The Summer Wind
On June 21, 1968, Earl Warren submitted his resignation to President Lyndon Johnson after 15 years as Chief Justice of the United States.
The move came in response to demands for tighter gun controls following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, who had been murdered in Los Angeles earlier that month.
Mort Sahl was playing at the Village Gate. The Party, starring Peter Sellers, was showing at the Alpine Theater, just a few blocks from my family’s home. And way up in Flushing Meadows, the New York Mets clobbered the L.A. Dodgers.
“If some benevolent dream merchant decided to compose a script for the satisfaction of New York Mets fans among the 46,868 at Shea Stadium last night, he could hardly improve on the real-life details that went into a 5–1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers,” Leonard Koppett wrote in The New York Times the following day.
He added that the Mets had “climbed to hitherto unscaled heights — sixth place in June,” and noted that the fact the Amazins had beaten the Dodgers, “who still represent desertion to the Brooklyn-minded,” was an added kick.
I was at the game on June 21, 1968, along with my brothers, Jim and Peter. I was 11 years old, and Peter would celebrate his 13th birthday the next day.
This magic memory came back to me recently when I found a torn ticket stub from that day.
The seat was in Section 29, Row G, but the exact seat number has long since been torn away. The ticket, which sold for $2.50, features the image of a weeping Mr. Met standing in a downpour, holding an umbrella beneath the words “Rain Check.”
I have absolutely no idea how this battered piece of cardstock survived all these decades — and the sale of our parents’ house, when we tossed tons of trash, old clothing, furniture, and God knows what else.
And yet there it was.
This was one of two trips the three of us made to Shea Stadium together, and I like to think that this ticket represents the first magical day.
Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjacks...
My brother Jim, the oldest, told Peter and me that we were going to Upper Manhattan to visit our Aunt Loretta.
He told us to dress up to make the ruse look legit, and just as I was putting on one of my best shirts, Jim snuck up behind me and rubbed some of his cologne on my neck.
We took the long subway ride out to Queens, and Peter and I didn’t figure out the ruse until we saw Shea Stadium. And then we flipped out.
I was never a sports fan, but I did have that special kind of love for the Mets, who were, at the time, lovable losers that drew fans even when they couldn’t score runs.
As we approached the stadium, a man came up to Jim offering to sell him a ticket.
“I need three,” my brother said.
“Okay,” the guy replied, reaching under his coat. “You got them.”
We made our way to Section 29, Row G, seat whatever, and watched the Mets pound the Dodgers. Jim talked baseball with an older gentleman sitting next to him.
When the game was over, the old-timer nodded to my brother, said “See you tomorrow,” and melted into the crowd.
Shea Stadium, which opened in 1964, hosted its final Mets game on September 28, 2008, and was demolished in early 2009 to make way for the parking lot and surrounding grounds of the Mets’ current home, Citi Field.
Ticket prices today range from $32 to $100, depending on the opponent and seat location.
My brother Peter died last year, so the ticket stub — and the memories connected to it — mean so much to me now.
I’m reminded of a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the villain René Belloq holds up his watch and says it’s “worthless… ten dollars from a vendor on the street.”
“But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless,” he says. “Just like the Ark.”
Well, that ticket stub may not be the Ark of the Covenant, but it’s sacred to me.
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