OPENING DAY, THE REAL NEW YEAR DAY

Today is the first day of the rest of my life! Today is the day I’ve been waiting for since last October 1st, when the Mets played their last game for the year. Of course there were other games, but they weren’t important enough for me because they weren’t Met games. I mean what’s a world series without the Mets?

When I was a little boy, my Dad would take me to NYC to a store that sold baseball jackets. I remember one time when I was getting my first Brooklyn Dodgers jacket, and I was very excited. When we arrived at the store, we found out that they were out of Dodgers jackets, so the salesman gave me a black and orange NY Giants jacket. I was very disappointed, and the salesman could see it in my face. He said to my Dad that I could wear this Giant jacket until next Saturday when a new shipment of jackets would be in, and I could exchange it for a Dodgers jacket. Well for some reason, and I think it had to do with the man’s kindness, I wore this hated jacket. On top of wearing something I hated, my Dad reminded me that I had to be careful because it wasn’t ours. I remember only wearing the Giants jacket home from the store, and then the following Saturday back to the store. All the time I wore the coat, my arms were folded over my chest to hide the name and shame. I walked around with my arms folded and a frown on my face. On the way home we stopped at my Grandmothers house to visit. We walked into her kitchen, and she was standing over the table looking at some sewing, and asked my Dad in Italian what was wrong. My Dad said to me, “she wants to know what’s wrong?” I said in English “Doesn’t she realize what I’m wearing?” He said “No, how would grandma know about that?” Just then my grandmother looked at me and said “Eh, a JoJo, a noa Dodge jacketa?” Maybe, just maybe she was waiting for the season to start too.

Well, the next Saturday finally came, and I got my Dodgers jacket, and it was a shiny blue jacket with elastic blue and white striped bands on the wrists and waist, and I felt like a special kid. It felt something like the time many years later when my first son bought me a Brooklyn Dodgers hat long after the Dem Bums left Brooklyn.

Let’s go Mets!