I didn’t stay for the ceremonies.  I will make that admission at the beginning in case anyone was hoping for my take.  I’m sure they were touching.  I’m sure they were very sentimental.  I’m sure if I had stayed through the very long delay between the end of a season and the last goodbyes to a stadium, I would have been feeling suitably nostalgic.  It was not to be.

In retrospect, the events leading up to the end should have served as a warning.  Once again, my Mets went into a final weekend series against the Florida Marlins fighting for their playoff lives.  Once again, a Mets pitcher threw the game of his life on the final Saturday in order to keep hope alive.  Last year it was John Maine throwing a one-hitter.  This year it was Johan Santana tossing a complete game shutout on only three days rest.  If those parallels didn’t serve enough warning, the weather should’ve been the final signal of what was to come.

There was rain that day.  Not the type of driving rain that made a rainout a foregone conclusion, but rather the type of persistent drizzle that served to dampen the mood and promise only an uncomfortable afternoon.  The rain took its toll on me as I sat on the bus and then the 7-train on my way out to Shea.  Already suffering from ailments having nothing to do with a season on the brink, I wondered throughout the trip just how long I was going to make it before having to turn around.  The idea of sitting exposed to the elements wasn’t looking very appealing no matter the occasion.  By the time I arrived, I figured I’d see how I feel during the long walk around the stadium to Gate A before deciding whether to simply buy my final Shea souveniers and turn around.

Thanks to the brilliant minds who decided to block off Gate A and not provide proper guidance before reaching said gate, I ended up with even more time to make up my mind.  Gate B was a logjam of the confused and annoyed, so I made my way back to Gate C and into the stadium.  Along the way, I did start feeling better.  Despite the dire circumstances and the uncertain weather, the Shea crowd was in a decidedly good mood.  Chants ranging from “Ya Gotta Believe” to “Let’s Go Mets” echoed throughout the crowded ramps and escalators.  On this potentially final day at Shea, the Mets might fail us, we were not going to fail them.

After purchasing my game day program and yearbook, I met my sister at our seats high above where even the Shea pigeons feared to tread.  I was touched to find that the young boy who sat with his father in the seats in front of us had been asking about me as I had missed a few Sundays due to illness.  His father explained that the boy enjoyed the volume and vociferousness of my cheering.  I knew then that there was no way I was leaving.  I certainly wasn’t going to let him down.

The rest of the crowd was of like mind.  The stadium rocked with the crowd noise as few stadiums ever have and likely ever will.  We cheered everything the Mets did right, starting with stepping out on to the field.  This was the Shea of my childhood during the 80’s when the team of Doc, Darryl, Mex, and the Kid owned New York, when the Yankees were truly New York’s other team.  The rain had momentarily subsided and the participants had come to party.  We deserved a better ending.

It started off well enough.  Oliver Perez, also pitching on 3 days rest, matched Scott Olsen zero for zero for five innings.  Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs had scratched out a one run lead against the Milwaukee Brewers, the team the Mets were fighting for that final playoff spot.  Due to the Mets game being delayed an hour, the two games had started within minutes of each other so our eyes were drawn both to the field and the scoreboard.

The sixth inning is where short rest caught up to Ollie.  He had been dodging trouble much of the game in putting up the zeroes but could not escape without giving up a run before exiting in the sixth.  The Mets bullpen held up to their season form by walking in a second run.  Still the Cubs led in Milwaukee, so all was not lost.  If both scores held up, there would be a one game playoff with the Brewers at Shea the next day.  Carlos Beltran changed that emotional equation in the bottom of the inning with a 2 run blast.  Shea Stadium shook beneath the thunderous roar of the crowd.  Forget a one game playoff, we wanted matters decided here and now.  Unfortunately, we would get our wish.

The seventh inning in Milwaukee was taking too long to end.  I’m not sure how many times I had peeked at the scoreboard but I did know that too much time had passed for it simply to be a delay in registering.  I pointed it out to the father and son in front of me.  My fears were confirmed by the young lady in front of them.  The Brewers were threatening in the seventh with men on and no outs.  Finally, a run for the Brewers would register and we were back to hoping for the status quo and a playoff game here tomorrow.

The score here would stay knotted at two through the seventh inning.  The game in Milwaukee, now further along than the game at Shea, would break against us in the eighth.  The Brewers scored two more runs for a lead they would never relinquish.  In the eighth inning here, the Mets bullpen would throw the season away one last time.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh.  Over the course of the weekend, the Mets offense had failed to generate much of anything.  Five runs in three games usually makes for a bad ending as it did here.  But the bullpen had failed so many times over the long season, had blown so many seemingly insurmountable leads, that I wasn’t feeling very generous even if they were missing their closer.  So when Scott Schoeneweis and Luis Ayala surrendered solo home runs in succession, I was not surprised but rather angry…..at myself.  What was I thinking hoping they could get it right just one more time?

Still there was hope.  This was the Mets at Shea Stadium after all, a stadium where the phrase “Ya Gotta Believe” was coined and a team that used it as a rallying cry for some amazin’ finishes.  And most of us did believe despite all evidence to the contrary.  Even as a two out rally in the eighth was quenched.  Even as we faced a bottom of the ninth still down two runs.

Two outs in the ninth would come too quickly.  Many, sensing the end was at hand, started snapping photos with every pitch in a pseudo Dance Macabre trying to catch the final Shea pitch.  Damion Easley refused to let the season go down on his watch as he worked out a walk bringing up Ryan Church.  It would have been a wonderful story if Ryan had been able to save our season.  He had been the first half MVP for the Mets, carrying them on an unbelievably hot bat.  However, he had not been the same since a pair of concussions stole much of the second half of the season from him.  And while he did give the ball a good ride in his final at bat, good enough for the crowd to hold its collective breath, the massive confines of Shea would hold it.  A pitcher’s park it was to the last.  One final time at Shea, a dream had died.

I mentioned at the start that I did not stay for the ceremonies.  In a touch of bitter irony, the off-and-on drizzle had given way to a beautiful afternoon just as a season went down in flames.  I had planned to stay anyway even as my sister left.  But as the preparations began to drag on, as I looked around Shea one more time and took my own final photos of the place, I realized that I just had no stomach for it.  Given what had transpired here for the last two years, really for the last three years considering the way the 2006 LCS had ended here, my sense of nostalgia had completely faded.  In my mind, there was only one way to close the book on Shea.

They could start tearing it down immediately.

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