My precious daughter, Ruby, will be 10 weeks old on Thursday. She can't speak, or crawl, or even hold her head up on her own yet, but like her daddy she's already a huge Giants and Mets fan.

For evidence, just take a look in her dresser drawers, where various Giants and Mets onesies, t-shirts, hats, bibs, pairs of socks and the hoodie she's unhappily modeling in the picture to the right* can all be found. That's a lot of gear for a 10-week-old. Ruby's even got a book about the Mets that she's infrequently attentive enough to sit through, and in efforts to calm her or to put her to sleep I've sung the first verse of "Meet the Mets" to her several hundred times. What can I say? It's a catchy tune.

The Old Man and I have already successfully indoctrinated her 8-year-old cousin into our little cult of Giants fandom--no small feat when you consider that he's growing up with a Pats-fan father in the heart of Redskins country--and in doing so I learned, as any worthwhile cult leader will tell you, that the key to indoctrination is that you've got to get to them young. So with so much at stake here, I've wasted no time with Ruby. At this rate she'll be screaming at television screens by the All-Star break, breaking down film come winter.

But Jason Fry's recent post to the always outstanding Faith and Fear in Flushing about his 7-year-old son's discovery of his first sports nemesis and the the larger issue of inviting young children to "stick their innocent fingers into emotional light sockets over and over again", got me thinking. Is it fair of me to foist my insane sports allegiances on my daughter before she's able to determine on her own whether or not the Giants or Mets (or both or neither) are worth such a significant investment of her time and emotional energy? By willfully exposing her to the heartbreaks and anxieties inherent in devoted fandom--by subjecting her to the wild rollercoaster rides that make up seasons--am I setting her up for a life of torment? Moreover, am I being an irresponsible parent? 

On one hand, sports are something she and I can share together, even when we can't come together on much else. The games present an opportunity for some invaluable father-daughter (and grandfather-daughter) bonding. But on the other, more extreme hand, encouraging her to give her heart to the Giants and Mets is tantamount to child abuse, or at least child endangerment. And if that seems like too harsh an assessment to you, think again. I know these teams.

If Fry's blogmate, Greg Prince, loves the Mets because he loves the Mets, then the same can be said of me and my Giants. I love the Giants because I love the Giants, but it would be disingenuous of me if I didn't also say that I love the Giants (and Mets) because of my Old Man. Like little Ruby, I, too, was born into bluenacy. Indoctrinated, if you will. While I concede that I have, through my own unique mania, taken that bluenacy to another, more obsessive level, I can't even remember a time when I wasn't a Giants fan. The Giants, like freckles and, later, eyeglasses, have always been a part of my identity. I never had a choice, really, until it was too late. The Old Man got to me when I was young.

He, however, did have a choice. Inspired as a 12-year-old by the heroics of the Giants 1956 championship team he made a conscious choice, two years later, to venture by subway from his home in the Bronx near the South end of Van Cortlandt Park to Yankee Stadium, where after showing his G.O. Card and paying fifty cents he was admitted (along with 63,191 others) to the Giants' December 14th game versus the Cleveland Browns. It was his very first (Football) Giants game, and an important one. The boys in blue needed a win that cold, snowy day to tie Cleveland atop the standings of the NFL's Eastern Division and to force a playoff. After yielding a 65-yard touchdown run to a 22-year-old Jim Brown on Cleveland's first play from scrimmage and missing two field goals (one from just 32 yards), the Giants scored 10 points in the fourth quarter, including a miraculous 49-yard Pat Summerall field goal through swirling snow with just under two minutes remaining to win the game, 13-10.  

It was an historic victory. 48 years later, it was ranked the 49th greatest day in New York sports history in a book by Stuart Miller, #3 among days concerning the Giants (behind only the '56 title game and the "Sneakers Game" of 1934). One week later the Giants shut out those same Browns (10-0) to take the Eastern Division crown, setting up their now legendary championship showdown with Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts in the contest commonly referred to by sportswriters and fans as The Greatest Game Ever Played. Needless to say, my 14-year-old Old Man was hooked. For good. Six years later, after the Giants made their sixth championship game appearance in eight years, he purchased four season tickets that he has yet, to this day, to relinquish.

