IN THE Bronx, they treat baseball as if it is a religion. In Flushing, they act as if it’s a circus.
So it was that yesterday, the Mets threw a 40th birthday party for their utterly innocuous mascot, Mr. Met.
In public. On the field. In front of 45,000 people who thought they were coming to see a ballgame.
Eventually, they did, and it turned out to be another gift, a 6-4 win over the Montreal Expos.
But first, the crowd was subjected to the sight of Mr. Met throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.
It had to endure the spectacle of Mr. Met and all his little mascot buddies from around the league – the San Diego Chicken and the Philly Phanatic and the parrott who breakdances for Pirates fans and the Dancing Friar and the mascot of the Brewers, who looks like a saloonkeeper – performing their various acts on top of both dugouts between innings.
It was forced to watch “highlights” of Mr. Met’s mascotting career on the giant video screens – unfortunately, they edited out footage of the day Joel Sherman of this newspaper caved in Mr. Met’s head with a right hand in the press box a few years back – and it was persuaded to chuckle at the sight of Mr. Met receiving a playful bop on his outsized nose from Bobby Valentine, who only has the second biggest head at Shea Stadium when Mr. Met is in the house.
It was all good, clean, corny Middle American fun, which means it is supposed to have absolutely no place in a town like New York City.
After all, can you imagine such shenanigans in Yankee Stadium?
Over there, they have Monuments, not mascots. The between-innings entertainment consists of grainy footage of Mickey, Thurman, DiMag and the Bambino, not a giant bobble-head doll come to life.
And I can’t imagine any circumstances under which Joe Torre would engage in on-field schtick with a guy wearing a giant baseball on his head.
That, of course, is what has always made baseball in the Bronx as serious as death, and baseball in Flushing, well, kind of fun.
Nobody is getting too upset with the so-far Mediocre Mets of 2002.
Case in point is one Roberto Velazquez Alomar, the Headed-for-Cooperstown second baseman who, until yesterday, was mired on the interstate, hitting .170 in his first 11 games as a New York Met.
If Alomar were playing in the Bronx, where winning is considered as much a birthright as getting Yankee telecasts on free TV, he might have been booed back to his home in Salinas, Puerto Rico by now. (Ask Jason Giambi for independent confirmation of this).
But here in warm, friendly and patient Flushing, Alomar’s early struggles were accepted as part of the growing pains experienced by any ballplayer asked to switch leagues at age 34.
“Sure, you hear some things from the crowd,” Alomar said yesterday. “But overall, the fans have been great here.”
Yesterday, Alomar rewarded the patience and tolerance of Mets fans with two towering home runs, without which Mr. Met’s birthday party would have been a crushing disappointment.
He hit them using Mike Piazza’s bat, which hasn’t been doing much for Piazza so far this season, and he hit them with a new attitude, aggression as opposed to his early-season timidity at the plate.
“Maybe Robbie was trying too hard to show that he wasn’t pressing,” is how Valentine explained Alomar’s laid-back approach.
Or, perhaps Alomar was trying to be like Mr. Met, who unlike most mascots doesn’t really do anything. Like Reggie Jackson in retirement, the big head is pretty much his whole act.
“It’s gonna take some time for me to adjust to all the pitchers,” Alomar said. “In the meantime, I just have to keep playing hard and not give people any reason to boo.”
There isn’t much that causes anyone to boo at Shea Stadium. Yesterday, in fact, they found two good reasons to cheer.
Mr. Met and Robbie Alomar. For one day at least, it was hard to tell one from the other.