1969 World Series Amazing Mets

I have been at two great sporting events live. One was when Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes. Still waiting for those other horses to finish the race.

The other was Game 5 of the 1969 World Series. I still get goose bumps thinking about the game. I was a 6th grader living on Long Island. Just before the series started we had to go to Queens for a family event. Just as a fluke, we went to the Box Office to see if they had tickets to any of the Amazing Mets World Series games. As luck would have it, there were two tickets left for Game 5. Can you imagine today going to the box office and getting tickets to a World Series game the day before the Series started.?

My older brother and I went to the game and we probably had the worst seats in the place but who cared. All I could remember was the delirium that was bubbling up all around me as the innings went on and the Mets took the lead. After the game ended, we stormed on the field. Of course where we sat, it took us about two hours to get on the field. We grabbed some grass and my mother later framed the tickets and the grass and it still hangs in my office today.

My sixth grade teacher was a Met fanatic and after school, he set up his black and white tv in the office and we would watch the World Series games. Yes, as I tell my son, World Series games used to be played on weekdays during the day. Mr. Kirshner knew I missed class on Thursday (Game 5) but he didn't care---he just wanted me to come to school on Friday with the promise of a Met victory. I came through with that victory.

I have no idea why I am recounting this story now but it remains over forty years later my sports memory of a life-time. Please let me know if you were at the 1969 Amazing Mets World Series and what your recollections were of the series.

Shame on Oliver Perez

Everyone has beaten up Omar for signing Oliver Perez at the beginning of  last year for $36 million for three years. However, when he was signed  last year, very few Met fans were upset. Most fans wanted Perez back especially after his impressive, though inconsistent, 2008 season. I was one of them.

It is clear that it ended up being an awful signing and he has been nothing but a disappointment. Now, though he is not just a disappointment, he is even hurting the team by being on the 25 man roster. He has refused the Mets request to go to the minors.

There are many examples of greed in sports and this is a prime example. Shame on Ollie and his $12 million a year to refuse to go along with the Mets request to go to the minors. He hurt the team by pitching so badly for the last year and a half and now he hurts the team by not pitching. He is the gift that keeps giving....This is going to end very ugly and it's too bad because, at one time, I was an Ollie believer.