I decided to skip an Amy Winehouse tribute show I talked about going to for weeks. Amy is a Top 5 voice all-time for me and it might have been nice to enjoy her music with like-minded folks.
But it didn’t happen. And it’s going to be OK.
See any similarities, Mets fans?
This concert will enter a long list of music show regrets. Back in 2000, I watched the Mets lose the World Series on a friend’s couch in Portland, Oregon.
I worked at a radio station and saw Smashing Pumpkins on a free pass. Of course, I believed I would get similar treatment when Mos Def and Talib Kweli came to town.
Didn’t happen and I was so bull-headed, I didn’t just go out and buy the tickets. Looking back, the simplest thing was what I should have done.
Kinda like Sandy Alderson looking back to Daniel Murphy.
A couple of years later, I’m in Tampa, down in Ybor and walked past a marquee that said KRS One was performing. A line from ‘My Philosophy’ was my high school yearbook quote. I’ve believed knowledge reigns supreme over nearly everyone for quite some time and yet…
I just walked away and didn’t look back until well afterwards. Until my imagination starts playing with the inevitable what ifs. And what ifs can take various tones and types. Simple things like…
What if the Mets just re-signed John Olerud instead of choosing Todd Zeile?
What if they traded Jay Payton in the winter of 2000 right after finishing third in the Rookie of the Year voting and a World Series home run off Mr. Unanimous?
What if they didn’t sign Tom Glavine?
What if they made sure David Cone had all his best years as a Met?
And I’m only going back about twenty years. There are others before me that had no warnings about Tom Seaver trade rumors and wonder why Nolan Ryan was added to a 1971 trade for Jim Fregosi who was then “purchased by the Texas Rangers“ mid-season from the Mets in 1973.
So the bards devoted to the Boys of Summer out at Old Shea will spin tales of what would have been if new Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen walked in, negotiated an injury buy-out with Yoenis Cespedes and had insurance eat part of the deal.
Then signed Manny Machado to take over for The Captain at third base or added Bryce Harper and told Mickey Callaway to figure out who plays center field between Boras’s boy Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo.
But it didn’t happen.
So how much should we regret that it didn’t?
