Air Strip

By Edgy MD
April 11, 2021 in New York Mets Talk

https://grandcentralmets.com/forums/topic/103820-air-strip/

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Edgy MD

Site Manager

Posted April 11, 2021

Was it Bubba who marked Opening Day every season by re-posting the story?

I just realized this morning that the tradition went unobserved this season.

kcmets

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 11, 2021

Those were the days, my friends.

Wonder how Horace P Osterdonk is doing.

I have it saved on my server and backed up to the cloud.

FROM SHEA TO THE AIRSTRIP: A NIGHT IN HELL

Submitted by: Big Al on September 29,1999 12:47:29 PM

I knew it was a bad sign when my ex called me at work to tell me my boy wouldn't

be coming down to the city to go to the game with me. She says he had a math

test in the morning and she didn't want him getting home at midnight. I razzed her

about that--it was only one test, the Mets had their backs against the wall, it would

be a good night for him and me, and on and freakin' on--and then she just comes

out and, blammo, hits me with the whole thing. She doesn't want the boy hanging

around with me anymore after what he saw last time in the city, which was this girl

who lives downstairs from me flopping on the couch. Also she said I was a drunk and

I said doesn't going into N.A. and A.A. count for BLEEP! with you? But when I went

into the rehab again that just set off all kind of alarm bells with her. She had

forgotten that I had a problem I guess and it worried her that the boy would be

hanging around with a man always on the verge of heading over a cliff. I said Come

on! I haven't touched even a freakin beer in three months. But forget it. My son

would not be going to the ballgame with me.

You know I am not like these season ticket holders. I am in a "share" and go to a

few ballgames a summer. I thought I was being cagey as hell, back in the winter,

when I selected this Sept. 26 Atlanta game as one of my nights as Shea. For the

last month or so I'd been staring at the ticket and thinking I was some kind of

freakin genius. You and I, we were made for each other! That was my attitude. Even

two weeks ago, I thought I was going to be present for the climax of the pennant

race. But it turned out a whole hell of a lot different. And not only was creaky old

Hershiser on the mound for a game that was just a backs-against-the-wall game

instead of a true pennant-fight game, but my kid couldn't go with me... and my new

boss at this new freakin place where I have been on my "best freakin behavior" for

two months was holding me back, keeping me at work until almost 8 freakin o'clock.

Christ, I hit the N and took it to Queensborough Plaza, switched to the 7 train there.

Read that free paper, New York Press, on the way. That rag always depresses me. I

was also listening to the game on the FAN. Down 5 nothing. Didn't bother me. I

thought, "I will be there when we make our comeback." I had almost that same

thought one Sunday night earlier this summer when I was helping the junkie girl

through a bad time, and the Mets were down 5 zip to the Phils in the 8th--and I

nearly turned the radio off but something told me NO--and we rocked Schilling for 5

runs in the ninth. What a ballgame that was. But that's a long freakin time ago now.

Anyways, there was Shea. First thing I tell myself is, "I will not get a beer tonight. I

will not get a beer." Because that could start the whole slide all over again. A losing

streak of my own.

I go in gate B with my two tickets and right away hit the Italian sausage cart. The

line was long and I swear the guy was makin us wait for no good reason. You always

see a lot of funny guys at Shea, guys who really make you laugh, and the guy in

front of the sausage line was watching the guy turn over the onions and green

peppers with his spatula and searing the meat until it had black stripes on both

sides, and the guy was saying, he said, "I'm gettin' delirious here! I'm having a

hallucination, I'm so hungry. Finish cooking it already!" But the cook kept taking his

damn time. I guess that was the one power the cook had over other people, making

them wait for their freakin sausage, and he was going to take every advantage of it

that he could. I do the same kind of bastardish things at my job, too, I guess.

Because who wants to be a freakin worker, an employee, a cog? Nobody. We were

all kids once. Nobody aspired to be middle management or to stand at a hot sausage

cart. Christ. So I said to myself, "Christ. This world is BLEEP!ed up, get me a beer."

