  Awww. Bob Murphy, who every kid in Queens remembers calling their Met games, died yesterday of cancer. I was well into my third glass of wine when I found out, and when I stumbled home, the memories rushing back to me, I wanted to call that call-in sports show on NY1. You know, to tell my story. THANK GOD I hung up before any damage was done. The guy screening the calls somehow missed that I was slurring my words- A rough transcript: Guy- "What's your name? " Me- "Jiiiiilllll" Guy- "Whaddaya wanna talk about? " Me- "Bob Mur(hic!)phhhy.... the memmmories... from when I was a kid. I mean, I am young..." Guy- "How olda ya? " Me- "Tweeennnnny four? " Guy- "Allright, hold on" And he put me on hold to talk to Tom, the host.
I came to my senses after about 10 minutes of listening to the show on the phone and hung up. Had I gone on TV, using my real name, drunk... No. Just, no. But here I have to luxury of prattling on about said memories. I was never much of a baseball fan, I was somewhat pleased when they went on strike. Anything to piss my dad off at the time, who was probably thinking the same towards me. But looking further back, to when I was 6 or so, and the Mets could do no wrong, it was a simpler time. The sounds and smells and feeling is stronger than any visuals I get, but I know those summers were all about my dad sitting on the couch, watching the Mets with Murphy's voice absolutely blaring through the tiny TV speakers. The windows were open, it was a warm summer weekend day game, and I could smell grass that had just been cut (yes, that kind, too)... the sound of the bus tearing up the street, letting exhaust off to seep into the house... and Strawberry hits a line drive, which I know about thanks to Murphy's very distinct delivery. And my dad, alone in the living room, begins to clap for no one in particular. Now, as a Time Warner Cable subscriber, I was unable to see the game yesterday.
As my father, a long-suffering Mets fan, said, "At least you won't have to see them lose. " Well, they didn't! In fact, they killed the Brewers in a show of, well, not much, as it was the Brewers. But they won, presumably "for the Murph," and gave sports fans and sports writers everywhere the chance to quote the man himself: "The Mets win the ballgame, they win the damn thing. " Mike Lupica outdoes himself with a urlLink bittersweet piece of sports journalism that Murphy would have blushed over in the News today. (Can you tell the old html tags are coming back to me? ) 
