Thank Goodness, It's Opening Day.

"No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again"
-Regina Spektor, "On the Radio"

When we last left Shea Stadium, I wanted to throw up.

Yadier F'n Molina drove a dagger through the collective Mets fans' heart, and the Cardinals punched their ticket to the World Series at the expense of my dinner. He single-handedly ended the 2006 Mets' Magic Carpet Ride - a glorious season that ended too soon thanks to a craptacular catcher with no pop.

I didn't throw up, nor cry - but I came close. It was a long ferry ride home.

So, after a cold winter, a winter of what ifs, Giant implosions, NITs... the time had come to go home... I braved the elements to make it to Opening Day. Part of a record crowd, they said. I didn't care. It just felt right. That's what mattered. It felt right to be at Shea, watching the games again. The hot dogs, roar of the crowd, flooded bathrooms, and all that poetic crap.

You can see the construction of the new ballpark beyond the outfield now. It's quite prominent, the little men and their big cranes. I wondered aloud how it might feel to suffer in the new ballpark the way I had suffered so many times at Shea... from the likes of Yadier F'n Molina to Armando Benitez to Anthony Young to Robby Thompson to that family sitting behind me with the HoJo face paint...



This day, though. It just felt right...



...and not just because Sean tried to crush Cole Hamels with his fingers.