Rick Moody on the Meaning of the Mets Tragedy
by Timothy BracyPage 2 of 2
The L: Both the Yankees and Mets debuted new stadiums in 2009. The Yankees, subtle as plutonium, built a grotesque mall with a short porches and high prices. And yet, as ever, their perverted excess has somehow yielded a massive bounty. The Mets took the more measured route of actually building a baseball stadium, and were promptly rewarded with catastrophe.
RM: You have said it all here. What more need I add?
The L: Well, in terms of Citi Field, when I think of it my grim mind turns to the acres and acres of cemetery which covers the ground between my home in Greenpoint and the actual stadium. I personally find this very unnerving. Is it conceivable that they have constructed the new stadium in some kind of cursed ground or purgatory? Certainly stadiums have auras. Do you have an opinion on how the ghosts of this first nightmarish year can be exorcised? Perhaps renaming it "Willie Randolph Pavilion"?
RM: This is a sort of Stephen King reading of Mets history (c.f., THE SHINING) and the building of stadia. But as we all know Stephen King roots for the Red Sox, as do I when the post-season rolls around and my lads are not included. However, generally speaking, I find the Stephen King formulation a bit child-like. And yet the Mets ARE still purging the ghosts of LAST SEASON, which was in turn intended to purge the one before, and don't even get me started on the Subway Series. That motherfucker needs an army of bulemics to purge it properly. This season is like the Bataan Death March. It's not fate or cemeteries which causes the facts to be thus, it's just that success is an interval between failures, and while you can forestall this human fact with massive infusions of cash, as another team in the area does, that is no guarantee, and life is more reassuring when capitalism fails than when it succeeds. In this view, the Mets are strangely reassuring, even though they don't win very often.
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