“Let me get his straight,” said a friend who clearly did not know the great lengths I’ve gone to make my life worth talking about. “You went all the way to London for a baseball game?”
If this sounds familiar, it’s because I went all the way to France to play cards last fall and was incredulously questioned about that trip as well.
Our friends Donald and Theresa moved to Rennes almost two years ago -- right after the annual Hearts tournament. The rules, in place for over 40 years, clearly state that the winner hosts the next tournament. Don won and eleven of us traveled overseas to honor our commitment.
So when he asked if my ever-loving spouse and I would like to meet at the MLB London Series to watch the Mets get trounced by the Phillies, it was a no-brainer.
I grew up a Phillies fan, going to Connie Mack Stadium with my father, then Veterans Stadium with my friend Patty. She was in love with Manny Trillo. I was in love with he’s not broiled, he’s not fried, he’s shake and Bake McBride. Though it was tough choosing between the likes of speedy Lonnie Smith, gambling Pete Rose, and the great Michael Jack Schmidt.
My spouse grew up an Orioles fan and embraced the Phillies briefly, presumably to win me over. We moved to North Jersey and instinctively knew we could never be Yankees fans, nor did we have much interest in the Mets. Because it was back in the pre-historic, pre-internet days, there was only so much we could do to stay loyal to our roots. We followed box scores, occasionally caught a glimpse of our home teams when they played a local game but I became a peripheral fan at best. Once we started producing athletes of our own, I had no time or interest in watching professional sports until the playoffs.
And then came the summer of 2015. My kids had all hung up their cleats by then and I found myself flipping through channels, tired of the HGTV home renovation reruns. I happened to land on the Mets at the precise moment that the Wilmer Flores drama was playing out. To save you the google, when rumors started flying that Wilmer had been traded mid-game, he reacted by shedding real tears on the field. He wasn’t actually traded until years later but he instantly became my favorite player in all of baseball, because that’s how I tend to pick my favorites. A couple of days later Yoenis Cespedes, in all his gold-chain glory, joined the squad and I was hooked. The Mets became my team. Of course it helped that they made it to the World Series, albeit with a little Matt Harvey pitching fit that cost them the ring.
In 2016 we became Mets season ticket holders and it’s been a roller coaster of a ride ever since.
We had a rocky start to our vacation. The dog had already been delivered to his Rover.com home. The suitcases had been opened and shut multiple times to add just one more pair of shoes, one more jacket (because suddenly the high was expected to be in the low 60s), and an extra phone charger (proved worthless because my universal adapter apparently wasn’t universal in the UK). I had my finger poised on the Uber app when I received the oh-so-sorry text that our flight had been canceled due to technical difficulties. We were rebooked for the following day, with a layover in Houston (3 hours and 45 minutes in the opposite direction) and two middle seats. Thanks to the advice of my travel agent sister, we persisted and eventually got it sorted, as the Brits say. We ended up with a direct flight with two adjacent aisle seats but still lost a full day in London. Worse things have happened.
After a sleepless but otherwise uneventful flight, we took a 40-minute train ride to the Liverpool Street Station. As we ascended from the underground, we caught sight of Donald and Theresa, waving their arms and shouting our names in American. Our adorable airbnb was a two minute walk, right in the heart of Spitalfields, a vibrantly funky neighborhood home to multiple pubs that hosted stand-around-outside happy hours. Following the “rule” that you shouldn’t sleep until bedtime in order to avoid jet lag, we walk, walk, walked through the city, ending up on London Bridge and subsequently on a picturesque boat ride down the Thames, serenaded with corny commentary.
Over the next couple days we tested our bunions with multiple kilometers recorded in miles on our fitness apps. We saw all the sights, including St. Paul’s Cathedral –the ever-loving spouse being the only one who would fork over the 30 dollars to walk down the aisle that launched Princess Di into despair; Buckingham Palace; Tate Modern; Trafalgar Square, which was filled with MLB pre-game shenanigans; Passyunk Avenue London, a bar and meeting place replicating the raucousness of Philly-dom; and paid a visit to the Bloomberg London office.
After confirming our identity with the spouse’s stateside newsroom ID, we were free to roam the building. We walked out of the lift on the sixth floor and there stood Serendipitous Stephanie, a colleague whom the spouse had also just happened to run into on an Amtrak train last summer when she was in the US. After touring this spectacular building, picking up some free caffeine and snacks and talking with some of the reporters and editors, one of whom I had met at a Mets game two summers back when she still lived in New York, I put in a request for my spouse’s job transfer to London.
Wherever we went, it was abundantly clear that there was something American happening. Our plane had at least two dozen people donned in Mets or Phillies gear and we couldn’t walk half a kilometer without someone saying, “Go Birds!” in reference to Donald’s ever-present Eagles cap. The city felt like a cross between a Taylor Swift concert and the Olympics with perfect strangers bonding and cheering on their heroes.
The crowds at the games were overwhelmingly dominated by Philadelphia fans, maybe because they were one of the best teams in baseball while the Mets were struggling to stay barely above worst team status. We did note though that the English spectators tended to wear Mets rather than Phillies gear, perhaps just a preference in team colors, but more likely they thought they were getting a great deal on that authentic deGrom jersey. Of which we saw many.
What I didn’t realize when I was in the thick of Philadelphia-ism was how, shall we say, passionate the fans are. Sitting In the row behind us was a family with two adolescent kids. After the dad booed the fifth Met in a row, I turned around in all my blue and orange glory and said, “That’s so mean. Don’t boo us!”
“That’s just what we do,” he said good-naturedly. “I even boo my own kids.”
I’m no stranger to this kind of behavior. Donald and my spouse are notorious competitors. They trash-talk through the fantasy basketballs season, battle about bringing home the Hearts trophy, and defend their beloved sports teams while mercilessly mocking the opponent’s yips, injuries, and stupid plays. They roll their eyes when I feel sorry for the losers and don’t appreciate my compassion for the mothers of the athletes. They believe in taking home the gold.
As was expected, the Mets lost big the first game but pulled out an incredible double play to end the second game with a W. A perfect split series that made the trip worth it for both sides. Honestly, I would have been fine either way, but both Donald and my spouse wanted a full-out sweep for their respective teams.
The baseball games were played at London Stadium which is home to the West Ham United “football” team. The 20-minute walk back to the train with 55,000 sports enthusiasts was a feat unto itself. Along the route security in neon vests would periodically exercise crowd control by holding up stop signs. The crowd would oblige, halting and jawing in jest until the signs turned back to GO. At one of the stop points a guard remarked, “This is incredible. You would never see opposing fans sitting alongside one another, let alone walking together amicably after a football match.”
And that’s when the Pollyanna in me reared her pretty little head and I got those familiar goosebumps in my heart. I knew better than to say it to the guys, but it truly didn’t matter who won or lost over the weekend in London Stadium.
After all, not everyone would entertain the idea of attending a series of contrived baseball games in the land of the royals. Let alone make it happen. Not everyone has friends who will jaunt over from France and have the refrigerator stocked with Diet Coke upon your jet-lagged arrival. Not everyone has friends who understand how a single wrong decision over something as innocuous as which cross-body bag you carry can make or break a day. Not everyone has buddies who have endured the test of time and travel and at the end of the trip say, “Where to next?” and mean it.
What a win. What a win.
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