How quickly it all fell apart. Despite losing 5 of those 6 championship games, the Giants team that captured the Old Man's imagination played a decidedly winning brand of football. They boasted superstars on both sides of the ball--future Hall of Fame names like Gifford, Robustelli, Tittle, Tunnell, Brown and Huff--players who became, in turn, the darlings of Madison Avenue. But in 1964, the Old Man's first year as a season ticket holder, the Giants finished 2-10-2.  By 1966, the year the Giants posted their worst-ever record (1-12-1), every single one of those Hall of Fame players was gone. It would not get better for quite some time.

To his credit, or as a sign of his penchant for masochism, the Old Man stuck with them. And in the second decade of what is now referred to as the Giants' "Wilderness Years," 1975, I was born. A year later came Giants Stadium. And in the Fall of 1981--Lawrence Taylor's first NFL season--the Old Man started taking me to the games. That season, after seventeen consecutive years without a postseason appearance, the Giants finally made the playoffs. I guess you could say I was a good luck charm. I know the Old Man thought I was. What's more, in me he finally had someone with whom he could share his misery (and trivia), someone to inherit his increasingly heavy burden. I was the one who could, at long last, validate his fandom, who could prove that he didn't endure seventeen years of lousy football for nothing.

I don't remember much about the first game he took me to. I don't know if the Giants won or lost, or even who the opponent was. What I do remember, though, is being awed by the spectacle of professional football, by the intensity of the experience. I also remember The Old Man telling me to "watch number 56" but not being able to peel my eyes off of number 53. But whether or not I knew or understood it at the time, that afternoon I was invited into the club of long-suffering Giants fans, an invitation I readily accepted without hesitation. Just like that I was a Giants fan for life. And though my resolve has been tested several times over the years that followed (most notably during The Dave Brown era), I can't say that I've ever seriously regretted my decision. Still, it was not an informed decision.

When I made that fateful decision to pledge my lifelong loyalty to the New York Giants, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. None whatsoever. How could I have? I was just a seven-year-old kid. What did I know about pain and loss? What did I know about disappointment? Even if the Old Man had warned me (which, wisely, he didn't), how could I have possibly known that being a die hard fan would bring with it stress and despair with far greater frequency than it would exultant triumph and joy? To paraphrase Yeats, what need did I have to dread the monstrous crying of the wind?

Now that I know better, it's far too late. I've reached the point of no return, and will never get out of this alive. But little Ruby still has a fighting chance. Maybe. If she's strong, she may be able to resist the allure of the game, to deny the attraction of its beguiling spectacle. Maybe I'll figure out a way to explain to her what it is she's signing up for in terms a child can understand, offering up an early lesson in risk and reward. Or perhaps she'll be blessed with the gift of perspective, an ability to differentiate between a game played on an artificial field by a bunch of athletic strangers and, well, real fucking life.

Doubtful. Chances are that from the first tailgate she'll embrace it without thinking, just like I did. Then I'll embrace her, knowing that our season tickets will be in good hands for at least one more generation, uneasily resigned to accept the truth that bluenacy runs in our veins.

I apologize in advance, sweetheart. I know you didn't ask for this. One day, perhaps after a Super Bowl, you'll find it in your heart to forgive me.

_______________________________________________________________________

* Ruby made that face after learning, on Sunday night, that both Gary Matthews, Jr. and Fernando Tatis were in the Mets starting lineup.

Giants Stadium, I'm wont to imagine, is dying before my eyes. Game by game, tribute by tribute, it is passing into the past.

But it isn't really dying so much as it's being euthanized. In 2009, it's the Logan 5 of stadiums, running at top speed towards forced obsolescence despite remaining, on its surface, vital and spirited. By Spring it will be a parking lot, but for now and for the remainder of the season, it's home.

