Required reading. And not just because I'm mentioned in it.

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Product Description

This collection of well-crafted essays spans more than 40 years of franchise history but hews to a single theme: the experience--sometimes humorous, sometimes painful--of being a fan of the New York Mets. From the sound of jets overhead to Keith Hernandez and the Seinfeld connection, Hofstra professor Dana Brand writes about the experiences and lore that make baseball in Queens unique. Mets fans will recognize themselves in this book, and everyone who enjoys great baseball writing will delight in the reading.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #720495 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 212 pages

About the Author
Dana Brand is a professor of English and American literature at Hofstra University. He received his Ph.D. from Yale, where he often talked baseball with A. Bartlett Giamatti, a Yale English professor who would go on to become the Commissioner of Baseball. He is the author of numerous articles about English and American literature, philosophy, and film. He lives in Connecticut.

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Customer Reviews

A Real Gem
This marvelous collections of essays conveys what it truly feels like to be a Mets fan. Dana Brand beautifully captures the mix of triumph (so rare) and loss (all too frequent) that all Mets fans experience. He leaves out precious few aspects of the world of the Mets (there's even an essay about an eccentric Shea Stadium regular known as "Cowbell Man"), and he sugarcoats nothing (his enduring and well-deserved contempt for Mets GM M. Donald Grant permeates several essays, for example). But, for the most part, this book bursts with love, however irrational and so often unrequited. Professor Brand is just old enough to have grown up with the Mets from their first season in 1962, so fans of all generations will find themselves nodding in recognition how Seaver fanned the last 10 Padres, how they felt when they heard that he'd been traded, Game 6 of the 1986 National League Championship Series, and, of course, Cleon Jones's genuflection as he cradled Davey Johnson's game and series ending fly ball to left in October of 1969. And so many, many more moments that define the New York Mets.

You don't have to be a Mets fan to appreciate "Mets Fan." Anybody who loves baseball will enjoy this gem of a book.

A book for fans and non-fans alike.
"Mets Fan" is the ideal book for people who can relate to the unconditional love you feel for a particular sports team. It goes beyond the diehard, irrational loyalty that allows one to persevere through the good times and bad; never giving up no matter how dismal things get.

The essays in "Mets Fan" illustrate how that unconditional love manages to permeate every aspect of life and shape us from the time we are children, and for the rest of our lives. The specific events Dana Brand writes about have such powerful emotional significance, that you sometimes forget he is writing about baseball. Regardless of what is omitted, what is included is relatable to fans (and non-fans)on so many levels. This is life with a side order of baseball, and we should be grateful for the opportunity to get a brief glimpse of how meaningful baseball can be, not just in the ballpark, but outside it as well.

A Must For Any Met Fan!
This is one of these rare books that just gets better with every reading Vividly described as only Dana can, reading this book in it of itself makes you feel like your actually sitting in the ballpark surrounded with all the intangibles that come together with a trip to Shea Stadium. And now with the Stadium all but gone this book is the closest you can get to bringing back your favorite Shea Stadium memories.