“
A kid might help another kid who fell into a river, and a kid might help another kid search for a lost baseball, but there isn't a kid I've met who will help another kid out of a humiliating situation. We just aren't built that way.
”
”
David Lubar (Hidden Talents (Talents, #1))
“
This was a new recognition that perfection is admirable but a trifle inhuman, and that a stumbling kind of semi-success can be much more warming. Most of all, perhaps, these exultant yells for the Mets were also yells for ourselves, and came from a wry, half-understood recognition that there is more Met than Yankee in every one of us. I knew for whom that foghorn blew; it blew for me.
”
”
Roger Angell (The Summer Game (Bison Book))
“
For several years Quinn had been having the same conversations with this man, whose name he did not know. Once, when he had been in the luncheonette, they had talked about baseball, and now, each time Quinn came in, they continued to talk about it. In the winter, the talk was of trades, predictions, memories. During the season, it was always the most recent game. They were both Mets fans, and the hopelessness of that passion had created a bond between them.
”
”
Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy (New York Trilogy, #1-3))
“
The Mets lose an awful lot?
Listen, mister. Think a little bit.
When was the last time you won anything out of life?
”
”
Jimmy Breslin
“
His Facebook post is pure Jamie: Hi all. I feel like a heel doing this over Facebook, but I can’t reach everyone by tomorrow. You’re all going to discuss me on Sunday, anyway. And in case you think my account was hacked, it wasn’t. As proof I’ll confess that I’m the one who broke Mom’s Christmas tree angel when I was seven. It was death by baseball, but I swear she didn’t suffer. Anyway, I have to catch you up on a few developments. I’ve taken the coaching job in Toronto, and I’ve declined my spot in Detroit. This feels like the right career move, but there’s something else. I’m living with my boyfriend (that was not a typo.) His name is Wes, and we met at Lake Placid about nine years ago. In case you were lacking something to talk about over dinner, I’ve fixed that problem. Love you all. Jamie
”
”
Sarina Bowen (Him (Him, #1))
“
So the Mets are a bad ball club. All right, they're the worst ball club you ever saw. So what? The important thing is they are in the National League and they are familiar.
”
”
Jimmy Breslin (Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets' First Year)
“
There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us.
”
”
Tucker Elliot
“
When we got home to Carlisle, I put my Mets hat in my closet, ignoring Lou's endearing request that we wear the hats to match. I didn't want to look exactly like Lou. Two more Asian kids in New York baseball caps. It's how they already saw us- we just had to look at the movies.
”
”
Phuc Tran (Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In)
“
It would be nice to think that the menacing aspects of North Korea were for display also, that the bombs and reactors were Potemkin showcases or bargaining chips. On the plane from Beijing I met a group of unsmiling Texan types wearing baseball caps. They were the 'in-country' team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, there to inspect and neutralize North Korea's plutonium rods. Not a nice job, but, as they say, someone has to do it. Speaking of the most controversial reactor at Yongbyon, one of the guys said, 'No sweat. She's shut down now.' Nice to know. But then, so is the rest of North Korean society shut down—animation suspended, all dead quiet on the set, endlessly awaiting not action (we hope) or even cameras, but light.
”
”
Christopher Hitchens (Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays)
“
You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn't maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a t-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller?
”
”
Jimmy Breslin (Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets' First Year)
“
Jack took me to the Christmas Dance.
It snowed the day of the dance, making the Meier Farmhouse and Dance Hall look like something out of a painting, the lights on the roof glowing under sheets of white. And when Jack led me onto the dance floor and grasped one of my hands and tugged it up behind his neck, then placed his arm around my back, soft and low, I thought life couldn't get better.
He pulled me close against him, our hands clasped next to his chest.The cedar from the farmhouse mingled with Jack's aftershave,making a sweet, rustic scent.
"Becks,remember the first time we met?" he asked,his lips grazing my ear.
Of course I remembered. The events of that day were permanently etched into my brain. "You mean,the time you nearly beheaded me with a baseball?"
"I had to do something to get the new girl's attention."
"A simple 'hello' would have worked."
He pulled me in tighter, as if that were possible. "Why did we wait so long to do this?"
"Um, because you were making your way through the entire cheerleading squad?"
He looked at me for a few moments, then shook his head and leaned in to brush his lips along my shoulder.
