(Sunday Paper, Year VIII, Issue 21)

I’m not a gambler.

Well, I have gambled in my life.

There have been times I was a mini gambler.

But I’ve lost so much more than I’ve won…so that made me a non-gambler.

I understand how people get into trouble with gambling…because those wins feel great.

But I have realized over the years that I’m not cut out for it, and I’ve almost completely stopped any kind of gamble.

I mean, even when I did the occasional pool or casino thing it was never for a lot of money.

Because I am not someone who has a lot of money.

That’s why this Mets season ticket plan this year feels like a real gamble for me.

Here’s why I’m thinking about this.

Things got really bleak for the Mets in the past ten days or so.

They were losing a lot, and they were losing to teams they should be beating, and the season looked like it was slipping down the tubes.

And the feeling I was getting reminded me of that feeling I got when I lost a bet of some sort.

Now, let me just re-iterate, when we’re talking gambling for me we’re not talking anything high stakes. For me high stakes is maybe $100. When I went to the casino in my casino-going years I never spent more than a couple of hundred dollars, if that.

Pools were in the range of $20-$50 for buy-in.

Despite my season ticket membership and my traveling for and registration into somewhat expensive races (looking at you, Chicago Marathon), I’m not swimming in dough over here.

But I am making enough money that I can spend a little for these treats for myself.

Still, though, the Mets tickets thing, considering it’s 200 miles away and more money than I’ve spend on baseball in my life, feels like a stretch. (And, trust me, if I had the money I would have treated myself to nice seats all season long. But that’s not who I am. I’m not upper class…but I am upper-level-in-a-stadium class.) (How much money are we talking, by the way? Well, you see the seats pictured above. They’re not expensive individually. But you can do the math over twenty games, and then you can figure out how much I’m stretching my spending…or how cheap I am depending on your perspective.)

So in some ways, it feels like a gamble, because if the Mets don’t do well this year I’ll feel like I flushed money I could have spent elsewhere, for something more family-friendly, down the toilet.

And when the Mets were losing I started to get angry at the Mets…at the owner…at the guy who sold me the tickets…I already swore off renewing for next year…

But then this week the Mets took two out of three from the team with the best record in baseball. They won in dramatic fashion and it looked, for the first time all season really, like they had some life in them and they could perform the way they were supposed to perform.

Which was just in time for Friday night, when I took my daughter to Citi Field because the game we were supposed to go to together in late April got rained out and I hadn’t gotten rid of these tickets yet. (We weren’t going to go this weekend because it’s Taylor Swift weekend and I wasn’t sure about the round-trip and then the concert Sunday night.)

And on Friday during the day I got really excited for the game and she was excited and I remembered that, sure, part of buying these tickets was to have a shot at a World Series game. But the other part was me enjoying time at the ballpark with my kids and people I enjoy spending time with.

So if these tickets are a gamble…well, I guess in that case I’ve already won.

But the playoffs sure would be nice.

(And it doesn’t hurt to add that Friday night’s game turned out to be one of the most exciting Mets wins I’ve ever been to in person. I’ll re-visit that thought later in the season.)

What I’ve Been Enjoying

There’s been a lot of Taylor Swift listening going on lately in anticipation of the big show tonight (see, we don’t spend all of our money on the Mets) and I’ll probably be telling you about that next week.

But I’ve been listening to Gracie Abrams too since 1) my daughter went to her show a couple of months ago and 2) she’s one of tonight’s openers and I like her. Reminds me of Olivia Rodrigo in sound but she’s her own unique version, for what my opinion is worth. (Nothing. My opinion is worth nothing.)

Notes

*This post started out as “I don’t have a ton of money but I have enjoyed spending it more lately.” Perhaps I’ll get more into that some day but treating myself and the family to fun stuff (like the Mets, like Taylor Swift concerts, like stupid little knickknack things I don’t need or more running clothes than I need) is what is bringing me joy these days.

*Really, really great game Friday night. Can’t stress that enough. As down on the Mets as I was a week ago I feel like they have turned it around now. Also, we did a round trip, leaving as soon as my daughter was out of school (2:47pm), making it for a little after first pitch (7:12pm) - with the Mets already down 3-0. They were down 5-0 before they mounted a comeback - including a Pete Alonso game-tying grand slam in the 7th inning to make it 7-7, and then a 3-run 10th inning to win the game after going down 9-7 in the top of the 10th. We left right after a quick celebration (and were in the car at approx. 10:30pm) and made it home by 1:20am or so. Pretty great.

*I probably haven’t been running as much as I should be to gear up to the training season, which is fast approaching. (Holy cow how did it get to be May 21 already!?) But I’ve been increasing my leg workouts and doing some more time on the bike and I think I’m doing an appropriate job of gearing up. There will be plenty of time to build up that mileage.

*I did run 3.1 miles Saturday morning after waking up earlier than I expected after the late night Friday. That felt good, and it reassured me a bit that my legs are getting stronger.

*Now seems like a good time to note that I am running the Chicago Marathon to benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC), running with Team RMHC. They’ve been great so far. Good communication, very welcoming to the runners working with them…and I haven’t been pushing the charity as much because the Super Bowl Squares were a great kick-off to the fundraising. But I will start mentioning it more - here’s the link where you can donate to support them and help me reach my fundraising goal. Thank you, and thank you again to everyone who already has contributed.

*Taylor Swift! The New York Mets! What a weekend.

*The social media links are below. If you’re new here, that’s where you can keep tabs on me and my writing (mostly on the Facebook link) and my running (the Instagram). The Twitter is still there but that site is a disaster these days…but it is where I do put most of my baseball thoughts.