In any case, I'm in search of a new team to follow. I pose the following questions: Why do you root for your favorite baseball team? Were you born into it? The great tradition? Great fan base? Great management/ownership?
Great topic Don Sicilia.
Well as you know I am a huge New York Mets fan. First of all not only was I born into the team, but I was born around the same time that they came into existance. My father grew up a die hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan and my grandfather a New York Giants fan. As most sports fans in New York know, a fan of either of these teams usually hated the Yankees, especially the Dodgers fans. So when the Dodgers and Giants moved out west, and the New York Mets came into existance, both my father and my grandfather became Mets fans, thus my being born into and brought up as a Mets fan.
Every year, for my birthday, my father, grandfather and my uncle would take me to see the Mets play the L.A. Dodgers, who usually were always in town on or around my birthday.
My grandfather's company had tickets right over the visitors dugout. One year, on my seventh birthday, we were at a game and Tommy Agee was stretching by third base. I called out to him and asked him if he could please sign my program. I happened to be eating Pizza and he looked up at me (obviously kidding around, but I did not know it at the time) and said " If you give me your Pizza, then I'll give you my autograph." So I handed him my program, he signed it, and then I went to give him my Pizza and he said no. I kept insisting that he take the pizza because he gave me his autograph. He was hysterical laughing but obviously wouldn't take my Pizza. From that day on Tommie Ageee became my favorite player. Needless to say the Mets went on to win the world series that year.
Growing up, the Mets were mostly terrible but yet lovable and exciting. It is the great memories that I have of going to the Mets games with my father, grandfather and uncle coupled with the great memories of some of the players like Agee, Seaver, Harrelson, Milner, Kingman, McGraw etc. that I grew up rooting for over the years.
While the early Met teams never really had the star players, those teams were always exciting and many times were the Davids who faced the Goliaths, and beat the odds. You have to love a team like that!
Amazin Mets. You Gotta Believe!
Don Cardi