And I paid the freakin $5.50 for a 16-ounce can of Bud poured agonizingly slowly into

a cup.

Got to my seat. I saw Weissman seated a few rows ahead of me and to the left. I

wished my life were simple like Weissman's. Belief in God. Belief in a team. No alimony

payments. No woes beyond what Valentine did or did not do.

The girl sitting right in front of me was just a peach. Man, she looked like a young

Stockard Channing. I always liked Stockard Channing. I have a thing for her. My wife

used to say, my ex-wife, I mean, used to say, "What do you see in her? She looks

like a puppy dog! With you it's her and Swoozie what's her name. Why can't you be

normal and like Christy Brinkley and those kinds of girls," and I would say, "Stockard

and Swoozie just kind of do it for me, what can I say?" She secretly liked it, that I

wasn't into the supermodel types.

I quaffed down the beer. God it tasted good. It felt good too. I immediately kept my

ear open for the beer man but now they got those bonehead waiters by the field

and the beer man never comes.

This Stockard Channing girl was damn smart and she knew it. Her boyfriend was a

bonehead. He says to the other guy they were with, "She was a classics major. Do

you even know what a classics major is?" And the guy goes, "Sure, Roman and

Greek." As the girl starts talking about studying at Oxford and tra la la la di da, I did

something I don't usually do. I started just winking at her blatantly and smiling and

making goofy faces. Her boyfriend couldn't see me. He was directly in front of me.

She was to the side. She smiled at me and gleamed up her eye for me and met my

eye a couple time. God she was great.

On the field the Mets were in hell. Cook couldn't get it over the plate. I felt funny

from the beer and guilty. When Cook came out of the game and started giving it to

the umpire, a weird thing happened to me. I started feeling all jittery. I was WITH

Cook. You know what I mean? I know what it's like to be squeezed by an ump and

it's freakin frustrating. I thought of all the calls I didn't get, maybe, and I stood and

clapped like hell with everybody else. When Cook started covering the outer half of

the plate with dirt, I tried to shout something, but my voice caught and I realized I

was crying. Not like blubbering, but really tearing up and they were running down my

face. I told myself this was not good. But I was really so touched by Cook and his

frustration and the whole damn losing streak and my son not being there and paying

that freakin much for the tickets and getting to the game late and the beer and the

pretty girl--it just sprung out of my eyes or something and I thought it was very

beautiful, what Cook was doing on the field, and sad, too. And even as I was crying

a little I wanted to kill the ump, too, and I mean really kill him. Chase him with

torches through Queens.

The Stockard Channing girl turned around to me. "Are you all right?" "Yeah, yeah," I

go. "It's just... boy they were squeezing Cookie out there." She goes, like,

"Whatever." Probably didn't know what "squeezing" or "Cookie" meant. I wiped my

face. She still had the gleam. The boyfriend, a handsome soft guy, turns around and

gives me the fish eye. "What are you looking at?" I go. He does the classic, "You

two know each other?" I go, "Not yet." That was all. He didn't want a piece of Big

Al.

The bottom of the eighth inning was one of those beautiful baseball moments. The

fans really got up and cheered, even before Henderson's single. It was loud, World

Series loud, and everyone was following the counts and it was great. But then

Piazza hit the ground out and Alfonzo had that soft, soft fly ball--his second terrible

swing of the night. I've never seen him swing the bat with such lack of authority. He

is messed up right now. Either hitting sixth does not suit him anymore or he is in a

radical slump and needs a night on the bench.

All the "good" people filed out after that, including the Stockard Channing girl, who

would not look at me now, after my little altercation with her beauty boy, and it was

only the rabble left. I went behind home plate because I thought I saw an old friend

of mine there, but it was someone else. A guy was wearing a Yankee jacket and a

funny guy started giving him the business from a few rows away. "Yankees suck

dick!" the guy shouted. The usher told him to can the profanity. And the guy said, "I

said a bad thing. I'm sorry." Then he said things that were almost profane but not

quite after that. Another guy started yelling at Rickey in the on deck circle. "You're

old, Rickey! You can't do it anymore. Hall of Famers don't run, right, Rickey? Hall of

Famers don't run!" Rickey shook his head and smiled. It got uglier thought when

another heckler called him "boy." I wanted to kill that guy. That guy would have

been cheering RIckey like crazy if things were going better, so why the "boy" crap?

