Last updated: 8:39 am
June 28, 2008
Posted: 5:00 am
June 28, 2008
CRUISING ALONG THE GRAND CONCOURSE - New York on a summer Friday, in all its glory, in all its hot, humid, steamy, clammy glory - 6:30 in the afternoon. Right in the teeth of rush hour.
And all around us, the city has come to a screeching halt. That is because of the police cars, stopping where they sit hundreds of cars with the misfortune to be on this road at the most inopportune time of the year: On Subway Series Friday, with the Mets making their triumphant way home, with us in the media shuttle trailing behind.
PHOTO GALLERY: Mets - Yankees Doubleheader
Only baseball can do this. Only Subway Series baseball can do this. It's like the Times Square scene in "Vanilla Sky": empty city, empty streets. Baseball must pass.
Baseball must pass.
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Mets interim manager Jerry Manuel called Carlos Delgado "enigmatic" a few hours earlier. Mets fans have used other words to describe Delgado and the struggles he's suffered through since the start of last season - some of them shorter, some of them longer, most of them not suitable for a family newspaper.
So maybe he was owed a day like this. Maybe this pushes the hangman away for good. Two home runs and nine RBIs can buy you a little bit of credit, even in a tough town like this one.
"That was a long time coming," Delgado said as the Mets hurried to make the bus in time for the second game, after wrapping a neat bow around the 15-6 shellacking they administered in the opener, thanks mostly to Delgado's bat. "Especially here."
He was smiling. It's a hard game in the best of times, a sadistic one in the worst of times. So when you're given a few innings of good times, best to savor them. Delgado was savoring.
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CROSSING THE TRIBORO - A funny thing about sitting in the middle of a police escort while you see the other lanes of traffic choked off and backed up for mile after sweaty mile, a place you've been plenty before:
You feel bad for those other folks.
But not too bad.
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