Seeing Your Favorite Players
There are times when we are children and our parents would say something like, “you will understand this when you’re older and a parent”. As a kid you usually laugh it off and say ok and go about your business and really never think much of it again. Until that time actually comes and you do something for your child or even for yourself (because hey, not everyone has kids and that is perfectly fine too). You see the pure enjoyment on your child’s face and you realize how excited and happy they are and a moment they may never forget for the rest of their life.
As most people who listen to our podcast or read our blogs know, I have two children. My son is obsessed with the Mets, so job well done on my part. When I say obsessed, this child wakes up first thing in the morning, comes into my room and turns on the highlights from the night before to see how the game ended. I generally know how the game ended the night before and I will know if he will happy or sad. The other thing to know about my son is he has ADHD. Let me tell you, he doesn’t just have the hyper part of it, he has the whole kit and kaboodle. He will get mad when things don’t always go his way because impulsiveness is a very large part of it, but will also calm down pretty quickly. I say this, not for anyone to say anything to me but to explain why I like to know how the game ended the night before.
When he watches the highlights, he will wait until I wake up and then tell me what happened in either a happy or sad tone. If it is not good, he may say someone is dumb for having made an error or letting in some runs to lose the game. There is one player he will rarely speak ill of if ever. It is his favorite player in all of major league baseball and it is none other than Brett Baty, followed closely by Jose Iglesias.
Let me give a brief backstory. We will not too far from a minor league team and I took my son to see the Mets affiliate play there a few years back when he was only five years old. He got Brett Baty’s autograph that day and became an instant fan from that point on. He would ask if the Mets were going to promote him to the major leagues and one day they finally did and he hit a home run in his first at bat. I’m sure Baty was more excited than my son but you may not have known that if your saw his pure enthusiasm. Then, last year, Baty was not having the best season so the Mets sent him back to Syracuse and we took a trip which I recapped in my blog last year Traveling Man. My son had a sign which he had “a tad bit of help” from his mother on asking Baty for his bat if he hit a home run and he signed the sign and another ball. This just continues his love at this point.
Fast forward to 2025. It is about 3-4 weeks ago and I saw that Baty would be doing a signing at a local brew pub where they do other signings and where my son met Iglesias last year and got his autograph. I could not resist and brought it up to my wife to see if we should do it for him and of course she said yes. We asked his grandparents to buy this for him as his birthday present which of course they graciously did knowing full well his love. We waited at the establishment and ate some dinner for a while waiting for Brett to show up along with Edwin Diaz who was also signing that day as well. The Mets played an afternoon game that day some the two had to travel all the way from Queens just to get there and I am sure the traffic was hellish.
As they announce numbers they finally got to our slot and this kid runs to the stairs to try and be the first in our grouping to head upstairs to meet Baty. We finally walk up to him and he was very kind and gracious to his biggest fan (sorry Allison), signed his Brett Baty shirt which he recently outgrew and we took some pictures.
All this to say as I mentioned earlier, when your parents tell you as a child you will understand when you become a parent, this is without a doubt one of those moments. To see the unbridled joy in my son’s face meeting his baseball idol it just makes you smile (and as I write this almost brings a tear to the eyes).
Now, in my lifetime, I have seen some great players play the game of baseball. My all time favorite player is and will always be Ken Griffey Jr., but my favorite Met of all time is Howard Johnson. A player I have always admired and loved was David Wright. It’s hard to idolize a player when he is four years younger than you, but you can certainly appreciate and love the way they play the game and treat the game. He is one of those players. He IS one of my all time favorites Mets. Kevin and I, along with some other friends and about 45,000 other people got to witness his number being retired on July 19th. It was a moment you knew would happen sooner rather than later as he is one of the greatest Mets of all time who if not for injuries would almost certainly have been a hall of famer. He was on that track before his back and neck issues stunted his career.
So, when people say you will understand something when you are older, it isn’t just for your children. It is for you as well. I will never forget seeing David Wright’s number retired, along with others I have seen in the past few years that were long overdue and thanks to Steve Cohen the Mets finally retired some of those number. There is certainly one big one left which I hope they will retire as well in the not too distant future.