"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

I don’t know how parents do it. I don’t know how they unrelentingly humor their children FOR THEIR WHOLE LIVES. I’m almost 29. You’d think that I’d have reached the age where my parents should be able to say to me, Are you seriously going to subject me to this? Do I HAVE to?

But no.

When I woke up this morning at 9am, all stoked for the Mets/Sux game an hour away, for which I didn’t even possess tickets, the original plan was to have my sis accompany me. So I wake her up the same way I always do, which, in her defense, is probably the most jarring, terrifying, unpleasant experience in the realm of Sleep Interruptive Methods. And she entertains the idea for about 23 seconds of actually going with me. Then, “No, I’m not going.”

Oh.

Coincidentally, it was right around then I hear my dad say, “Oh no. Tornado watches in effect in Port St. Lucie. Should we tell her she can’t go?”

“ME?”

My poor parents. It was like listening to the grandparents discuss Charlie (of the Chocolate Factory persuasion) when they learn the 5th golden ticket has already been found. “Should we tell him??”

A normal person would have said, “Well, seeing as it’s thunderstorming like what, it’s an hour drive, I don’t have tickets, and it’s a Spring Training game for 2 teams I don’t even like…I’ll just stay in and enjoy the therapeutic effects of Solarcaine all day.”

Instead, my mom jumped on the grenade (the grenade being the trip to Port St. Lucie). My sister will do almost anything if it involves drinking outside and hanging out with me and watching baseball, but inclement weather throws the trump card on all of that.

Me and my mom follow the tornado clouds to Traditions Field, and while we’re getting the off I-95, there’s a handful of ticket sellers. “Should we haggle?” my mom asked.

I’ve never haggled in my life. Ever. I get too awkward and uncomfortable when it comes to arguing money, and as such, I think the technical term for my kind would be “patsy.” I bought 2 “Berm” seats for $20 each ($10 more than face), but at least I had tickets in my hand! Berm, of course, is the general admission lawn area in the outfield. (I don’t know why they actually put seat numbers on the berm tix. Like I was going to start scouring the field for a plot of grass designated “128.”)

So here’s how the game went once me and my wonderfully amazing sport of a mom assumed our “seats”:

Pelfrey gave up 3 runs almost instantly in the 1st inning, but sort of settled down after that. I’m not sure anyone cares about this, but better safe than sorry, I guess.

My mom as we’re walking to stadium from parking lot: “Ok, let’s go over a couple of ground rules. DO NOT start a fight. Do not look at anyone funny, don’t yell anything at them, don’t pour beer on them, don’t put ketchup on them. Just DON’T. START. ANYTHING. Also, don’t get arrested.” Fair.

My mom the second we sit down: “My God, Ortiz still plays baseball? Even after last year? I mean, come on. He sucked! Someone actually thinks he’s going to rebound? PUH-LEEZE.” It should be noted that since both me and my mom have hearing impairments, whenever we hang out, it’s like watching a play-reading. Everything’s extra loud and annunciated. It should be also noted that the guy sitting in front of us was a 300lb Ortiz-wearing buffalo.

I pointed Ortiz out to my mom, and she shrieked in such disbelief, mixed with shades of contempt but also a little bit excitement for the scandalous implications the sight conjured up. “OH. MY. GOD. HOW HAS NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THIS???!! OH MY GOD, JUST LOOK AT HIM! You couldn’t lose that much weight if YOU HAD YOUR JAWS LOCKED AND WIRED SHUT.” Excellently put.

The rain started coming down around the 3rd or 4th inning. We couldn’t actually see the scoreboard. And it came down in buckets and buckets.

And I remember thinking that even though I was completely surrounded by Mets and Red Sux fans, even though I was all shoulder-to-shoulder with all of them, huddled under the limited awning space by the berm, and even though I was enduring the inimitable wet-jeans-misfortune, I was just so happy right then, just to be around baseball fans. Just to be among the lunatics who stick out a monsoon during a spring training game.

My mom during rain delay: “I always feel like when they put a game on a delay, they should also say FREE FOOD.” Good point. Compensate us for our dedication by throwing in some hotdogs on the house.

My mom after rain delay: “Do you think that if the Mets are terrible again this year, that they’ll just disband? I mean, really. We already have a NY team. What are they buying us?” THANK YOU, MOM. I SAID THE EXACT SAME THING. Maybe not as awesomely, innocuously, and guilelessly earnest. But well-played, Mom. Well played.

My mom on #81 for the Sux: "Who's that? He keeps looking over here. Maybe he likes you!" (Spoken like a true mother.) "Oh. Or maybe it's because you've been inexplicably staring at him menacingly for the last 15 minutes." (Spoken like a true mother of a baseball fan.)

An hour after we leave, 2 homeruns get deposited right where we were sitting. CURSES!

Ah, tomorrow’s a new day. Cardinals-Red Sux at 1:05 in Jupiter.

And finally, Super MVP of the Day goes to my mom, because there is no doubt in my mind that I would have, in fact, gotten arrested if I had gone by myself. All that rain and mud and chaos and Mutts and Sux fans...and no supervision...being left to my own devices in a "stadium" that I had no real plans to visit again...I would have been like Jack Nicholson in the original "Batman."