Once upon a time I was a baseball writer for Sports Illustrated. I traveled the country, going from New York to Los Angeles to Cleveland to Kansas City to Tampa—on and on and on. I lived out of baseball stadiums … literally would have a bag of clothes with me under the desk (were it too early to check into the hotel). I loved the life until I got sick of the life, whereupon I needed to do anything but watch a baseball game.
In other words, this Sunday I am going to Citi Field—for the first time.
Weird, right? I live a stone’s throw away from Citi and Yankee Stadium, yet haven’t attended either venue. Why? I suppose a big part was ballpark fatigue. The press box scene grew stale long ago, and I haven’t itched to sit in the stands and watch. There’s also the whole book thing—I spend so many hours every day writing and researching the books, that by the time I’m done there’s very little time to catch a ballgame. Also, my kids are 7 and 3 1/2, and they don’t really care about sports.
Anyhow, we’re finally going. Mets-Braves, $12 tickets on Stubhub. It’ll be weird, I suspect, because so much of my life was spent at Shea Stadium, a place I genuinely loved and embraced.
Time moves on …
PS: It is amazing how absolutely nobody in New York talks about the Mets anymore. They don’t exist, and this dates back several months. Boring team, boring manager, boring roster. Never had a genuine chance of competing. Yawn.
