Okay, Mets fans, I know that you (like I) dread spoiling things, jinxing them, putting the horns on our men in orange and blue. But as things stand here in New York City on June 24, 2006, I’m feeling a little bit like that Jolly Old Elf and Mr. Met all rolled up in one. Is it time to hang up our orange and blue stockings and hope for World Series tickets yet? I don’t know, but the smell of 1986 is undeniably in the air.

Thinking back to that glorious summer 20 years ago, I was deliriously happy at this time in June for the Mets were well ahead of the second place Expos and nothing seemed to be going wrong. Now in 2006, the Mets are comfortably ahead of the second place Phils by 11 games, and the always hated Bobby Cox and his Braves are in last place. Oh, do I love it. Yes, I am gloating and that’s dangerous, but I’ll take the chance right now because the cushion is big enough at this point.

Have you looked at the All Star voting? Beltran, Wright, Reyes, Delgado, and even Lo Duca are up there in the votes. Tom Glavine should get the start if anyone does things right. Smells like team spirit or something like Nirvana for long-suffering Flushing fans. The National League were Rodney Dangerfield teams in this town, never getting any respect. I mean, they used to call the Dodgers “Bums” even after they defeated the Yankees in 1955 in the sweetest of all victories. Even the “Amazin’ Mets” label is pejorative if you think of its ancestry, thrown on the team after losing so many games in the early years, and Willie Mays and Duke Snider never got the recognition they deserved compared to DiMaggio.

It always seemed to be this way until 1969, and by then the Yankees were more history than anything. The boys in Flushing made a splash in the big pond and the city was ready to toast them all the way. All the kids I knew and I were secretly listening to Mets games in school, hiding the transistor radios in our pants pockets and snaking the earphone up under our shirts into our ears covered by our hair. I got away with it until Sister Meanie asked me a geography question and I blurted out, "Uh, Ed Kranepool is on second with one out." Thus ended a great run as we were all inspected every day after that and our radios were confiscated.