He marked the years with the fortunes of this team, the way that ancient peoples might have remembered the Year of the Late Snowfall or the Year of the Long Drought. He had turned five the second time they won the World Series, beating the Boston Red Sox. He had broken an arm riding a skateboard when he was ten; he remembered hammering the cast on the seat back in front of him while watching David Cone strike out three batters with nine pitches. He made dean’s list every semester in college save the first, having spent three weeks watching the playoffs, only to have the team lose the Subway Series in five soul-crushing games.

Then there were the Willie Randolph Years. The first two were all about rebuilding and renewing hope. The team kept that hope alive until one could almost believe the curse didn’t exist and that baseball rewarded hard work, talent, heart, and good coaching. It did not. When they inevitably collapsed in the last three weeks of the third season, Ted was working long, late hours making his mark at HFB, and surreptitiously checking his iPhone during game times, right up until the last brutal loss. The owners—and the press—blamed Randolph. The fans knew better. This was what the Mets did—they broke hearts.

But now it was May, a warm night, and he had a ticket. Jill was unavailable; he had a spare. He bought two beers and two of Nathan’s finest and used the empty seat beside him for a makeshift dinner table.

It was a long first inning. St. Louis managed to load the bases with only one out but couldn’t get a man home. The Amazins drove the count on the Cardinals’ pitcher up to twenty-eight but never got a man to second base. The next five innings held more disappointment and not much else. Ted nursed the second beer until it was too flat to drink. He decided to beat the seventh inning rush and went to find a Bronx Pale Ale and a third Nathan’s.

When he got back, the Amazins were loping onto the field, and the scoreboard still read 0–0. As he set about finishing his dinner, a shadow fell over him. He looked up and found a huge hulk of a man standing in the aisle. The man ignored Ted and took the spare seat next to him.

Late in the game fans often came down to fill in the empty seats closer to the field. If there was plenty of room, security tended to look the other way unless someone made a strong objection. What was odd was that there were multitudes of available seats in much better locations all over the stadium. And the fact that in this sea of total strangers, Ted recognized this man.