Why bring this racial BLEEP! into it? Man. Even in the field seats, the Mets fans can

get freakin ugly. I mean, I will boo and yell, but not like that.

After the ragged ninth inning, everybody left, but I noticed these two hot girls

sitting with some guy. I mean, these women were incredible, one in tight leather

pants with humongous cha chas under a tight sweater. "What's going on here?" I

said to myself and waited for them to leave their seats. I followed them into the

parking lot, and I was right. These were not usual fans. They were strippers from

this place called the Airstrip and outside they and some other girls started passing

out fliers to people. I took one. Christ.

I got in a cab with some drunk fellows, Wall Street guys, who were going to check

the place out. We got there and it was... you know. It's in the zone where you can

legally have a strip club in New York. A "waitress" asked me what I wanted. I said

Scotch, God help me.

You know when Chris Rock does that routine, something about the girls don't do it in

the Champagne room? Well, they do it, friends, they do it.

I left there at about 5 A.M., much poorer both financially and spiritually. I was drunk,

too, and couldn't find a cab. I walked out to the water. There was trash in it. What

a losing streak. What a night. I had for some reason a pack of cigarettes in my

pocket. I smoked one there. A guy was waking up by the dock. The planes started

coming in from Europe overhead. The dirty seagulls and pigeons were battling it out

as usual. I started walking until eventually I found the Jackson Heights subway stop

and rode the 7 back to Manhattan. I stopped by my place for a shave and shower,

slugged down a hell of a lot of coffee, went to work. And here I am at my desk, still

looped a little bit, and the boss has been giving me kind of a cold look. I must look

the way I feel. Hungover. This far from being a bum. But if that guy could have seen

me when I was 17, 18, when my arm was at full strength, and you had the scouts

and everything... ahh, Christ, what's the use. What's the use?

Edgy MD

Site Manager

Posted April 11, 2021

Author

Posted April 11, 2021

Thanks, MH.

kcmets

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 11, 2021

Classic. Was Big Al the same guy that once said, "we're not posting well as a forum?"

Fman99

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

Man, that gets me every time I read it.

whippoorwill

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

=kcmets post_id=60406 time=1618163421 user_id=53]
Those were the days, my friends.

Wonder how Horace P Osterdonk is doing.

kcmets

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

Spongey, I imagine lol...

Centerfield

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

=Fman99 post_id=60461 time=1618237880 user_id=86]
Man, that gets me every time I read it.

Frayed Knot

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

Classic. Was Big Al the same guy that once said, "we're not posting well as a forum?"

Yup!

kcmets

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

I remember stuff sometimes.

Benjamin Grimm

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

Chad ochoseis

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

Those were the days, my friends.

Wonder how Horace P Osterdonk is doing.

Horace P Osterdonk.

Fourteen years on this forum, and sometimes I still feel like a n00b.

This would have been the game. September 28, not September 26.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199909280.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199909280.shtml

It was Dunston who singled when the Mets were down 5-1 in the 8th, after Rickey doubled. Piazza did indeed ground out to score Rickey and Alfonso ended the inning with a fly ball to left.

whippoorwill

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 12, 2021

$5.50 beer. Touch that price now

Edgy MD

Site Manager

Posted April 12, 2021

Author

Posted April 12, 2021

Of course. Farmer Ted is our Air Strip correspondent.

Johnny Lunchbucket

Old-Timey Member

Posted April 13, 2021

I always say this but Big Al had a half-dozen posts that were every bit as good as this one, including a few he references in this one, about the junkie who slept on his couch. Lost but maybe not forever