At 2009 tailgates, the future rises against the sky. It’s already shiny. And huge. And triple awesome, says the PSL brochure. I’m sure it is, and on some level I’m looking forward to it, but I’m not ready to say goodbye to Giants Stadium so fast. Not when there’s still a chance—5 chances, at minimum—to wring some more magic from its old bones.

Ah, who am I kidding? Old bones? Giants Stadium is a year younger than I am. If after 33 years Giants Stadium has outlived its usefulness, does that mean it’s time to take me up Mount Ubasuteyama as well? And if so, how should that make The Old Man feel? He was nearly that age when they first opened the joint.

Each week, the legends of the franchise are returning to pay their last respects. Some of them, like Frank Gifford and Andy Robustelli, never played a down here. Others, like George Martin and Harry Carson, had already established permanent residence by the time Lawrence Taylor was busy making Giants Stadium his playground. But they all come back. Bob Tucker and John Mendenhall. Joe Morris and Rodney Hampton. Leonard Marshall and Mark Bavaro. They all want to feel the Hawk whip across their cheek one more time because each of them knows what's at stake when we lose this place.

But there are losses and there are losses. On the field, the losses the Giants have sustained the past two weeks have proven true yet again the axiom that the NFL is a week-to-week league. After three games, the local tabloids were all suggesting the possibility of a Giants vs. Jets Super Bowl. Two weeks later, after the Jets crashed to earth, the talk turned to that of a potential “Manning Bowl.” Now, after two consecutive losses, the Giants suddenly face a “must win” game at arch-rival Philadelphia. They’ve dropped like a stone in most power rankings. National columnists are questioning their lack of a quality win. What a difference a week or two makes.

These losses have also led the knee-jerk contingent among the Giants fanbase to declare that the sky is falling. It isn't, of course. But soon, the upper deck in Giants Stadium will fall. It will be followed by the mezzanine, then the lower level. When they hear the sickening creak as the building’s final beams collapse, Giants fans will learn the difference between loss and loss.  

This is the lesson we all have to learn eventually, of course, the hard lesson of "The Ball Poem." Once the stadium is gone we’ll be left with no choice but to move on, to accept its finality. It will live on in our memories only. Some glorious. Some infamous. Some personal. When we lose Giants Stadium, we’ll also be losing part of ourselves. But how does one mourn such a loss?

Last year I sat by and watched some of my blolleagues attempt to eulogize Shea Stadium in its final days, with varying degrees of success. Shea, however, was different. While it retained a certain sense of dilapidated charm in the hearts of the diehards, it was in the end a stadium on life support. A stadium that truly had outlived its usefulness. But Giants Stadium? Giants Stadium is, from my perspective, as vibrant today as it ever was. Beyond that, it’s become my treehouse, that place where I can go to get away from it all in the company of 80,000 mostly anonymous friends. My initials, along with thousands of others, adorn its still sturdy trunk. Aside from it being short a few luxury boxes, why would anyone want to tear a place like that down? A place that has brought so many people together. A place where the ghosts of Wellington Mara and Brad Van Pelt are as much of a presence as those swirling winds are. A place that stands as a physical link between generations.

Could it be the Giants 53% winning percentage in the building? 

A wise friend from the Met-blogging ranks counseled me back in the Spring to take this season as it comes to me, to let it unfold naturally. I've been trying my best to heed his advice, to follow Warren Zevon's lead and "enjoy every sandwich," but it's not easy sitting in seats that are already for sale. And it's never easy to watch a ticking clock, especially when you know it's attached to a bomb.

I'm doing what I can, though, trying to take it one game at a time like the players and coaches are so fond of saying. I feel fortunate to have this year to celebrate Giants Stadium's final season, to take my 7-year-old nephew to a game as well as my wife, who is pregnant with our first child. That child will only know the new stadium as home, which is weird for me. But like CitiField did, I'm sure it will grow on me. Perhaps my child will pen an ode like this thirty-something years from now after forming his own emotional attachment to the giant flying saucer next door. One day, that new, state-of-the-art facility rising in the parking lot will itself be perceived as obsolete and be replaced by an even greater monstrosity. This will, of course, be characterized as progress by those who stand to profit from it most. By then, a personal seat license will likely run one the cost of a house today and surely pitched to fans as a sound investment. But I imagine that my investment in the Giants then, like now, will transcend economics.

