New York Mets beat Washington Nationals 6-3

At Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Florida

New York Mets had their first home game of spring training at beautiful Clover Park in Port St Lucie, Florida about a mile and a half from our house. Sold out crowd for the spring training opener.

A day of sunshine, baseball, Nathan’s New York hot dogs, Cracker Jack and water to prevent dehydration in those sunny stands.

No Ron DeSantis, no Kevin McCarthy, no Donald Trump, no Elon Musk, no talking heads on MSNBC or CNN, no Ukraine, no Russia, no Fox anything, no Tucker Carlson, no Marjorie Taylor Green, no Matt Gaetz, but we did have a guest appearance by George Santos who reminded us that he rode with General Custer at Little Big Horn and was the only White-ish survivor, and Santos rode with Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in Cuba up San Juan Hill, and he was the recent winner of Men’s singles at Wimbledon, but he denied committing perjury in a trial in Washington State. Santos proved he was just an ordinary Republican.

Now back to the ball game. The pitchers on both sides threw the hardest and fastest fast balls you would ever see. I don’t know how the batters saw and hit those balls, but both sides did an admirable job of connecting bat and ball resulting in an interesting game at 6-3. Home runs, doubles and fancy running and catching in the outfield.

This game was unlike a Philadelphia Phillies game I took my then 12 year old daughter, Mira, to in 1986 when she said she liked the pre-game show with the Phillies Fanatic, but the ball game was “BORING.” I said Mira this is the national past time, and she repeated it is Boring. She pleaded with me to leave at the Fourth Inning, and being a good father I agreed. So we went looking at boats instead and bought a Sea Ray boat, which had a price tag slightly more than the baseball tickets.

So Sunday, February 26, 2023 was enjoyable with the absence of those political irritants and instead the Clover Park fans singing in the Seventh Inning: “Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the park, buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don’t care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root for the home team, if they don’t win its a shame, for its one, two three strikes your out, At the old ball game.” That song was written as a 1908 Tin Pan Alley Song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer, even though at the time of writing neither song writer had ever attended a baseball game before writing what has become the unofficial song of North American baseball.

So as American citizens and recent immigrants, let’s just root, root, root for the Home Team and hope we win in Ukraine. (Oops snuck that in.)