wife’s condition. We found out that fall we were pregnant and the same group of folks gathered around us, helped us deal with the fears, and the previously mentioned player even did a gender announcement video for our daughter, who turned five in the shadow of the quarantine in May. And that October, looking at her smile, made losing the World Series seem like nothing. Both of my children, the son I lost and the daughter we’ve been entrusted to raise, both teach me more than I could ever share.

That is incredible though and truly shows the true colors of this team and Mets fans. I think it’s safe to say that both the outreach from the player and from fellow Mets fans is what picked you up after such a loss, right?

Yeah, the distractions of the games themselves also played a role, and that’s part of where I changed as a fan. Whether they won or lost, that was still an escape for me, it was still three hours that I could ignore the pain if I needed to. (Don’t get me wrong, I was not avoiding dealing with the family in the sense of my wife, if she needed me, game went on pause or was watched after she went to bed).

Entirely understand, we can all use an escape and you definitely needed one then. I have to congratulate you on your daughter, though! Has she fallen in love with the game of baseball yet?

She is starting to, very much so. She got her first mitt this spring. I feel bad because she really wanted to play tee-ball this year and of course, no leagues due to COVID.

A lot of people talk about how negative Twitter can be, but from your story, it sounds like you had the opposite experience. Any advice or suggestions for those who want to use Twitter positively or build their own community like you have?

Twitter (and social media) really can be whatever you want to make it, but it takes work. I like my Twitter to be a bit of an escape, so I tend to weed out things like politics (easier said than done these days, but I still try, all sides too, there are other places I can find it if I want it). On the Mets side, I also tend to weed out fans who enjoy more bullying personas as well as overly negative (objective is great, plenty to be objective about, but misery is fun for no one). Like I said, it takes work, but you can still make it a mostly good place for yourself, talk to not only great fans but great people, inevitably, you find each other.

This is definitely a story about how baseball is more than a game. It sounds like it has given you and your family so much already. Anything else you want to add?

Baseball is more than a game… and it’s just a game. It’s a strange lesson, but I feel like that’s what I learned – to take the experience of what’s on the field and separate it from the experience as a fan. In my life as an “online fan,” which I was a very early adopter of (my parents moved our family to the Portland, Oregon area in 1988, so Mets info was hard until the internet a few years later), I have participated on services (AOL, Prodigy, etc.), forums, co-owned my own fan website, co-hosted a Mets podcast of nearly nine years (and recently restarted because… quarantine, ha!), etc… and the good people always find each other. Mets fans, when you find the great ones, and there are many, there isn’t a better feeling, you’re with family. Baseball is a common thread… my parents built their relationships going to Mets games together including Game 5 in 1969. They took me to my first game at Shea when I was eight in 1983 to see my favorite new rookie Daryl Strawberry, and I got to take them both to their last games at Shea – my mom in 2000 (she passed in 2012, but didn’t go back often) had her final game a doozy… the 10-run inning with Piazza’s laser beam homerun. Dad got to see a game at Shea in 2008 and I got to take him to Citi after Mom died, before his Parkinson’s and dementia kicked in badly. My last favorite memory with him is sitting on the couch watching the 2015 World Series together. After that, the memory started getting bad, and today he doesn’t know any of us. But the common threads, still baseball, still family.

Do you have a story you want to share about how the Mets helped you through a difficult time? We want to hear it – DM us on Twitter.