On Mother’s Day, Remembering the Day Mom Pinch Hit for Dad

Longtime readers of mine know exactly where my baseball obsession came from.

It came from my father, Morris Rosenman — something I’ve also chronicled in my book Glove Story: Fathers, Sons and the American Pastime., co-written with fellow KinersKorner.com staff writer A.J. Carter.

My dad took me to what felt like approximately 7.3 million baseball games beginning in 1968. Shea Stadium was our home away from home. Jerry Koosman was probably more familiar to me than several blood relatives and I probably saw Ed Kranepool more often than some of my aunts and uncles. My father and I survived pennants, collapses, rain delays, doubleheaders, and enough Shea Stadium food to probably play at least a supporting role in his triple bypass and my three stents years later. Apparently the “Greatest Generation” passed down more than baseball loyalty.

The last game we ever attended together was Game 7 of the 1986 World Series.

Not a bad finale.

But today is Mother’s Day, and for some reason, my mind drifted somewhere it rarely goes baseball-wise:

The one and only Mets game I can ever remember attending with my mother.

October 10, 1973.

Game 5 of the National League Championship Series.

Mets vs. Reds.

A 2:00 PM start at Shea Stadium.

Which meant my father, who drove to Shea Stadium like a getaway driver and somehow knew enough backroads, side streets, and traffic shortcuts to suggest an MRI of his brain would have revealed the original blueprints for Waze, probably had some important business meeting he couldn’t escape. Missing a decisive playoff game simply wasn’t an option in our house, so my mother stepped in and volunteered to take me and my best friend Jeff Cohen to Shea.

And this is where the story gets interesting.

My mother drove all over. She would go into Brooklyn to help out at my aunt’s store. She would drive up to my grandfather’s bungalow colony in Swan Lake. She wasn’t afraid of the road, not in the least. She was fearless when she needed to be.

But she was also practical.

And I can only assume that somewhere in that calculation — Queens traffic, a 2:00 PM playoff start, parking at Shea Stadium, and whatever else the universe might throw at you on a big baseball day — she decided the Long Island Rail Road was simply the smarter play.

Now, I was not exactly a sheltered 13-year-old kid. Our family went into Manhattan constantly. Broadway shows. Rangers games. Knicks games. The circus. I had already seen enough of New York by that point to understand the city had characters.

But during that trip, while standing on the platform at Jamaica waiting for a connecting train, Jeff and I witnessed something neither of us had ever seen before.

A man clearly high on heroin.

Even now, 53 years later, Jeff and I still remember it vividly.

The swaying. The vacant stare. The unsettling feeling that something was very wrong.

I honestly cannot imagine what was going through my mother’s mind in that moment. She was standing there with her 13-year-old son and his 12-year-old fried, trying to shepherd us through Queens in the 1970s on their way to the biggest Mets game of the year while the scene unfolded around us like an Martin Scorsese film you weren’t quite old enough to be watching, but were somehow living inside anyway.

And somehow she just handled it.

I barely remember the train ride itself after that. My memory jumps straight to Shea Stadium, where 57,000 people were about to collectively lose their minds.

The Mets, who had spent most of 1973 looking about as dangerous as my Wantagh Jewish Center basketball team were suddenly one win away from another National League pennant.

Tom Seaver got the start because of course he did. If the world was ending in 1973, the Mets probably would’ve handed the ball to Seaver and told everybody to relax.

The Reds threatened immediately, loading the bases in the first inning, but Seaver escaped. Then the Mets answered in the bottom half when Ed Kranepool — filling in for the injured Rusty Staub — ripped a two-run hit that sent Shea Stadium into orbit.

Cincinnati clawed back and tied the game, but the Mets exploded for four runs in the fifth inning to seize control for good. Bud Harrelson delivered a key RBI hit, Cleon Jones drove in another run, and Seaver himself even doubled and scored because apparently he wanted to do absolutely everything that afternoon except sell scorecards in the mezzanine.

The final score ended up 7-2.

The Mets were National League champions again.

One thing I also remember vividly was the giant Shea Stadium scoreboard announcing that Vice President Spiro Agnew had resigned.

Only in 1973 could you go to a playoff baseball game and accidentally witness a constitutional crisis between innings.

Looking back now, one thing amazes me.

After six innings the Mets led 7-2.

My mother could have easily looked at two kids and said, “That’s enough. We’re leaving early to beat the crowd.”

Honestly, if she had done that, no jury in America would have convicted her.

Because what happened after Tug McGraw recorded the final outs can best be described as approximately 57,000 human beings simultaneously losing contact with reality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We7VnjA2QQI

Fans stormed the field.

People ripped up chunks of Shea Stadium turf and hurled them into the stands like victorious landscapers.

Absolute bedlam.

And somehow my mother stayed.

Even more amazingly, she let us move closer to the field so we could experience the celebration safely from a distance.

I never felt one ounce of fear.

Not for a second.

Because my mother was there.

At some point she even managed to acquire one of those cardboard drink-and-hotdog carrying trays so I could collect my prized souvenirs: clumps of Shea Stadium grass and dirt that fans were throwing into the seats.

I brought that turf home like it was the Holy Grail.

Then I planted it next to the shed in our backyard.

And for years afterward, every time I grabbed my white Schwinn Cotton Picker bicycle complete with front and rear shock absorbers, which in 1973 basically made me the Evel Knievel of suburban Long Island — I would glance over at that patch of Shea Stadium grass and smile.

Honestly, I’m not sure which made me happier.

The bike or the turf.

Probably the turf.

Okay maybe 50-50.

My mother passed away in 2017, the same year we sold the house.

I wish now that I had dug up a little of that grass before we left.

Funny thing is, despite all the incredible memories I have of my mother, I never really thought deeply about that game until now. And somehow, as I got older, I never once asked her what that day was like for her.

What was she thinking standing on that Jamaica platform?

What was she thinking watching fans storm the field?

Was she terrified?

Overwhelmed?

Exhausted?

Or was she simply happy watching her son experience one of the greatest days of his childhood?

Looking back at 1973, I honestly don’t know how many mothers would have volunteered to take two young kids on the Long Island Railroad into Queens for Game 5 of the NLCS and then stay to absorb the full glorious insanity of a Shea Stadium pennant celebration.

But mine did.

And that’s the thing about mothers.

A lot of the time you don’t fully appreciate what they quietly carried for you until decades later when the memories come rushing back.

So today, on Mother’s Day, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you Mom.

For stepping up when Dad couldn’t.

For the train ride.

For the courage.

For staying until the end.

And for giving me one perfect baseball memory that somehow took me 53 years to fully understand.

And to all of you reading this, I’d love to hear your own baseball memories involving your mothers — the ones who somehow made the trip, sat through the nerves, the sun, the cold, the traffic, the hope — and helped shape your love for this ridiculous, beautiful game.

In my own life, I’ve been lucky enough to watch that tradition continue. My wife Beth has shared our kids’ first ballpark moments with them, building those same kinds of memories that, if they’re anything like mine, will stick long after the final score is forgotten.

Because sometimes the people who gave us baseball memories were giving us something far bigger than baseball.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the incredible moms out there. Share your memories in the comments.