At the beginning of the season, New York magazine's Will Leitch wrote that "no one cries for the Meadowlands. Fond reminiscences of the old Giants Stadium," he continued, "are nowhere to be found." The words angered me when I first read them, before I realized that they were 100% accurate. That made me angrier. But make no mistake, Giants fans, the death of Giants Stadium is a tragedy. And an utterly avoidable one.

It may not settle in until next season, when the suits move in. And with them their wine, cheese and entitlement. The gameday experience will never be the same. So I implore you all to appreciate this facility while you still can. There’s still 5 games left to play, and If we get lucky we’ll be rewarded with another home game or two come January. The Giants would like nothing more than to give the Stadium the send-off it deserves, and so should you.

The wrecking ball can wait, friends. Trust me. There's no need to report to Carrousel 'til springtime.  

Enjoy the run. 

Please forgive the crudely executed image above. I created it in MS Paint, which accounts for the poor shading. Still, I think it effectively illustrates what the Mets and, more specifically, Johan Santana, laid today at Yankee Stadium. Really, I should've known better than to be encouraged by yesterday's performance. After enduring nearly 30 years' worth of major disappointments (1986 notwithstanding), I really should have been more suspicious, more conservative in my optimism regarding a legitimate Metropolitan turnaround. These guys are hardly as resilient as I'd imagined.

Turns out one bounceback win in and of itself isn't enough to stop the bleeding. Instead, Saturday's victory served the same purpose as applying a band aid when in need of a tourniquet, or trying to plug a leaking canoe with a stick of Juicy Fruit. Sure, it might buy you a few more minutes out on the lake, but eventually the canoe is gonna take on water again. and sooner or later (and probably sooner, knowing these Mets) that canoe is gonna submerge, never to resurface.

The Mets, it would appear, are taking on lots of water, and they're awfully far from shore.

As today's humiliating final score would indicate, Greg Prince's comparison of the 2009 Mets and 1978 Football Giants was apt. 15-0 certainly sounds like a football score to me. And if Friday night marked Luis Castillo's "Joe Pisarcik moment," then this afternoon marked Johan Santana's Dave Brown moment. Santana's pitches were intercepted with seeming ease by the Yankees' bats, and, after being roughed up for 9 runs, he was sacked in the fourth inning. Santana looked less like an ace out there than someone in need of an Ace bandage. And a copy of this book.

I don't quite know why it is that I continue to allow this team to fool me into believing in them, especially after the events of the past two-plus seasons. Ever since Adam Wainwright's wicked curveball froze Carlos Beltran to end the 2006 NLCS, the Mets have been an imposter, a bunch of baseball zombies masquerading as a major league baseball team. Sure, David Wright is leading the major leagues in hitting. Carlos Beltran is swinging a hot bat, too. Francisco Rodriguez has been outstanding, and Omir Santos has been a revelation. All of those things, plus two dollars, will get you a ride on the subway, but none of those things are enough, individually, to make the whole of this team equal the sum of its parts.

In a way, these Mets truly do remind me of the Giants teams of the Dave Clown—I mean Brown—era. Those teams had some outstanding talent in Rodney Hampton, Michael Strahan, Jessie Armstead, Jumbo Elliott, Keith Hamilton, and others. They also had a coach (Dan Reeves) who had reached three Super Bowls and who today stands as the 8th winningest coach in NFL history. But the Giants managed only 23 wins out of the 53 Brown started, partially because they lacked talent to support their star players, but mostly because they lacked an identity.

