Celebrating a vintage baseball season

The New York Mets are in the 2015 Word Series. Depending how on the first few games have gone, the Mets are either on the verge of winning only their third championship or are down in the best four-out-seven match up against the Kansas City Royals.
For a man, who at 54, still roots for his baseball team like the 12-year-old who asked his seventh grade English teacher if the class could watch the 1973 NLCS (we did, but had to write an essay about the game), I want to embrace what my team has accomplished.
Not picked to make the post-season by Sports Illustrated, my sports bible, the team that couldn’t score runs a majority of the season, then out powered two teams – the Los Angles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs – that had better records than the Mets in the regular season.
Pitching, a component of the sport the Mets have historically demonstrated strength, carried them when there was no offense and then outshined nearly every rotation the Queens-based team has ever fielded.
In my 20s, the Mets had a power hitting right fielder whose scouting report outshone every major league prospect except one: Willie Mays. When Darryl Strawberry joined the team in 1983 and was named Rookie of the Year, Mets fans of that generation thought we had found our Say Hey Kid. Despite hitting prodigious home runs, Strawberry never did reach Mays’ caliber of play, nor did he ever do what Daniel Murphy has done in these playoffs.
However this is not a lament. It is a celebration. It’s a time to acknowledge that even in this era of immediate gratification it does take time for not only wine, but for young baseball players, to ripen and show us their vintage talents.
Yes, I want the Mets to win the Word Series, but I also want them to contend for several years. That’s not only the adult in me, but the kid at heart who cheers on his team and hasn’t had to ask permission to watch the game in a long time.