I closed my eyes. If this was what I could expect for the rest of my high school years,I never wanted to graduate.
Ever.
”
”
Brodi Ashton (Everneath (Everneath, #1))
“
Understand that we were a crowd of rational people. We knew that a home run cannot be produced at will; the right pitch must be perfectly met and luck must ride with the ball. Three innings before, we had seen a brave effort fail. The air was soggy; the season was exhausted. Nevertheless, there will always lurk, around a corner in a pocket of our knowledge of the odds, an indefensible hope, and this was one of the times, which you now and then find in sports, when a density of expectation hangs in the air and plucks an event out of the future.
”
”
John Updike (Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams: A Library of America Special Publication)
“
1
The summer our marriage failed
we picked sage to sweeten our hot dark car.
We sat in the yard with heavy glasses of iced tea,
talking about which seeds to sow
when the soil was cool. Praising our large, smooth spinach
leaves, free this year of Fusarium wilt,
downy mildew, blue mold. And then we spoke of flowers,
and there was a joke, you said, about old florists
who were forced to make other arrangements.
Delphiniums flared along the back fence.
All summer it hurt to look at you.
2
I heard a woman on the bus say, “He and I were going
in different directions.” As if it had something to do
with a latitude or a pole. Trying to write down
how love empties itself from a house, how a view
changes, how the sign for infinity turns into a noose
for a couple. Trying to say that weather weighed
down all the streets we traveled on, that if gravel sinks,
it keeps sinking. How can I blame you who kneeled day
after day in wet soil, pulling slugs from the seedlings?
You who built a ten-foot arch for the beans, who hated
a bird feeder left unfilled. You who gave
carrots to a gang of girls on bicycles.
3
On our last trip we drove through rain
to a town lit with vacancies.
We’d come to watch whales. At the dock we met
five other couples—all of us fluorescent,
waterproof, ready for the pitch and frequency
of the motor that would lure these great mammals
near. The boat chugged forward—trailing a long,
creamy wake. The captain spoke from a loudspeaker:
In winter gray whales love Laguna Guerrero; it’s warm
and calm, no killer whales gulp down their calves.
Today we’ll see them on their way to Alaska. If we
get close enough, observe their eyes—they’re bigger
than baseballs, but can only look down. Whales can
communicate at a distance of 300 miles—but it’s
my guess they’re all saying, Can you hear me?
His laughter crackled. When he told us Pink Floyd is slang
for a whale’s two-foot penis, I stopped listening.
The boat rocked, and for two hours our eyes
were lost in the waves—but no whales surfaced, blowing
or breaching or expelling water through baleen plates.
Again and again you patiently wiped the spray
from your glasses. We smiled to each other, good
troopers used to disappointment. On the way back
you pointed at cormorants riding the waves—
you knew them by name: the Brants, the Pelagic,
the double-breasted. I only said, I’m sure
whales were swimming under us by the dozens.
4
Trying to write that I loved the work of an argument,
the exhaustion of forgiving, the next morning,
washing our handprints off the wineglasses. How I loved
sitting with our friends under the plum trees,
in the white wire chairs, at the glass table. How you
stood by the grill, delicately broiling the fish. How
the dill grew tall by the window. Trying to explain
how camellias spoil and bloom at the same time,
how their perfume makes lovers ache. Trying
to describe the ways sex darkens
and dies, how two bodies can lie
together, entwined, out of habit.
Finding themselves later, tired, by a fire,
on an old couch that no longer reassures.
The night we eloped we drove to the rainforest
and found ourselves in fog so thick
our lights were useless. There’s no choice,
you said, we must have faith in our blindness.
How I believed you. Trying to imagine
the road beneath us, we inched forward,
honking, gently, again and again.
”
”
Dina Ben-Lev
“
The first time I met Crenshaw was about three years ago, right after first grade ended. It was early evening, and my family and I had parked at a rest stop off a highway. I was lying on the grass near a picnic table, gazing up at the stars blinking to life. I heard a noise, a wheels-on-gravel skateboard sound. I sat up on my elbows. Sure enough, a skater on a board was threading his way through the parking lot. I could see right away that he was an unusual guy. He was a black and white kitten. A big one, taller than me. His eyes were the sparkly color of morning grass. He was wearing a black and orange San Francisco Giants baseball cap. He hopped off his board and headed my way. He was standing on two legs just like a human. “Meow,” he said. “Meow,” I said back, because it seemed polite.
