Hey there, New York. And whoever else is out there, you might as well come on in too. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. It’s a long season.

Not many people know that the Rock n’ Roll Animal was and is a fan of the game from way back. Brooklyn born, baby. Jackie, Hodges, Pee Wee, Campy, the Duke”¦ all my boys. Delmore Schwartz threw me out of class one time for saying Don Newcombe could take Willie Mays one-on-one. Truth is, he was still upset about those whores O’Malley and Stoneham going to California. Well shit, who wasn’t?

I came back to the city from Syracuse just after NL baseball did. I saw the Mets play a couple times at the Polo Grounds”¦ It was nice to have a reason to go to the Polo Grounds before they tore it down; Delmore would go on and on about the Polo Grounds, especially after he’d had a few, which was a lot of the time. I dug the Polo Grounds. Never been wild about Shea, but shit, who is?

I dragged Andy and a bunch of them to Shea for a game in’66. I don’t think they’d seen daylight in something like 72 hours”¦ even with the sunglasses, Andy was blinking like a stunned owl. Andy hated it. “It’s boring“¦” he’d sigh, “It’s so boring“¦” Now, I had a feeling he’d think that, but I didn’t expect it’d be a problem, because as far as I could tell, he liked things that were boring. I mean, you’re gonna make a movie that’s one long shot of the Empire State Building for six hours, and you’re gonna tell me the Mets are boring? Really, he was a total bitch about it.

The only thing he liked was the parking lots. We got to the stadium and he saw the parking lots and it kicked off one of those flights of euphoria he would have”¦ “This is fantastic”¦ Isn’t this fantastic?” And so everyone””Joe and Candy and Edie and everyone””starts going on and on about how fantastic the parking lots are. Which only raised everybody’s hopes. It all came crashing down when everyone stood for the national anthem. Andy didn’t want to stand””standing in public always made him uncomfortable””and then this big guy in front of us turns around and growls, “It’s the goddamn national anthem. You stand up for the national anthem.” So Andy stands up, holding my arm the whole time, his hand is shaking. Total panic. He whispers to me, “Is it always like this?“

It’s funny, Andy ultimately came around to baseball, kind of, once he got to know some of the players. Turned out, he was a Yankee fan, which I could’ve predicted, and maybe should’ve. Of course, the only players he knew were Yankees. If you were a Met in the late 70s, you couldn’t get into Studio 54 with a note from Steve Rubell’s mom. But Mickey Rivers and Cliff Johnson were there damn near every night, at least after the home games.

But I’ll take the Mets. It’s the Island’s team. Brooklyn and Queens, baby, two sides of the coin. The original cut of “Oh! Sweet Nuthin'” actually had a verse that started, you know, “Say a word for Cleon Jones.” Yeah, some record company is gonna dig up that cut one day and stick it with a bunch of other outtakes and B-sides and it’s gonna sit there on the counter at Starbucks next to the soundtrack for Akeelah and the fucking Bee. Can’t wait for that day.

But the Mets are all over the place in my records, if you know where to look. Felix Millan did some of the horn overdubs on “Temporary Thing,” and the entirety of The Blue Mask was actually inspired by and dedicated to John Stearns. Crazy thing was, he got injured just a few months after the record came out”¦ career over, done. Kind of spooky, really. I still can’t play “Waves of Fear” without getting hit by a fucking cinder block of guilt, you know?

So I’m not writing anything for the ’07 Mets. Didn’t write anything last year and that turned out okay, huh? At least until Heilman though he could blow that one by Molina. Can’t get too down on Heilman, though. Shit happens, right? If anyone should take the heat, it’s Wagner for Game 2. That shit’s unforgivable.

But babe, I like this team. Jose Reyes”¦ Jesus Christ, watching him on the basepaths is like listening to Dion’s early solo stuff, like he’s taking two steps for every one you can even follow. If you think it’s a base hit, it turns out to be a double”¦ you think it’s a double and suddenly he’s on third, jumping up and smiling”¦ you didn’t know where he was going, but he sure the fuck did.

Carlos Beltran… the guy is like a goddamn Greek god out there. It’s like he runs onto the field and the sun comes up. I’ll bet you that guitar over there in the corner that if you break in to the basement of the British Museum, you find a statue of Apollo that looks exactly like Carlos Beltran that they had to stow away because some fucking twelve year-old prince got a hard-on looking at it.

David Wright. Does that kid even realize that he owns this town? He could walk into Trump Tower, kick in Trump’s door, rip the wig off the bastard’s head and say, “This building. This is mine.” And Trump would have to give it up. Because David Wright owns New York in a way that Trump can only dream of, assuming Donald Trump is even still capable of the basic human act of dreaming.

Carlos Delagdo. I didn’t know it at the time, but when I wrote “I Wanna Be Black,” I was thinking of Carlos Delgado. If I could’ve just written “I Wanna Be Carlos Delgado,” I’d have gotten a lot less shit from NAACP.

Lo Duca. Brooklyn born, baby. You could stop right there, and I’m gonna.

You go up and down that lineup, it’s solid rock. Not a weak track there. Moises Alou, Valentin, Shawn Green”¦ I’m looking for a big year out of Shawn. The press whores at the Post, yeah, all you’ll hear them say is how he’s lost a step, he’s too old”¦ and he’s fucking 34. Shit, most Jews are just getting started at 34. When I was his age, I put out both Coney Island Baby and Rock and Roll Heart. So Murdoch can sell it, but I’m not buying.

Yeah, I worry about the pitching. Glavine’s getting up there, but Shea’s a forgiving place for guys like that. El Duque will find a way to win a dozen games, fifteen if Castro cashes it in by June. John Maine is the real thing, and if Pelfrey can eat up some innings, this team is gonna win him ten games. Oliver Perez has looked good this spring, but I’m not going further than that. If everyone can stay healthy “˜til July-August when Pedro comes back, we do okay.

Wagner worries me. You just can’t live life at 100 mph every day and expect to survive; listen to who’s telling you. One night you’re packing them in at Max’s with a half-dozen boys and girls waiting to take turns on your dick the moment you get offstage, the next day you wake up and Mick Ronson is tying you off in some hotel bathroom in Cologne and it’s 1979.

Now Billy Wagner is the kind of cracker I wouldn’t piss on if he was passed out in the only urinal in New York, but the kid pitches in Queens, so I got this to say: Slow down. Unclench the fist. Breathe. Have you ever considered Tai Chi? Because I know a guy. And I guarantee, if Billy Wagner picks up Tai Chi, we win the pennant.

So this year, I think we take ’em. I think we get past the Braves and the Phils, and probably the Dodgers to make it to the Series. Beyond that, who knows? You try to live in the moment, or at least not too far outside the regular season. “˜Cause after all, you need a busload of faith to get by, but Moises Alou doesn’t hurt, either.

Lou Reed is the creator of Metal Machine Music, a double album of unlistenable feedback loops released in 1975 to fulfill a contract obligation to RCA Records. It has been called the second-worst rock n’ roll record of all time. He is also the creator of a killer egg cream.