There's a Little Zack Short in All Of Us
I guarantee you, you and he have something in common
Big news: my book is out! It’s called “Only in Queens: Stories from Life as a New York Mets Fan,” and it’s available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format. If you read this newsletter and have fond memories of Ike Davis’ breakout rookie season or Dae-Sung Koo’s big day in 2005, I’m confident it’s the book for you, and I hope you’ll give it a look.
I was sitting at the table eating breakfast, when out of nowhere, it hit me like a Kodai Senga fastball: “I’ll bet Zack Short has some funny old Tweets.”
I thought so because I have a bit more experience with Short than most Mets fans. When I covered the Tigers at Comerica Park last May, I came away with the sense that besides being gifted enough to play Major League Baseball, he was a very ordinary guy. That was the game that gave us Short’s infamous “Kids Day” portrait, which, put simply, wasn’t accurate. Short’s face is not the color of a tomato; his ears do not protrude that dramatically; his eyes likewise do not push outward into his ears. His facial hair also doesn’t look like that.
“I’m going to have to have a talk with that kid,” he told me after the game.
The night before, Short had entered to pitch the ninth inning of a 12-3 loss to the White Sox. He’d been tempted to air it out and show off his arm – but he’d avoided the temptation.
“In college I got clocked in the low 90’s,” he said. “I don’t know if the ol’ arm is going to hold up if I do that again; there’s a lot of bullets that have been used since then. But that was definitely tempting…but I was instructed not to.”
Later that night, Short clubbed a two-run homer in a win over Chicago.
“I knew it was either a homer or an out,” he said, describing how he’d watched the ball in flight. “I kind of just blacked out.”
The impression Short gave me was a guy who loves baseball, who doesn’t take himself too seriously, who loves to win but also enjoys joking around. And ten months later, the impression came back to me: he seemed like the kind of guy with some funny tweets.
So I looked. And here’s what I found: if you’re a Mets fan, there’s a decent chance that in Zack Short, you find part of yourself.
The cultural critic
One essential function of Twitter is allowing each of us to experience the whole spectrum of thought surrounding a piece of culture.
“Elf,” of course, is a cult Christmas classic. It’s not quite on the level of “National Treasure” (I would pay handsomely to get Short’s thoughts on Nicolas Cage), but it’s incredibly quotable and just lots of fun.
On the other hand, a lot of modern television is weird and uncomfortable and just unpleasant.
The Traveler
Travel is tough. What can you pack? Is your first checked bag free? Is your carry-on bag even free? If you try to change your seat, will it cost extra? If you travel a lot, will a “Clear” membership pay for itself? If you have “Clear,” do you also need “Clear Plus”? Do you already have “Clear Plus”? Is that the same as “TSA PreCheck”? What’s this machine that you walk through with the outline of a body on the wall? When you walk through the machine, why did they suddenly change where you put your hands?
Anyway:
If you’re traveling as a Mets fan, maybe you’re returning to New York. So you land at LaGuardia, grab a cab, get on the highway – and just hang out for a while. Lurching, somehow, in all four directions. Rapidly overheating, even if it’s January. Cars and trucks stopped everywhere, including in places you’re not supposed to stop, such as the middle lane of the FDR.
The Dog Lover
What more is there to say?
The Jets fan
Here’s where things get really interesting.
Zack Short is a huge Jets fan. And even more than that, he’s exactly the kind of Jets fan that you probably are, if you’ve managed to stick with the Mets for this long.
If you’re a Mets fan, you have to keep believing. Ya Gotta Believe that Juan Lagares is finally going to put things together on offense; that Eric Young Jr. is going to turn that speed and contact into a superstar season; that Dillon Gee is going to turn his arsenal into a sub-3.00 ERA. And on a broader scale, you have to believe things like, “Man, these 2012 Mets are going to surprise a lot of people in the second half.” (They didn’t).
So what do you do if you’re a Jets fan?
But what else do you do if you’re a Mets fan? Acknowledge that sometimes, you just have to salute a superior rival. The moment that comes to mind is that night in 2016 when Chase Utley returned to Citi Field after breaking Rubén Tejada’s leg the previous October. It was supposed to be a revenge game, and the Mets did end up winning in the end, but Utley, that buffoon, drove in a run with a sac fly, walked, and hit a bases-clearing double in the ninth to hand Jeurys Familia a blown save. Curtis Granderson walked it off, at least, but clearly the revenge didn’t quite go as planned.
Or in Jets parlance:
Anyway…
Will Short make the club? It seems doubtful, since Joey Wendle is a similar player, ahead of him on the depth chart. We’ll have to see.
The takeaway, though, is that aside from his status as a professional baseball player, Zack Short is clearly one of us. Just a guy from upstate New York, loves his dogs and the Jets, thinks a lot of TV these days is really weird, can’t stand city traffic, probably wishes the City Council would finally, for goodness’ sake, deliver congestion pricing. And this season, will be rooting hard for the Mets.
Come this summer, I hope we see Short’s face on the Citi Field scoreboard. And let’s hope it’s on Kids Day, because that portrait deserves an audience.