”
”
Katherine Applegate (Crenshaw)
“
In his time, Hornsby was an unbelievable hitter who three times finished with an average of over .400, reaching .424 in 1924, a record still standing. This background has not made him exactly tolerant of the ability of baseball players. To illustrate, we reprint herewith the most glowing report on an individual which Hornsby handed in all season: LOOKS LIKE A MAJOR-LEAGUE PLAYER The name at the top of the sheet said the report was about Mickey Mantle.
”
”
Jimmy Breslin (Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets' First Year)
“
I'm not really a flowers-and-proper-dates girl," I said, fully aware of his thigh muscles
tightening under my hand. "I'm more of a burgers-and-football girl, to be honest. Baseball or hockey since we're in the off-season. Basketball too. Burgers, sports, nothing proper. I'm not proper."
Cal rested his forehead on my shoulder with a quiet groan. That sound, it was more intimate than a kiss. It belonged to private spaces where no one else could listen in. But we'd already forgotten about the rest of the world. We were alone here, me and Cal, and I wasn't smitten. I wasn't lovestruck. "Marry me, Stella. Marry me and bear my children."
His hand skated up my arm and over my shoulder to cup my face, and just like that, I was kissing a man I'd met an hour ago.
”
”
Kate Canterbary (Before Girl (Vital Signs, #1))
“
Oh, and Jack said to tell you something…what was it? Ah…he said, ‘If the Mets get anywhere near home base, it’ll be the last game they ever play.’” She laughed. “I don’t know a lot about baseball. Did that make sense?” Daniel gulped. “Perfect sense.” In other words, touch my daughter and die, asshole. “See you tomorrow, Daniel.” “Bye, sunshine.” Daniel hung up the phone and stared off into space. Obviously Jack was trying to kill him. Take my beautiful daughter out, sit next to her for hours on end, and bring her home untouched. The prom date from hell. Matt and Brent came up behind him. “How’d it go?” Matt asked. “Oh, you know…perfect.” He turned to Brent. “I’m taking her to the game tomorrow night.” Brent’s mouth dropped open. “What the hell? I thought you were taking me?” “Tough shit. She smells better than you.
”
”
Tessa Bailey (Officer off Limits (Line of Duty, #3))
“
Are you chuckling yet? Because then along came you. A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach. A bundle of appetites. A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock know jokes. Hot dogs - not even East 86th Street bratwurst but mealy, greasy big guts that terrifying pink. Baseball. Gimme caps. Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six-packs. A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives. A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds. Fucks hard and talks dirty; a private though unapologetic taste for porn. Mysteries, thrillers, and science fiction; a subscription to National Geographic. Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf. Delights in crappy snack foods of ever description: Burgles. Curlies. Cheesies. Squigglies - you're laughing - but I don't eat them - anything that looks less like food than packing material and at least six degrees of separation from the farm. Bruce Springsteen, the early albums, cranked up high with the truck window down and your hair flying. Sings along, off-key - how is it possible that I should be endeared by such a tin ear?Beach Boys. Elvis - never lose your roots, did you, loved plain old rock and roll. Bombast. Though not impossibly stodgy; I remember, you took a shine to Pearl Jam, which was exactly when Kevin went off them...(sorry). It just had to be noisy; you hadn't any time for my Elgar, my Leo Kottke, though you made an exception for Aaron Copeland. You wiped your eyes brusquely at Tanglewood, as if to clear gnats, hoping I didn't notice that "Quiet City" made you cry. And ordinary, obvious pleasure: the Bronx Zoo and the botanical gardens, the Coney Island roller coaster, the Staten Island ferry, the Empire State Building. You were the only New Yorker I'd ever met who'd actually taken the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You dragged me along once, and we were the only tourists on the boat who spoke English. Representational art - Edward Hopper. And my lord, Franklin, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes. Physically, too, you were such a surprise - yourself a strong defense. There were times you were worried that I thought you too heavy, I made so much of your size, though you weighed in a t a pretty standard 165, 170, always battling those five pounds' worth of cheddar widgets that would settle over your belt. But to me you were enormous. So sturdy and solid, so wide, so thick, none of that delicate wristy business of my imaginings. Built like an oak tree, against which I could pitch my pillow and read; mornings, I could curl into the crook of your branches. How luck we are, when we've spared what we think we want! How weary I might have grown of all those silly pots and fussy diets, and how I detest the whine of sitar music!
