I still remember it like it was yesterday, it was the exact moment I became a Mets fan. I was nine years old and the big thing in those days was flipping baseball cards. Everyone wanted to be the king of the block and the one with the biggest stack of cards. And I was no different.
One day, it was a Saturday, I was out shopping with my mom and my little brother at a now long-defunct department store called E.J. Korvettes. It has since been replaced by Caesar’s Bay Bazaar where we used to go fishing for porgies in the back of the building off the dock.
From a very young age I’ve always hated going out shopping with my mom, she would just drag us around from one discount table and sales bin to another, it was agonizingly awful. My God, what if I was spotted by one of my friends, or worse yet, my enemies?
Luckily, I was able to self medicate from my anxiety by talking my mother into buying me a Good Humor ice cream sandwich from the snack bar inside the store. What? You thought only Wal-Mart had snack bars?? Nuh-uh, we had snack bars in Woolworths stores and Korvettes long before Sam Walton ever stepped foot onto the East Coast.
So we’re up on the second floor, and there seems to be this huge commotion over by the sporting goods department. I somehow managed to talk my mom into giving me a 15 minute parole so I could go check out what was happening.
And there they were – two really tall guys dressed in Mets uniforms, just like the guys on my baseball cards. They were handing out brand new Frisbees to everybody there and to my surprise it was totally free. My only thought… I had to have one.
Somehow I was able to work up enough nerve so that I could squeeze my way in between the huge crowd of bigger kids who were all waiting for their chance to shake hands and talk to these guys, but not me, I only had my eyes on the prize.
Finally, I made it to the front of the line and then there I was standing across the table from two guys named Jerry Grote and Ed Kranepool who were smiling big as day, when Grote looked right at me and said, “Hey young fella, how are you doing today?”
I froze. Dead silence. After a few seconds I sheepishly stuttered something that sounded like, “Ummm g-g-good. I was j-j-just wanting a b-b-blue Frisbee… p-p-please…”
Grote smiled and said, “I’ll do you one better, son.” He hands me my blue Frisbee, and then puts a Mets cap on my head and shakes my little hand with the biggest hand I ever saw in my life. Mission accomplished… I couldn’t wait to go back home and play with my Frisbee. The Mets cap at that point, was just an afterthought.
A day, maybe two days later, two of my friends and I were hanging out in front of my stoop and we were all settling in for an epie battle of flipping baseball cards. That was the year that Topps Baseball Cards had those big colored circles for each team which made them perfect for flipping. The Mets were purple.
So all of a sudden I flip a card into the growing pile and then quickly snatched it back up, breaking every known rule of the Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge version of flipping cards. But I didn’t care, there was Jerry Grote – that nice guy in the Mets uniform who gave me my Frisbee. And my Mets cap.
I think that was when it happened for me. At the time I had never been to a baseball game yet and whenever the game was on the old black & white TV, I’d just go to my bedroom and read my comic books.
But after that day, I became totally fascinated with the Mets and from that moment forward I immersed myself in finding out everything I could about them and especially about Jerry Grote who was now my first ever favorite baseball player.
A couple of years later I would finally see Shea Stadium for the first time and I thought, wow… this must be heaven. It wasn’t even a real game, it was a Mayor’s Trophy Game, but the sights, the smells and all the sounds intoxicated me. By that time, I was already collecting Mets baseball cards and clipping articles out of my dad’s Daily News for my Mets scrapbook. My room was decked in Mets posters and right above my bed I had this 1969 World Series pennant. I was hooked.
So where am I going with all this? It’s easy… Now I want to hear your stories about when you became hooked on the Mets, and I want to share the best ones with all of our readers.
The New York Mets are now the hottest tickets in town, and I’m giving away a pair of tickets to see them on Friday, October 2, when they take on the Washington Nationals in what could end up being a do-or-die series for first place in the National League East.
It’s a Free Shirt Friday, but more important than that it could be the biggest series of the year for Mets as two teams battle it out for a shot at the postseason in front of an electrifying sold-out crowd at Citi Field.
Send us your stories and after the weekend we’ll choose the best five and post them on our site next week and then vote on the best one with the winner getting the free tickets to see the Mets versus the Nationals.
Send your entries to us at [email protected]. And as always, thank you for your tremendous support and Let’s Go Mets!
