GO METS.
It didn’t matter last night if you lived in Manhattan or Long Island or some outer borough, or if you rooted for the Yankees or were the sort who still can’t bear to let go of the Dodgers.
Last night, in Queens and all over the scarred city, all over the nation, we all cheered for one team.
The American team.
Go Mets.
Just 10 days ago, we couldn’t imagine we would ever again cheer. Or laugh. Or enjoy something as simple as baseball and beer.
Last night, it dawned on us that if we lose our smiles, if we forgo all enjoyment, the smallest pleasures, those evil bastards will have won.
Go team.
Last night, those words took on new meaning. They became a cry of defiance.
There were other cries that shook Shea Stadium all the way to the elevated tracks of the No. 7 train.
Cheers like, “Roo-dee! Roo-dee! One more year!”
Cheers like, “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
And then, a moment of deafening silence. Fifty-thousand people in mourning.
It was time to play ball.
It is fitting that the first Major League Baseball game to be played in New York since Sept. 11 should involve the Mets.
For so long the poor cousin in a Yankee-crazed city, the Amazin’s did what they have done best in times of adversity, ever since I was a kid sitting in these stands, teaching my immigrant father the rules of baseball.
The Mets leapt out of the dugout, against all odds, and did something beautiful.
They did their jobs.
But the stars of the evening were not the players.
Not even the diva Diana Ross. Not Marc Anthony or even Liza Minnelli.
They were the cops and firefighters and Emergency Service workers, the troops in dress uniform who marched on the field.
They needed this, too. They need America to keep up their spirit while they do a tough job.
They need us to play ball.
Last night, the cliché became real. Watching the American pastime turned into a patriotic act.
“You can’t live like hermits. You’ve got to go out and live,” said Rich McCarthy, who came with his wife Michelle, grandma Jean Pollackor and babies Caitlin, 5 months, and Dylan, 1.
“We need a break,” said an ironworker, still wearing his hardhat. “We deserve this.”
I confess I have had trouble these last few days keeping my spirits up. I’ve been in an emotional funk, unable even to grieve.
But last night, amid metal detectors and a pair of good-natured bomb-sniffing Golden Labradors named Storm and Rocky, amid 50,000 waving flags, 50,000 Americans singing and crying, my eyes grew moist for the first time.
Go New York.
Go Atlanta, even.
Go Yankees, already.
Go Mets.
Go Army and Navy and Air Force and Marines.
At home, at the ballpark or on the battlefield, show those bastards what we’re made of.
Kick ass.