Mets Fan Forever: The night I "Met the Mets"

Allow me to begin by telling you a little bit about myself. I am a 30 year old die-hard Mets fan. The first game i ever went to was at Shea Stadium and Bobby Bonilla hit a home run - for the Pirates. I didnt go to a ton of games as a kid but my brother was a yankees fan and gave me all his Mets baseball cards and so i was hooked. I fell in love with Doc and Darryl and Gary Cater and Keith Hernandez and Lenny Dykstra and Wally Backman and that whole mid -to - late 1980s team. As a fan i havent changed much except that i am more into it now. I go to about 10 games a year but follow every single game. I am your average die-hard fan. I have no inside scoop and no media credentials or connections. As a kid i would dream about meeting a player and getting his autograph. I would stand outside the stadium waiting for autographs until my father would get bored and tell me that its time to go home. I never did get one. Once i got an autographed photo of Howard Johnson in the mail (i have no idea how) but that was it.

Fast Forward to last year. I happened to be in my boss (who also happens to be my father) office. As we were talking, i saw him open something up, read it and put it aside. I asked him what it is. He tells me its an invitation to a dinner that a client is making. It seems they are opening up a new wing to their facility and so he has to write them a check for the fundraiser. But something about the invitation caught my eye. Did it say Keith Hernandez on there? Nah - cant be. But then he says to me "Oh - I think some sports guy is going to be there or is donating something or something like that - here take a look." So i look at the invitation and lo and behold - Keith Hernandez is going to be at the dinner! So my father asks me if i want to go since hes paying for it anyway and suddenly i turned into a little kid again. "Of course ill go!" i said grabbing the invitation away from him.

After work i ran home - showered and changed and headed out to the dinner, baseball in hand. On my way there i started thinking to myself that maybe showing up to a fancy dinner in a fancy hotel in Manhattan was not the classiest thing to do. So i stuffed the ball in my pocket and went into the hall. As i walked in to the hotel, the first person i see - laughing it up with some guy is none other than Keith Hernandez. Well, i couldnt hold myself back. I walked right up to him and shook his hand and told him what a big fan i was of him. Then i slowly took the ball out of my pocket and asked him to sign. He was nice enough to sign the ball and nice enough to tell me that all his guests were there to sign autographs as well. And thats when it hit me. I looked up and there he was - Darryl Strawberry! and then Ho Jo and John Franco and Al Leiter. I was starstruck. And then my last meeting of the night - Ralph Kiner.

Here are the pictures of the autographs i got. I couldnt get all the players to sign but most did. For some of you reading this - Im sure its no big deal. But to me, on that night, it was a fulfillment of a childhood dream, a night that made you remember how big a fan you were and how big a fan you are and what it meant to be a kid idolizing your favorite team. And to me it was a night i wont soon forget.