Faith and Fear in Flushing - Book and Blog

A snow day provides time to engage in leisure activities. I do read on the commute to work, but with making changes from one train to another, I can usually read for only 20 minutes at a time. Today I spent a few hours with:

Prince, Greg W. Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets. New York, NY: Skyhorse Pub, 2009. Print.

I had seen this book on the shelf of the Mitchell Linden branch of the Queensborough Public Library for at least a year. I always thought to myself that I have read all too many books about the Mets over the years. I thought that is there anything more I can learn about my favorite team? About two weeks I finally decided to take this book out and read after I finished my latest book about the Beatles.

I was pleasantly surprised that although the author Greg W. Prince did not offer new revelations about the Mets, he did present his book in a friendly and personal style. He was born on December 31, 1962 and suggests that he was conceived about the same time the Mets played their very first game. He became a Mets fan at age 6 and attended his first game in 1973. He describes how he took the Long Island Railroad to Shea Stadium and details many of the games he viewed at Shea Stadium or on television.

Greg certainly loved Shea Stadium although so many other people including Mike Francesa of WFAN described it as a dump. It was not the Taj Mahal, but it was our place for 45 years. I still miss its symmetry and find Citifield too corporate and more expensive than Shea.

I disagree with Greg on one issue. He hates the Yankees while I don’t and rarely yell out Yankees suck. I root for the Bronx Bombers except for the time that they play for the Mets. I must assume that Greg doesn’t have any children since there was no mention of any in the book. In my family “child is father to the man” since Lee is a bigger Met fan than I am. He saw his first Met game when he was 5. At age 22 he still wants to run over to hug Mr. Met.

The copyright date is 2009 so the author did not document whether he came to Shea Stadium as it was being demolished from October 2008 - March 2009. It was very sad for me to see it being deconstructed as I passed by on the #7 Flushing train or in my car. I will have to read his blog at http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/. It seems very wordy, so I’ll have to spend sometime with it.

I recommend this book to all Met fans especially those who miss Shea Stadium.