Mets vs. Braves: A Private Viewing

In addition to driving you back and forth between New York and the Hamptons, the Hampton Jitney provides dedicated busses that whisk you off to various outings: concerts, ball games, historic sites and Broadway shows, then takes you back home.

My wife and I are regular commuters on the bus, going in Mondays and coming back Thursdays. Two weeks ago, however, our trip unexpectedly turned into a private outing. Just for us. No other way to explain it.

Our bus left Southampton for the city at 4 p.m., which coincidentally was the time of the start of a special New York Mets baseball game. In April, the Mets, a sorry lot with a poor record, had started the season badly, desperate to stay out of last place. But in late May, they suddenly went on an unbelievable streak of sensational baseball for five months.

In most baseball games, the likelihood of a player getting a hit is about one in four. The Mets played like that in early innings, but then, later in the game, one of them would get a hit and, after that, a cascade of hits would occur. They’d include home runs, walks, bases on errors, hit batsmen, doubles and singles. The result, when the smoke cleared, was the Mets creating five runs or more, turning losses into triumphant wins. This way of winning has never happened in baseball that I know. It was magical, and for other teams, demoralizing.

And so here we were, boarding a bus on the last day of the season where the eight best teams would play one another to see who could win the World Series. Seven had been selected. This game, in Atlanta, would decide the eighth. One game. Winner take all. The Atlanta Braves or the New York Mets.

We’re big Mets fans, so you might wonder why we didn’t just stay home and watch the game, then take a later bus. Well, the trip would be three hours. Games are roughly three hours. And since the Jitney has wi-fi, we’d watch it in our seats, on a laptop.

Atlanta took an early 3-run lead, while the Mets struggled to get a hit off Atlanta’s pitcher Spencer Schwellenbach. The attendant came through the bus offering cinnamon cookies, granola bars, and white wine as we passed through Manorville. An hour later, passing Glen Cove, seven innings were complete and the Mets still hadn’t scored.   They were six outs from oblivion. The 40,000 Atlanta fans, some wearing body paint, were going wild. My wife and I suffered in silence.

As the eighth inning started, the Atlanta coach strode to the mound, noted that Schwellenbach had pitched nearly 100 throws, patted him on the back and brought in reliever Joe Jimenez. Atlanta has excellent relievers. Jimenez got two strikes on Mets center fielder Tyrone Taylor, but he then smacked a double to center. And after that, the Mets’ Francisco Alvarez doubled to left, Starling Marte singled to left, Fransisco Lindor singled to center, Jose Iglesias singled to right, Mark Vientos sacrificed to deep center and then Brandon Nimmo hit a 405-foot home run to right. We were in Queens, still an hour from our destination. The Mets had just scored 6 runs. Mets 6, Atlanta 3.

You could hear a pin drop in Atlanta’s Truist Park stadium. And here on the bus, where people keep to themselves in peaceful reverie during the ride, we were besides ourselves. We silently jumped up and down. I let out a squeak. People turned and stared.

But then, as we approached the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, things went very wrong. Atlanta wasn’t done. Their first batter, Eli White, got hit by a pitch. Then Jarred Kelenic beat out an infield single and stole second. Next, Michael Harris II walked on four pitches and then Atlanta’s Ozzie Albies doubled in two runs and now suddenly it was Atlanta 7, the Mets 6. The inning ended. Once again the Mets were hanging by their fingernails.

And now we are coming up Third Avenue, just a minute away from our stop, the last stop, 86th Street and Third. On the screen, a new Dodge splashes proudly through a puddle and after that ends, the Mets will come to bat in the top of the ninth, just three outs from defeat, and we are going to miss it!

“86th Street! Last stop! Everybody off! Thank you for riding the Hampton Jitney.”

We step down onto the sidewalk. The driver wrestles our luggage out of the cargo bay.

“Have a nice day,” he says.

I am beside myself. “We have to find wi-fi,” I mutter. “Something.”

Just down the street is McDonald’s. There’s no baseball at McDonald’s.

“There’s a French restaurant right around the corner,” says the attendant, pointing. “It’s like you’re in Paris.”

We’d spent a week in Paris in July. Banging our suitcases along the sidewalk, we rumble over to Jacques Brasserie at 206 E. 85th Street, a classic 20th century bistro. Café seating out front, dark wood, and vintage framed French art posters inside, and a bar where, inexplicably, a TV is showing a baseball game. Nearby, people chatter away. Nobody is watching.

What else could we have asked for?

The maître d’ meets us as we enter. Yes, we want dinner, but first, those last two seats at the bar.

Certainement, monsieur.

We sit. Suitcases behind us, TV in front of us.

“Madame?”

Two glasses of white wine appear. Then Alvarez, the Mets catcher,  pops out. Only two outs left. And up comes Marte. He waggles his bat, takes a ball and then hits a single to center.

A waiter comes over. Would we care to put the luggage in the hat check? Yes? He wheels it away. On the screen, Atlanta pitcher Pierce Johnson glares at Lindor. Johnson pitches. And bang. Out it goes to right field, 413 feet and into the stands. Oh, my God!! Lindor has done it! 8-7! The Mets are back on top. We bump fists happily. Bounce up and down again.

Later, after they move us to a table near the television, we watch Mets pitcher Edwin Diaz mow down the Braves in the bottom of the ninth, to which we clink glasses of 2020 Cotes du Rhone for the victorious Mets. Dinner follows. Soupe a l’oignon, escargots, coq au vin, and Boeuf à la Bourguignonne.

And that was our unforgettable private outing. Thank you, thank you, thank you, everybody.

Read more of Dan Rattiner’s stories