”
”
Lionel Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
“
We were in Pittsburgh at the end of September. The Pirates had already clinched the division, and the great Roberto Clemente was looking for his 3,000th career hit. I wasn’t in the lineup again. Clemente wasn’t a power hitter like Mays or Aaron, but he had won four batting titles, was a perennial All-Star, and even at the age of 37 was hitting well over .300. Roberto lined a sharp double down the left-field line in the fourth inning, and we saw history being made again. He joined Willie and Hank and a handful of others to reach that milestone. I remember thinking at the time how difficult it must be to get all of those hits, and for Willie and Hank to get all those home runs. I’d only reached about 900 hits with more than 2,000 to go if I ever was to hit that mark. That put it into perspective for me, that I really was watching one of the greats of the game. It was a dark day for baseball on the last day of 1972 when Roberto’s plane went down while delivering supplies to Nicaragua. He was only 38. I heard about the plane crash the next day, and it was like losing a brother. It was a great loss for the game of baseball and humanity—especially knowing how his fellow Puerto Ricans felt about him. He was a treasure, and he did it the way nobody else could. Some say he did everything wrong at the plate but he had great results behind it. You wouldn’t teach hitting the way he hit, but it was right for him. What he did was in him like it was in with me. He was a man of stature, and it was his calling. Some people are called to preach, some people are called to teach, and some people are called to serve. He was called to serve, and he served his entire island. I believe everything is predestined, and we just have to act out what’s already on the wall of your life. He’d probably always been aware of the need to do something more for others than for himself. He looked around and saw a need and acted on it. I’m certain he looked at who he was and what he accomplished and how he could take being famous into being a blessing for others. I’ve said this many times before, that those who depend on you are seeking a hand up and not a handout. I didn’t think about it then, but I think about it now, how good the Almighty was to wait to call Roberto home after he got his 3,000th hit—a milestone hit that put him next to the greats of the game.
”
”
Cleon Jones (Coming Home: My Amazin' Life with the New York Mets)
“
As with other childlike traits, human adults remain playful and trusting in a way that looks a lot more like Labradors than adult wolves or chimpanzees. When a grown wolf or a chimp bares its teeth, you’d better run. Humans, even adult humans, are by and large more into chasing balls than establishing dominance. The readiness with which we play with our friends and acquaintances and even strangers is remarkable, even though verbal banter or wordplay tends to gradually displace physical wrestling. When I joke with the hot dog vendor about his pathetic loyalty to the Mets, as evinced by the baseball cap he is wearing, we become very much like two dogs wrestling in a park: My verbal jabs are play-serious, not meant to genuinely wound, and the successful banter establishes an ephemeral but important trust connection in the midst of a busy metropolis. Insult a chimpanzee’s favorite baseball team, on the other hand, and you’re likely to lose an arm. The fact that humans retain into adulthood the complex and sophisticated cognitive machinery required to play, and in fact continue to enjoy playing with others, is a reflection of the profound importance of trust in human affairs.
”
”
Edward Slingerland (Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization)
“
Chip asked me about New York and what I wanted to do, and how long my dad had owned the shop, and what it was I loved about Waco. He asked about my sisters and my family in general, and what I’d done at Baylor, and if I’d known a few communications majors he’d run around with at school. (I told y’all he was chatty!) Somehow none of these questions seemed intrusive or strange to me at the time, which is funny, because thinking back I find them particularly telling.
At the time, it was just like talking with an old friend.
John finally stood up, and this baseball-cap-wearing customer that John had introduced as Chip followed. “Well, nice talking to you,” he said.
“Nice talking to you too,” I replied, and that was it. I went back inside. The guys in the shop wanted to know what I thought about Hot John, and I just laughed. “Sorry, guys, I don’t think it’s gonna work out.”
The next day I came back from my lunch break to find a note on my desk: “Chip Gaines called. Call him back.” I thought, Oh, that must be the guy I met yesterday. So I called him. I honestly thought he was going to ask me about getting a better price on his brakes or something, but instead he said, “Hey, I really enjoyed our conversation yesterday. I was wondering…you want to go out sometime?”
