By charles solomon
Posted 04/22/2007 at 09:10 PM

The REAL Mr. Met

By Charlie Solomon

Hi baseball fans my name is Charlie Solomon (a.k.a.) Mr. Met. I consider myself the biggest Met fan on the face of the earth.

Living in New York and being a Met fan is extremely difficult, especially with that other New York baseball team around, but as I say to my kids (the 2^nd ,3^rd, and 4^th biggest Met fans in the world) the next best thing to the Mets winning is the Yankees losing. A phenomenon that has occurred with great frequency over the past six years.

In my house we have a small room that is dedicated to sports. The two longer walls are dedicated to baseball.

The first baseball wall is dedicated to all of the Mets heroes throughout the franchise history. (It is not a blank wall as some of you might think!!). There are pictures of Seaver, Koosman, Swoboda, Agee, Matlack, McGraw, Carter, Hernandez, Strawberrberry, Gooden, Buckner (I keep forgetting that he did not play for the Mets), Piazza, Reyes, and Wright. Truly a wall of Met fame.

The second wall is dedicated to another set of heroes…. The Yankee killers. On this wall reside some of the greatest Yankee killers of all time. They include but are not limited to the likes of The ’55 Brooklyn Dodgers, the ’76 big red machine, Mr. Pine tar himself George Brett, Jay Buhner, Al Leiter (nice trades both), Sandy Alomar Jr., Randy Johnson(nice free agent acquisition), Curt Schilling, Luis Gonzalez, the ’02 and ’05 Angels, Josh Beckett (for all of you Marlin Fans), the ’06 Tigers, and of course my personal all time favorite… The ’04 Red Sox who did the unspeakable winning the ALCS after being down 0-3. Once again, truly a wall of heroes.

As I sit here on a Warm April afternoon watching my two sons practicing grounders on the baseball diamond, my mind wanders back to that fateful night last October. It was game six, inning six of the NLCS Mets vs. the Cards when Endy Chavez made like one of the incredibles, and caught a ball that never should have been caught. Unfortunately for the Mets he was not eight feet tall and could not duplicate his feat in the ninth. Agony and ecstasy all rolled into one game, just like being a Met fan.

The season is finally here. I couldn't be happier!!!!!