Memories

I laid in my bed with my eyes closed having had fallen asleep for the 10th straight night to Major League, still waiting for our cable to be installed. It was a Tuesday morning and the first full week of class when all of a sudden my meathead roommate knocked on my door and woke me up:

"Dude, the World Trade Centers are down."

"Leave me alone," I replied, half asleep and not yet ready for my buddy's 4th grade humor.

About 2 hours later I woke up, refreshed and ready to go. I looked up and saw that the cable box was finally installed in my room and I jumped for joy. Finally I could watch SportsCenter.

I turned on the TV all smiles until the picture became clear.

We all remember where we were on September 11, 2001. That moment remains one of the most vivid memories of my entire life.

Five years later, we reflect on a day that changed the landscape of our country forever. We went from a country driven by the principles of economics and prosperity to a country driven by fear and agression towards a threat with no solid base but thousands of individual parts each of which can bring us down.

We all remember September 11th. Many of us lost someone close to us or know someone who did.

But all of us know exactly where we were when it first went down and all of us remember our first reaction.

Mine, making sure that my brother, who worked down on Wall Street at the time, was safe. Fortunately, he was.

I don't want to go any further with this. Today means something different to everyone. The idea that I do want to develop is this idea of memories.

We all remember certain things. A first kiss, a first homerun, a great day with your best friends.

One of the many beauties of sports, and for me baseball, is the memories that they provide.

We all remember the games that we watched but more so, we remember where we were and who we were with.

See sports, for most of my friends and I, are our universal bond. We all love sports and for most of my closest friends we all love the Mets.

I remember laying on Senior's lap in our house in Lakeridge, Connecticut for Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. My father called a wild pitch right before Bob Stanley's game tying blunder. I thought the man was a god.

I remember lying on the same couch for Game 7 of the 1988 series against the Dodgers. My father and brother promised me that the Mets wouldn't lose, but they did. So my father took us out to ice cream to make me feel better.

I remember a random game in June when I was 8. It was my brother's 6th grade birthday party and my mom and dad packed two cars filled with my brother's friends (many of them Searching For Bobby Fisher kids -- bro came in 6th in that tourney) and young Sip for a Mets-Pirates game. Kevin McReynolds hith a grand slam in a 9-0 Mets victory and immediately became my favorite player.

Then there was game 5 of the 1999 NLCS. Me and T Kid standing under the overpass in the left field upper deck at Shea, blocked from the rain, but not from viewing the greatest game that I had ever seen, ending with the grand slam single by my favorite player, Rockin' Robin Ventura.

June 30th, 2000. Sitting in the RF upper deck with Senior and AFOMG for the 10 run 8th inning against the hated Braves that concluded with Monster's 3 run yoke off of Terry Mulholland.

And then I remember sitting with Nails in the upper deck in CF and watching Bernie Williams glide underneath Monster's shot, make the catch and seeing my arch rivals celebrate a World Series championship on our home turf.

That was my last amazing truly vivid Mets memory. These are the memories that I will not forget for the rest of my life.

I am sad to say that I did not see the first game after September 11th, Monster's triumphant homerun to beat the Braves. A game that meant so much more than baseball. It united a city and a country and it helped us at least for one little moment to forget the catastrophic events of a few days earlier.

I don't know why I missed the game, but I did. But for all of you who were fortunate enough to see it, I am sure you know where you were and who you were with.

This is why baseball is special, at least why it is extrememly special to me. It is the thing that provides me with a timeline of my life. It tells me who I was with and when for some of my favorite times of my life.

So, as we cruise into the postseason and get ready for October I sit here in San Francisco dying in anticipation.

I can't wait till I set my first step in New York City, see my dad, AFOMG, my cousin and all my other close friends and family.

And then I hope that I can add to my timeline.

God bless.

Sip