And for some reason I said okay--just like that, without any hesitation. It wasn’t like me at all. When I hung up the phone, I went, “What in the world just happened!”
So you said okay immediately? I don’t even remember that. That’s fun! No reservations? Man, I must’ve been good-lookin’.
What Chip didn’t know was I didn’t even give myself time to have reservations. Something told me to just go for it.
Cute, Joey. This story makes me love you all over again.
”
”
Joanna Gaines (The Magnolia Story)
“
I think it’s important to reiterate here that I didn’t start out wanting to be a gardener, or a designer for that matter. It was all trial and error and figuring things out. And sometimes you’ve got to try something outside of your comfort zone to figure out what it is that you truly love.
Well, you could say that about you and me right from the start. You were never looking for the loud guy, and I certainly wasn’t looking for the quiet girl.
Now I look back and go, “If I would’ve ended up with that quiet guy or that stable guy or that safe guy, I would never have been able to pursue any of these dreams, because no one would have pushed me to these new places I discovered in myself.” Those other types of guys might have allowed me to stay in that safe place.
They wouldn’t have drawn you out. That’s interesting. And if I had wound up with some cheerleader who was always the life of the party, I don’t think I would have found my way, either. I needed you for that.
Nowadays when I think about the name Magnolia, I think about it in terms that refer to much more than the blossoming of our business. I think about the buds on the three, and how they really are just the tightest buds--they look like rocks, almost. And I feel like when Chip and I met, that tight little bud was me. I was risk averse, and in some ways, I don’t think I saw the beauty or the potential in myself. Then I wound up with Chip Gaines and--
You bloomed?
I did. If I hadn’t married Chip, I might not have ever bloomed.
I can’t imagine what my life would be if we hadn’t traveled this road. We celebrated our twelfth anniversary recently, and my dad said something that I thought was really beautiful. He said, “Chip, I always thought, when I was out on the baseball field hitting you those grounders, that I was training you to be the next greatest baseball player. But now, looking back and seeing the person you’ve become, I was really training you to be the next greatest dad.
”
”
Joanna Gaines (The Magnolia Story)
“
So Japan is allied with Germany and they’re like “Sweet the rest of the world already hates us let’s take their land!” So they start invading China and Malaysia and the Philippines and just whatever else but then they’re like “Hmm what if America tries to stop us? Ooh! Let’s surprise attack Hawaii!” So that’s exactly what they do. The attack is very successful but only in a strictly technical sense. To put it in perspective, let’s try a metaphor. Let’s say you’re having a barbecue but you don’t want to get stung by any bees so you find your local beehive and just go crazy on it with a baseball bat. Make sense? THEN YOU MUST BE JAPAN IN THE ’40s. WHO ELSE WOULD EVER DO THIS? So the U.S. swarms on Japan, obviously but that’s where our bee metaphor breaks down because while bees can sting you they cannot put you in concentration camps (or at least, I haven’t met any bees that can do that). Yeah, after that surprise attack on Pearl Harbor everybody on the West Coast is like “OMG WE’RE AT WAR WITH JAPAN AND THERE ARE JAPANESE DUDES LIVING ALLLL AROUND US.” I mean, they already banned Japanese immigration like a decade before but there are still Japanese dudes all over the coast and what’s more those Japanese dudes are living right next door to all the important aircraft factories and landing strips and shipyards and farmland and forests and bridges almost as if those types of things are EVERYWHERE and thus impossible not to live next door to. Whatever, it’s pretty suspicious. Now, at this point, nothing has been sabotaged and some people think that means they’re safe. But not military geniuses like Earl Warren who points out that the only reason there’s been no sabotage is that the Japanese are waiting for their moment and the fact that there has been no sabotage yet is ALL THE PROOF WE NEED to determine that sabotage is being planned. Frank Roosevelt hears this and he’s like “That’s some pretty shaky logic but I really don’t like Japanese people. Okay, go ahead.” So he passes an executive order that just says “Any enemy ex-patriots can be kicked out of any war zone I designate. P.S.: California, Oregon, and Washington are war zones have fun with that.” So they kick all the Japanese off the coast forcing them to sell everything they own but people are still not satisfied. They’re like “Those guys look funny! We can’t have funny-looking dudes roaming around this is wartime! We gotta lock ’em up.” And FDR is like “Okay, sure.” So they herd all the Japanese into big camps where they are concentrated in large numbers like a hundred and ten thousand people total and then the military is like “Okay, guys we will let you go if you fill out this loyalty questionnaire that says you love the United States and are totally down to be in our army” and some dudes are like “Sweet, free release!” but some dudes are like “Seriously? You just put me in jail for being Asian. This country is just one giant asshole and it’s squatting directly over my head.” And the military is like “Ooh, sorry to hear that buddy looks like you’re gonna stay here for the whole war. Meanwhile your friends get to go fight and die FOR FREEDOM.
