My son's 1st grade class does a daily writer's workshop, where they have spent most of the year creating their own books. The ones that have come home have so far been dominated by baseball stories (Mets or the backyard version) with the occasional outer space or Star Wars book thrown in for variety.
     This one just slays me. Let me set the stage. Remember back to the first half of 2012. When the Mets were an exciting team to follow for a bit. I had taken my guy to his first Mets game over Memorial Day weekend, it was against the Phillies. We lost but it was a fun game, back and forth runs scored, and the joy of his first CitiField ball game eclipsed the pain. His second game was the last one before the All-Star break. Hope was still in the air. It was against the Cubs, so I might have stupidly said we had a really good chance of winning. Here's a recap written four months later....

Wow, that title. Does that sound like a person resigning himself to a lifetime of Mets losses? Was it so awful that he remembers the exact scoreboard (no, but it's close). Is the black circle the scoreboard or the feeling in his heart?

The feelings of being the "worst mother ever" for convincing him to like this team were rushing through me after the title page. But the first page reminded me that his best friend, and next door neighbor, is also a Mets fan. They are a rarity where we live in Central Jersey, we are dominated by Phillies and Yankees fans. But at least he doesn't have to suffer alone.

That's "Zero runs in the first, uh oh!". Yeah, that was the problem our zero runs. And the other teams 4 runs. But no need to panic yet.

J loves triples. He thinks they are one of the coolest things in baseball, so this was a thrill. Less of a thrill to then watch poor Scott Hairston sit on third for two more outs. Kinda takes the "yay" out of it.

J, like all good Mets writers, can be bribed by food.

Can crying baseball man replace Mr. Met as the official team mascot? I'm happy to report that if that is an actual self-portrait that it is faked because there were no real tears shed. We took our lumps and moved on.

Disappointment. This is a good thing for a kid to learn, right? Right?!?

So that's the take away. Your team can lose in a rather soul-crushing way, but it can still be fun.**


**Please note, it was not actually fun. It was 95 degrees in the Big Apple section for "Kids Club" day. There were a million hot sweaty miserable children in the glaring sun watching the Mets suck it. I may have vowed never to attend a day game in July or August again.