Loser's Log #10
March 31, 2025
Week 10 of Trump 2.0.
I’ll never forget where I was on July 13, 2024. Seated in the shaded, 300 section of Citi Field, I was sweating through my giveaway Mets-Nathan’s Hot Dog collab Hawaiian shirt. It was slightly too small for me, but more importantly, it was free. On one side of me was my beautiful girlfriend, and on the other was an overweight, bearded guy in a Mets hat and his wife. He smelled like pennies and spilled over onto our shared arm rest.
Despite the brutal heat, all was well. I was at the ballpark with my love, seeing the team that was making the summer bearable. We ate our hot dogs and drank from our refilled Dasani bottles, trying to stay cool as our Mets battled the Colorado Rockies. Sometime in the 8th inning, the guy next to me got a phone call.
“What? What’s happening? Is it on the news?” he asked the person on the other end.
He hung up frantically and checked his news site of choice: Fox News.
Figuring some sort of national story was unfolding, I did the same, with my site of choice (for fast breaking news): CNN.
Someone had taken a shot at Trump. It was a moment of chaos and confusion as we scrambled to find answers on our phones. We chatted a little bit.
“It looks like he’s walking off the stage, he might be fine.”
“Who did this?”
The July heat in Queens was upsetting enough, but this compounded the pain. The guy next to me spoke curtly to his wife as he browsed his fold-in-half smartphone. He was upset. Someone had taken a shot at his guy.
I was upset, too, but for a different reason. The old adage played in my mind. If you come at the king, you best not miss. I hadn’t even seen the famous AP photo yet, but the ramifications of this botched job were becoming clear.
At the peak of all this uncertainty and emotion, Francisco Lindor, the shortstop for New York Mets, smacked a gorgeous 3-run homer. Our phones disappeared back into our pockets and for a minute, we were simply enjoying America’s favorite pastime. The Mets had taken the lead and I high-fived the MAGA guy next to me. And that’s America.
I’ve chosen today to write about this fond, confusing memory because the Mets just lost their opening series of the 2025 season. Ten weeks into Trump 2.0 and we are losing our grasp on the rule of law quickly. The Mets were just about the only thing that kept me going last summer, so if they don’t wake up soon, I don’t know what I’ll do.
The lesson here isn’t that we all have some secret, common ground to bond over. That MAGA and lefties just need to high-five more and everything will be okay. It’s about coping. Staying sane. In addition to continuing the work of improving our communities, find something to cling to, even if irrationally, because it could be your saving grace. Maybe it’s an author, or a TV show. Would I suggest that thing be the New York Mets? I’m not sure. In many ways, their repeated, spectacular failures have prepared me for the numbness of watching our country fall apart. Just when you think a new star rises, he twists his ankle and is out for the season.
But what they’ve shown me more than anything is loyalty. Even if my faith in our democratic institutions is fading rapidly, I still believe that the bats will get hot. In baseball, a miraculous comeback is always possible. In America, we do not have Kings, but we Mets fans will always have Queens.
Ya Gotta Believe.