”
”
Cory O'Brien (George Washington Is Cash Money: A No-Bullshit Guide to the United Myths of America)
“
I don’t drink alcohol even when I’m not in the family way. Never have.”
“Never?”
“Nope.”
“Never drank once in all your life? That’s impossible.”
“It’s partly a religious decision. I’m a Mormon. From Utah, you know.”
He stared, mouth slightly agape. “How many wives does your husband know.”have?”
“Oh please. Mormons aren’t polygamists.”
“Yes they are,” the driver piped up. He wore one of those cliché chauffeur hats low over his eyes. “Everyone knows. The men have loads of wives, make them all wear bonnets.”
Becky sighed and gave her speech. “Some Mormons were polygamists in the nineteenth century, but they gave up the practice in 1890. There are small religious groups around the Utah area who practice polygamy, but they have nothing to do with the LDS Church.”
“That’s not what I saw on TV. Mormons, they said. Polygamists. Loads of ’em.”
“I am a Mormon, from Utah, lived there my entire thirty-four years, and I’ve never met a polygamist.”
The driver straightened the Mets plush baseball that dangled from the rearview mirror. “You must not get out much.”
“Yes, that must be it.”
“It’s tragic really,” Felix said. “She’s agoraphobic and hadn’t been out of the house in, what was it, fifteen years?”
“Sixteen,” Becky said.
“Right, sixteen. Last time was when Charles and Diana wed.”
“You’re thinking of the last time I leaned out the window. The last time I actually left the house was for a sale at Sears.”
“Of course, the day you bought those trousers. Sixteen years later, here she is! And in the same trousers, but still . . . We’re so proud of our little Becky!” Felix patted her head. “You dug deep, but you found the courage to step out of that door.”
“I did like you told me, Felix. I just shut my eyes and chanted, ‘The polygamists are not going to eat me, they’re not going to eat me,’ and I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
“She is a rare example of true bravery. Don’t you agree?”
“Uh, yeah,” said the driver. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Becky smiled politely. “Go Mets.”
The driver snorted.
”
”
Shannon Hale (The Actor and the Housewife)
“
I realized I been kind of a jerk lately.”
“Oh, you realized that, huh?” Megan said.
“Let me finish, woman!” Doug said.
Megan suddenly realized what an effort it was taking for him to talk to her at all, so she pressed her lips together and waited.
“I was just pissed at you from jump ’cuz you snaked my room. But I thought on it and I figured out why you irritate me so much,” Doug said.
Megan raised her eyebrows. “Why’s that?”
“Well, ’cuz you came in there and you did all this stuff, you know? Like stuff no one else can do,” Doug said. For the first time since she’d met him, Doug was looking at her and his guard was down. He wasn’t making a sneer or putting on a tough front--he was just there, talking to her. “Like you got Miller talking about stuff that’s not baseball. And Ian and Caleb are actually afraid of you. And Sean, like, occasionally comes out of the garage now. And my mom? She’s a different person since you been there. She’s, y’know, calmer or something.”
“Really?”
“It’s like just having another female around has chilled her out or something, seriously. She’s only whacked me upside the head like once since you got here,” Doug said.
Megan couldn’t help grinning.
“Plus what you did for me…” Doug said. “That was pretty cool too. I still don’t know why you did it.”
“Soft spot for lost causes?” Megan said with a shrug.
“Well, whatever,” Doug said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Megan said. It was only one word, but she had a feeling he actually meant it.
