Hot dogs, plastic tongues, John Rocker

Yesterday, I left my place at 3:50pm, grabbed a couple of hot dogs from Gray's Papaya, hopped on the #2 train to Times Square, transferred to John Rocker's favorite train, rode it all the way out to Queens while writing in my journal and eating one of my hot dogs, saw from the elevated station that the tarp was covering the infield (even though it wasn't raining), considered going to the game even though batting practice was canceled, said "[expletive deleted] it," headed to the other platform, rode the John Rocker back to Times Square while writing some more, took the Broadway local up to 72nd, gave my other hot dog to a homeless guy who complained that it wasn't hot, and walked home.

Then it started raining.

I left for work three hours later and tried not to look at any of the three TVs that had the Mets game...but I couldn't help it. I had to peek. And it hurt when I did. All those empty seats were sticking their plastic tongues out at me. The game had been delayed 2 hours and 17 minutes. The night was custom-made for foul balls, and I wasn't there.

I'll be there later today. It's sunny, and it's supposed to stay that way.

By the way, I like John Rocker (even though he once threw a cup of water at me at Turner Field after returning to the dugout from a rough outing and mistaking me for the guy who'd been heckling him). Why do I like him? Because he threw me a ball at Shea in 1999--and I mean threw. I was up in the Loge level during batting practice. He was 100 feet away from the left field stands. I yelled for the ball. He whirled and fired it at least 70mph, and I lunged to my left and caught it two feet in front of a little girl's face. She and her father flinched. He thanked me four times. They hadn't seen it coming.