Somewhere that was perhaps as nearly as hot as Shea was last night, the late Leo Durocher had to be laughing.
The Mets’ bad-luck season offered a black-cat exclamation point in the top of the seventh when a black feline scampered around the Mets outfielders, before leaping over the low, blue wall along the right-field line to the cheers of 34,619 fans.
It was back in 1969 when the Miracle Mets became champions that a black cat paraded in front of the Cubs dugout and Durocher at Shea, a jaunt that proved to be an omen of the Cubs’ collapse.
At the time of the black cat’s appearance last night, the Mets led the Brewers, 5-2. Closer Armando Benitez let up two home runs in the ninth, a double and a walk, but the Mets hung on.
Ex-Cub Steve Trachsel was on the mound when the cat appeared. “Didn’t that happen in ’69?” Trachsel asked after the game. “That’s what I thought about. That’s what six years in Chicago will do to you. That cat won’t die,” said Trachsel.
The cat sprinted past Tsuyoshi Shinjo. “That’s happened to me before in Japan,” he said. “We have the same superstition. I was glad he kept running away from me.”
Noted Mike Piazza of the cat, “He was under the stadium and eating all the rats they have down there. He probably got tired of the smorgasbord and had to run his dinner off.”