The Mets, unfortunately, have an identity. Just ask 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels—They're "choke artists." And though they'll do their best to downplay the embarrassment of today's loss as they did Friday night's debacle, that's the identity they'll carry with them until they prove themselves otherwise. There's still more than 100 games left in the 2009 season. There's a whole lot of baseball left to play. But I'm through believing in these guys.

Today I wasted a beautiful day in New York City by staying indoors and listening to the Mets get humiliated while working on an edit that's proving to be more arduous than I anticipated. The latter I can accept, because it's my work and I get paid to do it. But the former I really should have avoided. I should have heeded the sage advice of my friend Jon Springer, who yesterday cautioned the readers of his terrific blog to "get outdoors, have dinner with ... family, take a few days off." I should've known better.

Tomorrow, mercifully, is an off day for the Mets. The way they're playing, they'll have plenty more of them come October.

In an impassioned, epic post to the always excellent Faith and Fear in Flushing, Greg Prince suggests that Luis Castillo's shocking failure to secure a routine, game-ending pop-up off the bat of Alex Rodriguez last night marked "a Pisarcik moment" for the embattled second baseman.

It's been more than 30 years since Joe Pisarcik's colossal blunder cost the Giants a sure win over the Philadelphia Eagles, yet with all due respect to Mickey Owen and Trey Junkin, the fumble stood until last night as the most memorable individual failure in New York sports history.

Pisarcik's humiliating gaffe, as Prince notes, led to the immediate firing of offensive coordinator Bob Gibson and, at season's end, head coach John McVay and general manager Andy Robustelli. Gibson never worked in football again. Pisarcik, the goat, never won another game as the Giants starting quarterback and was released after the 1979 season.

It is unlikely, however, that Castillo's error will carry the same (or similar) consequences for the Mets. Roughly 17 hours after his monumental miscue, Castillo was back in the lineup today, leading off and playing second. Jerry Manuel's and Omar Minaya's jobs both seem safe for now. Accountability, it would appear, isn't all that high on Fred Wilpon's list of virtues. 

One of the great things about baseball, though, is that it's a game that offers its participants the opportunity for almost immediate redemption, and Mets fans are, generally speaking, a forgiving lot. So hopefully it won't take Castillo—a three-time Gold Glove-winner—30 years (or more) to live down his infamous error.

There's still 103 games left in the season, and despite all the injuries and schizophrenic play, the Mets entered today's contest in the Bronx only 4 games out of first place. Last night's loss certainly hurts. It's the most painful loss in a season thus far filled with painful losses. But as Carlos Beltran said after the game, the Mets aren't kids, they're professionals. They "have to move on and play better." They "can't go home and cry."

Last night's dropped pop-up may well have been Luis Castillo's Pisarcik moment, but today's game represented a chance to put it behind him and play ball. He took advantage of that opportunity, singling twice and fielding his position without incident. But baseball is a team game, and Castillo's Mets teammates rallied behind him today, banging out a season high seventeen hits while pitching surprisingly well. They got a great start out of Buffalo call-up Fernando Nieve (who?), which was followed by an outstanding inning and a third from the suddenly lights-out Sean Green. This time around, K-Rod allowed no baserunners in the ninth, got the final batter (Melky Cabrera) to ground to third, and David Wright made the routine play to end the game.

Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?

Having seen the abyss and avoiding its depths, I'm hopeful that these resilient Mets will continue to rally in the wake of last night's horrorshow. Sure, they're still down Delgado and Reyes, and they're going to have to continue relying on guys like Tim Redding and Nieve for the time being, but after bouncing back after one of the worst losses in franchise history to win in convincing fashion they showed the kind of resolve and character winning teams must possess if they are to be considered serious pennant contenders. Exactly the kind of character some said was missing earlier this season.

Of course, the Mets can undo all of this by going out and laying an egg tomorrow afternoon. But with Johan the valiant taking to the hill, I don't see that happening. A true ace, the only eggs Johan associates with are the golden goose eggs he is known to post on major league scoreboards.

Now let's put this whole thing behind us and never speak of it again.