The NY Mets and Cap Day

ב"ה

So I've been watching ESPN with Opening Day 2017 and they keep mentioning that it's the day to take a pic of yourself with a baseball cap on.

I have a few caps. I actually was looking for my Pittsburgh Crawfords cap to represent the great players (my favorite being the late great Josh Gibson) of the Negro Leagues, particularly those who, like my idol, never got to play in the Majors. But I couldn't find it.

I did find my 25th anniversary Mets cap so I took a picture of myself in that cap. And I have a story to go with it.

It was 1986. I had been home from a year in Israel for about 6 months and the Mets had made the playoffs and then were in the World Series. There was only one problem. The 6th game of the World Series, which could have been the last, was being played on Simhat Tora, a Jewish Holiday that caps off our month-long Autumn holiday season (which begins with Rosh Hashana and includes Yom Kippur and Sukkot). On certain Holiday days, we don't write, drive, turn on lights and, most importantly that night, we don't turn on televisions.

In addition to the above, Simhat Tora is also a night where most of us (Religiously Observant Jews) go to synagogue and sing and dance with the Tora. My siblings and I also did this thing called "Shul Hopping" where we would go from synagogue to synagogue singing and dancing as late as we could (mind you, we walked everywhere).

I was worried that the Mets might be out of the World Series before I could watch them again but, as it turned out, when we walked my sister's then boyfriend to his apartment, someone in the apartment complex was watching the game and I had a great view through an uncovered window. I got a chance to see (though not hear) the (in)famous Bill Buckner error. I got to see the Mets win that game, so I felt comfortable that they could win the World Series (and that I could be there to watch them -- after all, it's my watching it that makes them win 😃). It was the second World Series win for the Amazing Mets.