I Have Never Been Prouder to be a Mets fan

I was in Las Vegas, pre-gaming in my soon to be married friend Scott's suite watching SportsCenter when I saw the single greatest thing ever as a Met fan (or at least until someone throws a no-hitter).

Fernando Tatis hit a HR in the 8th inning of the game and the Home Run Apple didn't rise. Now, it's been a fairly miserable season, - any Mets fan can tell you that, with the team being crippled by injuries and poor defense even that weekend it looked clear that the season would be a disappointment - but for the Apple, our one true signature to not appear, that was just the lowest of the low. And then something beautiful happened.

The fans booed.
Not regular booing either, NY booing. The kind that will make you second guess if you were the spawn of Satan or just killed a puppy in front of people.

And after they booed, 40,000 plus started chanting "Apple, Apple, Apple!" And when that didn't get results they grew louder, chanting "We Want Apple!" *clap*clap*clappity clap*

I sat in the suite, drink in hand, watching the video on ESPN. I'm not sure how much they had to turn up the background sound so that you could hear the crowd, but my guess is not much*. My friends and all I sat back and laughed. When the 8th inning ended, the Apple finally rose - and Citi Field went bazonkers. Again you could hear the crowd and the finely edited video packaged showed a few fans bowing, a la Wayne's World's "we're not worthy" bit.

I told my friends at that moment - I've never been prouder to be a Mets fan.


*I attended opening day at Shea Stadium 3 years ago. The Mets played the Philies. This is the year after almost making the World Series and just after the summer when Philies SS Jimmy Rollins declared them the team to beat. The Mets were down when Rollins made a crucial error and the Mets took the lead. To show our appreciation the 55,000 and more who crammed into Shea on Opening Day chanted "Jimmy Rollins" throughout the rest of the inning. When I got home that night I tuned into the rebroadcast of the game. We (the crowd) was so loud that you could hear the chant loud and clear during points of announcer silience. So that's the basis of my estimation.