Bill Loehfelm

Another in the series of essays honoring the 50th anniversary of the New York Mets:

I often get asked, when people find out that I’m from New York, if I’m a Yankee fan.

“No,” I answer, “I’m a Mets fan. There are two teams in New York, you know.”

Then comes the follow-up question: “Why?”

Some even phrase it “How?” as in “How did you become a Mets fan?” It’s often asked with same intonation and inflection as “How did you get that weird growth right in the middle of your forehead?” (From banging my head on the wall as a Mets fan). “How do you do it?” they wonder. “How do you choose?”

And of course they wonder, “Why the Mets, for the love of God? Why the team with two titles instead of the team that’s on the cusp of thirty championships, the most successful sports franchise in the world?”

Of course, these questions rely on a certain flawed assumption, that I had a choice. I didn’t. I was born this way. I was born a Mets fan. The same way I was born a male, born with brown eyes and a German last name into a predominantly Irish family. I was born into a Mets family. I see in my nieces and nephews the same indoctrination into the faith that I must’ve gone through as a child. I wasn’t asked which team I loved anymore than I was asked how I felt about gravity. I’m not conscious of making a choice. I wasn’t aware that was another option.

The ultimate responsibility lies, I’m told, with my grandfathers: Loehfelm on one side, Murphy on the other, Brooklyn Dodger fans both. There is a direct throughline from the Brooklyn Dodgers to the Mets. Most Mets fans are descended from Dodger fans. On a recent edition of THE DAILY SHOW, a guest asked John Stewart if he rooted for the the Yankees or the the Mets. His response: “My grandfather was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, so Mets all the way.”

The Mets came into the league in 1962, a single team to replace not only the beloved Dem Bums of Brooklyn, but also the New York Giants, who had departed on the heels of the Dodgers for the foggy hills of San Francisco. As a tribute to their forefathers, the Mets took one color from each team as their own: blue from Brooklyn and orange from the Giants. When the Mets replaced Shea Stadium with Citi Field, the new place was consciously designed to recall Ebbet’s Field, the old Flatbush home of the Dodgers. Ebbet’s was demolished in 1960, several years after the Dodgers left for LA and more parking spaces after the 1957 season. The site of the old stadium is now home to the Jackie Robinson apartments.

Dodger fans in particular, because they had in the Forties and Fifties suffered so brutally and so often at the hands of the Yankees, especially in the World Series, had found it simply inconceivable to shift their loyalties to what was for seven years, the only game in town if the game was baseball. A transfer of loyalty to California was out of the question as well. Grandpa Murphy (probably like a lot of Grandpa Murphy’s in New York) hated the LA Dodgers until the day he died. I’m not a fan of theirs, either. Family tradition.

The Tennessee Williams Literary Festival hits New Orleans this weekend. Here’s a little something I did about my first appearance there as a published novelist.

January of 2005, I sat backstage at Tipitina’s, trying not to throw up. My band was about to play Tip’s for the first time. With ten minutes remaining before show time, the romantic thrill of playing drums in such a storied New Orleans venue had all but evaporated. I stared at the photos on the surrounding walls. The Neville Brothers, the Meters, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Dr. John, Professor Longhair himself, they had all played on the stage I was about to take. I was a long way from the soulless strip malls of Staten Island, on the edge of one of the funkiest stages in the world’s funkiest city. I struggled to believe I belonged out there. Did I really have the chops to play Tip’s? Was I really a New Orleans musician? It was a true David Byrne moment: “How did I get here?”

Now, we weren’t opening for Galactic or the Dirty Dozen. We had a good-sized crowd but hardly SRO. Joe “Cool” Davis introduced us, but he mispronounced the name of the band. We got an hour to do our thing. When we finished, our set hadn’t set a new benchmark in the annals of New Orleans music. But it was Tipitina’s. I broke a sweat under the same low-hanging lights as Mean Willie Green, Russell Batiste, and Zigaboo. I held my own. Listening back to the soundboard mix the next day, I heard the tension in the first song or two, but I heard some swing, some funk from the kit. I didn’t exactly throw down, but I didn’t throw up. And, most importantly, I’d earned my way onto a stage that I had longed to play.

On a Friday afternoon in March of 2009, I experienced similar sensations at the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival.

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This is the first installment in an ongoing series I hope to do throughout baseball season, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Mets:

My actual life and my baseball life started on the same day, October 15, 1969. Mets fans don’t need any help figuring out where I’m going with this.

A few years ago, my mother made scrapbooks for all her sons of our childhood memorabilia. My book begins with two clippings from the New York Daily News. The smaller article is a paragraph-sized birth announcement commemorating my arrival on Planet Earth. The larger is the full front page of the paper. The headline reads AGEE WHIZ! Underneath the headline are photos of a breathtaking diving catch by Mets centerfielder Tommy Agee, one of two stunning, game-saving grabs he made during Game Three  - the game that gave the Mets the lead in the series.

I was born the next night, during Game Four, another game that featured defensive heroics, this time by right fielder Ron Swoboda, and though I know it’s apocryphal, I halfway believe the family story that I was landing in the doctor’s mitts just as Brooks Robinson’s dying line drive landed in Swoboda’s outstretched glove.

The next day, at Shea Stadium in Queens, on October 16, the first full day of my life, the Mets won Game Five and took the ’69 World Series from the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles, completing their miraculous run from league laughingstock to league champions, becoming once and forever the Miracle Mets. I probably slept through it. I’m sure I’m the only one in my family who did. I wish I’d stayed awake because by the time the Mets won another championship, I was in high school and at least biologically old enough to be someone else’s father.

How serious a baseball family was I born into? I was the first grandchild for either side of the family. My paternal grandfather was chief surgeon of Methodist Hospital in Park Slope, Brooklyn  - where I was born. He was at the game with my grandmother while my mom was in labor. My parents had their own tickets for the game. We’ll never really know how close I came to being born at Shea. I tell my mom she should have gone out there. Season tickets for life, for sure. Talk about a miracle baby! Forget the guy with big head, I would be Mr. Met.

It’s fun to joke about, but in reality I know it’s better that I was at the hospital. I’m sure Mom would’ve been sitting with my grandfather the doctor, but I worry about stadium ushers and the peanut guy assisting him with the birth. I’m sure my mom was more comfortable in bed than in the box seats. I’m sure the obstetrician at Methodist had the best hands for the job, better even than Agee’s and Swoboda’s.