”
”
Kate Brian (Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys)
“
Good afternoon, Sasha,” Finn replied, curiously eyeing the black book under his arm. The picture on the cover was of two pale hands holding a blood red apple. “What’s that you’re reading?” “Ah, just a book to practicing my English,” he said in a nonchalant tone. There was absolutely nothing about his embarrassed grin that implied he was reading it for educational purposes, and Finn wasn’t fooled one bit. “What’s it about that’s got you so distracted?” “Well… ah… it’s a story about a vampire who plays baseball,” came his sheepish reply. “It is written by an American lass like you, Annika… although I’m not thinking she has ever met a real vampire. This one is sparkling in the sun.” “Oh my god! You’re reading Twilight? I know that story!” Annika blurted out. She was taken aback that anyone from Eritähti would be reading a book from Earth.
”
”
Emigh Cannaday (The Scarlet Tanager (Annika Brisby, #3))
“
Subway Series is a series of baseball games between two New York City teams, since fans can reach the stadiums via subway trains. The first Subway Series were played as World Series games. For example, the Yankees played the New York Giants in 1921, and the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1941. More recently, the Mets and the Yankees have been playing Subway Series games during the regular season. They typically play groups of two or three games at each team’s stadium. The Mets and the Yankees competed in a World Series Subway Series in 2000, and the Yankees won in five games.
”
”
David A. Kelly (Subway Series Surprise (Ballpark Mysteries Super Special, #3))
“
There are varying motivations for becoming a professional athlete, from the money to the fame to the women to the drive to the competition. But on this night at this singular moment the Mets remembered what it was like to do something for pure love. They had accomplished the baseball impossible, and the result was euphoria.
”
”
Jeff Pearlman (The Bad Guys Won! : A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform--and Maybe the Best)
“
The bear and the kid picked on, obliviously converging. Until they met. The kid went saucer-eyed. The grizzly reared up on his hind legs, pulled back his massive paw—and slapped the kid’s head clean off. Like a Little Leaguer hitting a baseball off a tee. Slapped off the kid’s head. But, hey, I knew how to dress a puncture wound.
”
”
Michael Easter (The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self)
“
I developed an interest in major league baseball and the 1960s were, as far as I’m concerned (with a nod to the Babe Ruth era of the 1920s), the Golden Age of Baseball. Like most people in the valley, I was a diehard Yankees fan and, in a pinch, a Mets fan. They were New York teams, and most New Englanders rooted for the Boston Red Sox, but our end of Connecticut was geographically and culturally closer to New York than Boston, and that’s where our loyalties went.
And what was not to love? The Yankees ruled the earth in those days. The great Roger Maris set one Major League record after another and even he was almost always one hit shy of Mickey Mantle, God on High of the Green Diamond.
”
”
John William Tuohy (No Time to Say Goodbye: A Memoir of a Life in Foster Care)
“
Indeed, Spahn, determined and talented, became one of the best pitchers ever. Though he didn’t win his first major league game until 1946, when he was 25—he missed three baseball seasons when he was in the military—he pitched until 1965, when he was 44. He won 363 games, more than any other left-hander, and posted a record of 23–7 and a 2.60 earned-run average in 1963, when he was 42. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, the first year he was eligible.
”
”
Ira Berkow (Summers at Shea: Tom Seaver Loses His Overcoat and Other Mets Stories)
“
she's learned it's largely a matter of being willing to ask the next question. She's met the very Mexican who first wore his baseball cap backward, asking the next question.
”
”
William Gibson (Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1))
“
David Wabick, a former All-American baseball player at the College of Charleston, was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in 2002 and the New York Mets in 2005. He played professionally until 2010 before becoming a partner at Kreshmore Group, where he oversees the sports advisory business. He’s also a licensed real estate broker and an avid traveler.
”
”
David Wabick
“
That breakout summer for Jayson Tuttman was also when he was featured on a poster that soon ended up on walls around America.
It was a picture of Jayson, shirtless and wearing his Mets pants and cleats. He had dark grease marks under his eyes to cut down glare, and he looked soulfully into the camera. He held a baseball bat, and the muscles in his chest and arms gleamed with oil. He stood on first base and there were several baseballs at his feet. And there, at the top of the poster in enormous letters, was his name: SPIKE!
”
”
Bob Madison (SPIKED!)
“
To review, in facing the storm, take your 5 tools with you: You are not a victim. You have needs and the right to expect those needs to get met. Get conscious of your fear-based thoughts and actions. Have a voice. Have boundaries. You won’t be good at facing the storm at first. It will not go smoothly. It will be scary. That’s okay. Expect it. You’ll feel like you’re bungling along at first. You will be. Don’t get discouraged. Practice. Remember, the first time you swung a baseball bat you probably didn’t hit a home run.
