Meeting the Mets: A Quirky History of a Quirky Team is a volume one of a two-part retrospective on the history of the New York Mets, a team that is now in its fifty-first season of play.
The author, Dr. Thomas A. Droleskey, attended over 1600 games at the Polo Grounds and William A. Shea Municipal Stadium between July 15, 1962, and July 16, 2002. While he has not attended games since that point for reasons that are described in the book, he was pretty visible in the stands as a very unofficial cheerleader for over a quarter of a century, known as “The Lone Ranger of Shea Stadium.”
Droleskey provides a personal retrospective on the origins of the Mets, highlighting some of the quirks of a quirky team, including memories of utterly meaningless games that might put a smile or two on the faces of those who have followed the team over the years. The books contains lots and lots of trivia about the Mets and baseball, interspersed with personal many bits of cultural trivia and history that will capture the reader’s attention.
A vast revision and expansion of his first book on the Mets, There Is No Cure For This Condition, which was published in 2001, this book has been methodically researched and documented to assure its factual accuracy (memory can be a little tricky as the years pass by). There are also observations concerning the state of baseball and today, noting changes that have taken place in the past fifty years. Typographical and other errors that made their way into earlier versions on this book have been removed. All necessary corrections have been made.
Rabbi Meyer Schiller had the following to say about Meeting the Mets: A Quirky History of a Quirky Team:
“Dr. Thomas Droleskey spent many years delighting in the simple pleasures of baseball, fun and human fellowship as a devoted follower of the New York Mets. Indeed, his genius in pursuing the aforementioned led him to assume the unique alter ego of the Lone Ranger of Shea Stadium. Here is the whole delicious tale related with relish and joy.
“Yet, this book is far more than a baseball fan's affectionate memoir, for it traces life's happiness to its Ultimate Source, Almighty God. Thus, the reader will learn of far more than a devotee's view of the Mets. This is a thinly veiled account of one man's deep yearning for faith and truth; a yearning so profound that it finally led him to abandon his personal field of dreams when its environs proved inhospitable to Divine Truths.
“Reminiscent of Belloc's Voyage of the Nona we have here a page turning classic which uses this world to teach us about Eternity.”
Reviewer James Bemis wrote the following in 2002 about There Is No Cure for This Condition:
“I always suspected my mad, private passion was singular, a fever raging within that no one else shared. Hour after hour, I'd study The Sporting News stats, play board games like Strat-O-Matic, constantly finger my baseball cards. It's immensely heartening to know that elsewhere in this gigantic country of ours, there was another kid as fanatical as me - maybe even more so.
“No book in recent memory captures the sheer fun of baseball's glory days so well as "There Is No Cure." Droleskey, a self-described "vagabond college professor/writer/speaker/pizza maker/marathon long-distance driver" is best known to baseball fans as the famed Lone Ranger of Shea Stadium. His love for both the game's nobility and its quirkiness are absolutely infectious.”
"Peregrine" wrote the following review on Amazon about this book:
"This is a great blend of baseball facts (mostly about the Mets) and amusing incidents related to the author's many years of attending the Mets' games. This avid fan not only cheered on his beloved team, but entertained the other spectators as "The Lone Ranger of Shea Stadium", complete with mask and cowboy outfit. If you love baseball, you'll love this book."
You will love this book. Get it today!
Go to www.MeetingtheMets.com for more information about this book.
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