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RUDY SHEPTOCK  SOUL MINING OCT 18 2024

I write this on the 55^th anniversary of the day my “Amazing Mets” shocked the entire world by winning their first World Series over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. I attended Catholic School at the time and unfortunately Sister Cecilia couldn’t give two shiny nickels about a baseball game, never mind the biggest one that I had ever experienced in my ten years on planet earth! I never darted out of a building so fast in my life as I raced the mile home to get to our glorious black and white television to watch the last 2 and a half innings. Al Weis had just hit a homerun to tie the game. I learned later that Weis, a career .200 hitter, used a souvenir bat which was for showcase purposes only to knock that baseball over the left field wall. Hey, whatever works. In the bottom of the eighth Cleon Jones and Ron Swoboda smacked back-to-back doubles and Jerry Grote got an insurance run in with a ball that Boog Powell booted, and the Mets were 3 outs away from the miracle. My poor Dad was at work and so I knew I would be watching for the two of us as Jerry Koosman made future Mets Manager Davey Johnson to fly out to Cleon Jones for the biggest upset victory of the decade. As providence would have it, Davey Johnson would be the skipper who was at the helm when the Mets won their only other championship and Jessie Orosco who the Mets got in a trade for Jerry Koosman would be on the mound on that October night in 1986. These are the nuggets that make Baseball so much more than a game. It is a tinge of what folklore and legends are made of. I celebrated the Mets beating Baltimore the only way I knew how. I took my bike out for a victory ride shouting throughout the Cedar Knolls, NJ neighborhood that the Mets were the best!

Baseball is Abbott and Costello’s timeless routine about Who’s on first and I Don’t Know on third base! Baseball is Babe Ruth and the House that Ruth built. When I was a kid, I actually believed that Babe and the rest of the team actually built Yankee Stadium. I also believed that Lou Gehrig walked off the field after his famous, “Luckiest Man on Earth,” speech and died right there at the ballpark. Baseball is going to “Bat Day,” with the Cub Scouts on an old rickety school bus that made you so nauseous, the den mothers had to keep attending to their boys in blue with plastic bags in tow. Can you imagine giving out wooden bats to crowds today? Neither can I! Some stadiums don’t even allow you to bring an umbrella in never mind supply you with a free weapon that is decorated in your team’s colors! Baseball is the seventh inning stretch when men who won’t sing Happy Birthday at their own kids’ parties are belting out, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” at the top of their lungs. Baseball is having a hot dog fresh from that metal holder that the vendor guy has been sweating in for the last five innings! It was Humphrey Bogart who once said, “a hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz,” and we’d never dare question the judgment of a man who was cozy with Edward G Robinson! My Dad never let us buy anything at the ballpark. When you went anywhere with Mom, you ate first class. Dad would pack up the sandwiches and tell us to go find the water fountain. Obviously, the man didn’t care about the sanitation factor! Yet, I miss him so much and there are times I go to the ballpark looking for him to be there in the crowd cheering for the comeback nobody expected. Dad passed just before the Subway Series in 2000. Yes, I thought he would have some pull over the Mets beating the Yankees that year, but I was wrong. I wonder if Dad still uses the water fountain in Heaven or if he actually takes the Lord up on the offer that the Living Water is free!

I know I’m a Mets Fan surrounded by Phillies Fans. Before I moved to Shamokin, I lived in Cape May County surrounded by Phillies Fans. Living in the Coal Mountains is no different. The very first baseball game at Shea Stadium that I ever saw in person was a Phillies vs. Mets contest and some slugger named Richie Allen clubbed three tape measured home runs. I think one of them is still flying somewhere over Flushing. These were the days when Philadelphia had those big numbers on their uniforms and guys like Cookie Rojas, Tony Taylor, Clay Dalrymple, Johnny Callison and Chris Short were on the team. I probably know more about the team than most Philadelphia Fans do. But when the Mets made the play-offs this year on the day after the season ended by beating their true thorns in the side, the Braves, I was shocked. Then the Mets went on to beat the Phillies in the NLDS to make the NLCS. I have kids and grandkids who were rooting against Pop-Pop’s team, but I’m used to that! Now here we are playing the mighty Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers and who knows yet where that will lead but this I do know, I’m not taking any of it for granted. My Mets have only been in five World Series my entire lifetime and they lost three of them. The last time they were there was 2015 and look, 9 years have flown by, and they are 3 wins away from returning. You can keep your sabermetrics and computer analysis and who hits right handers the best on Thursdays when the temperature is below 60 degrees and the pitcher’s name begins with a vowel! For the next few days, I am ten years old again trying to disappear from the nuns and escape the clutches of those who won’t matter in a few years from now anyway!

So put me in Coach, I’m ready to play today! If Jim Morris of the Tampa Bay Rays could make his debut at 35, so what if I’m 30 years older than him. There must be a few pitches left in this body of mine. And speaking of Jim Morris whose story was portrayed in the Disney Film, “The Rookie,” it begs the question of what is your favorite Baseball Movie? Is it “The Pride of the Yankees,” “Field of Dreams,” “The Natural,” “Eight Men Out,” “The Sandlot,” or some other film about America’s Past time? It is hard for me to pick just one although when Benny the Jet Rodriguez laces up his P.F. Flyers, it is hard not to get nostalgic for what was basically my childhood on the big screen. Who needs adults to play the game we love? Not us! We played until the sun was a distant memory and the last trace of daylight was disappearing with the rising moon. Baseball was not just a professional sport. It was our rite of passage. Dad telling stories about his mother throwing out his baseball cards and me guarding mine like gold from Fort Knox! Hey, I still have each and every one from my collection in the 60’s and early 70’s! I’ve been to Fenway and Wrigley and many other places where there used to be a ballpark. I get lost in my own world with every visit to Cooperstown and when I close my eyes, I still can see pitches from my college days that I just missed. That pop up to short should have been a line drive to left if only I was just a little more patient.

Will the Mets make the 2024 World Series? I have no idea and won’t shed any tears if they don’t. Nothing will ever top those days gone by when I bought 5 packs of cards for a quarter and couldn’t wait to buy The Sporting News so I could check out the box scores of games we never saw a highlight from. The voices that used to describe the game over the radio are mostly gone and with every season, it’s a little harder to hear them in my mind. I treasure Gary Cohn and Howie Rose of the Mets, and I love Tom Hamilton who does the Cleveland Guardians’ games. But today’s broadcaster loves to hear the sound of his own noise rather than actually bringing something to the table that is worth digesting. Maybe this is why I have worn out the Ken Burns documentary of the sport I love the most. If I could go back to any era, it would easily be the 1950’s when Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Micky Mantle patrolled center field in New York. When Ebbets Field still existed, and Gil Hodges was being prayed for in every Catholic Church in Brooklyn. There were no millionaires playing ball and the guys had to work in the winter just like the common man. The rivalries were fierce, and the fandom was passionate. Oh, what a time it must have been to experience a real subway series when even the athletes had to buy a token to ride. I have my memories and to me they are my trophy, and they are my moments of pure joy! Play Ball!