”
”
Patti Henry (The Emotionally Unavailable Man)
“
For consistency, Philadelphia baseball, among other things in the town, always has been the worst.
”
”
Jimmy Breslin (Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets' First Year)
“
The Dodgers won it, 9-8, when Robinson hit a home run in the fourteenth inning. In the eleventh, he had knocked himself unconscious in a dive for a low line drive hit by Del Ennis. If he had not made the catch, the game would have been over. It was one of the matchless individual performances baseball has seen.
”
”
Jimmy Breslin (Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets' First Year)
“
Rickles, to his dying day, constantly reminded me that when his son was born, I went to a sports store and bought every piece of sporting equipment you could think of. I mean, literally everything,” recalled actor James Caan, who met Don through Don Adams and struck up a lifelong friendship with The Merchant of Venom. “The baseball crap, the hockey stuff . . . there were two big boxes and I handed them to him and I said, ‘This is to make sure the kid grows up straight.’ He never forgot it. Twenty years later he would still bring it up.
”
”
Michael Seth Starr (Don Rickles: The Merchant of Venom)
“
Baseball people! Mets fans! I was thrilled
”
”
Liv Stratman (Cheat Day)
“
Grandpa Abraham went down the hall, wondering out loud how in the hell he had a grandson who didn’t care about baseball and liked the Mets of all the goddamn teams.
”
”
Hunter Shea (We Are Always Watching)
“
It was Seaver himself who called the Mets’ triumph “the greatest collective victory by any team in sports,” an observation as brilliantly on target as any knee-high curveball on the outside corner that he threw all season.
”
”
Wayne Coffey (They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History)
“
The 1962 Mets went 40-120, losing more games than any ball club in the twentieth century and finishing 60½ games out of first place.
”
”
Wayne Coffey (They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History)
“
There will be two buses to the park from the hotel. The two o’clock bus is for those who need a little extra work, and then there will be an empty bus leaving at five o’clock.
”
”
Wayne Coffey (They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History)
“
The 1962 Mets went 40-120, losing more games than any ball club in the twentieth century and finishing 60½ games out of first place. This is not easy to do.
”
”
Wayne Coffey (They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History)
“
The bar was noisy and there was more baseball playing on a large television screen. Some other men, who did not appear to have previously met Fat Baseball Fan, joined our discussion. We drank a lot of beer, and talked about baseball statistics. Rosie sat on a stool with her drink and observed. It was late when Fat Baseball Fan, whose actual name was Dave, said he had to go home. We exchanged email addresses and I considered that I had made a new friend.
”
”
Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project (Don Tillman #1))
“
The ’62 Mets made 3 errors in their first game, 3 in their last game, and 204 more errors in between.
”
”
Wayne Coffey (They Said It Couldn't Be Done: The '69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History)
“
It was so fucking funny, I decided I had no regrets whatsoever. “My dearest Enzo,” she said, clearly trying not to clench her teeth. “You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t know why I was so mean to you when we were kids. I think now I was afraid of the way I felt for you. I had never met anyone so good-looking and awesome at baseball before.” She paused for a breath and hitched her weight over to one foot. “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life ironing your shirts and cooking your favorite foods and watching you win the Allegan County Senior Men’s Baseball Championship year after year. It is my dream come true. P.S. I won’t even care if you snore because it is such a manly sound. I love everything about you and always will.” She looked up from the page, and I swear to God I thought smoke was going to puff out of her ears.
”
”
Melanie Harlow (Call Me Crazy (Bellamy Creek, #3))
“
Ike willed himself to become a baseball fan, learning the names, strengths and weaknesses, and personal quirks of the players the way he had for years come to know each member of each ensemble he had led or played in. The game began to fascinate him because of its natural kinship with music, the nine-man ensemble pulsing toward and away from home plate with every pitch, each of them sent spinning into action when the ball was hit, moving with a practiced virtuosity no different from a brass section handing off a melody to the strings as a song moved from section to section. Lil kept score and rooted hard for the Mets, but to Ike, it was just a new kind of music, and, when played well, a beautiful thing to watch. Perhaps it could even fill a void. 12.
”
”
Jack Viertel (Broadway Melody)