Watching a Mets game with David Howard

Well Mets fans, recently I caught a game with Mets EVP for business operations Dave Howard and he’s a cool guy.

We hung for 9 innings in his seats (um, they’re pretty good) and he bought dinner (shake burger for me, chicken tacos for Dave, water for both).

Nothing was off limits, but this being a “two guys watch a game” scenario, I’m not going to share every detail of a private conversation, just like I wouldn’t blog about anything you or I talked about at a game.

Here’s what we didn’t talk about: Banner Day, black uniforms, plexiglass or anything else on the punch list.

Why? Because I just wanted to watch a game with Dave Howard.

I can schedule a followup and get into the other topics some other day. This was about getting to know each other. I like him and hopefully he likes the real me, not the cartoony version of me that pokes the bear on here. (You guys can wear a black jersey when we hang out, I won’t berate you for three hours. Ask Randy.) I wasn’t there to play Gotcha.

Oh sure there were things I wanted to ask. At one point I asked him about his life outside the Mets and how it must be hard when people ask what’s going to happen with certain players (as I gestured vaguely toward shortstop) but I knew he couldn’t tell me, so why ask him. Nor did I expect him to tell me about plans for the 50th or the uniforms or any of that since the team isn’t ready to announce. My feelings are known in Queens.

So what did we talk about?

I was curious if he is at every game until the end or if he has “a guy” that minds the store. He stays. He stays because it’s a team culture, so everyone stays while 25 members of the team play the game. The Wilpons are family people and are very understanding when things come up, but for the most part he’s there.

His favorite player* – I added the condition “before working here” so I don’t accidentally start a non-controversy – is Tom Seaver. He had seen Tom earlier in the day and grown-up Dave finds it cool to know Tom. Interestingly Tom once told me he gets the same feeling about Sandy Koufax.

We talked a bit about other sports teams in the area (I forget how we got on that, but like I said, it was a typical ballpark conversation). Some talk of college sports which he knows well and I don’t.

Chatting about Tejada only being 20 years old led us to Gooden (60 wins at 20) which led to swapping “where were you?” stories about Game 6.

He told a great David Wright story about some back and forth fun-razzing they had.

Dave knows his baseball and knew a lot about the guys on the other team. We agreed on strategy when we managed from the stands. He’s really excited about one minor league player on his way.

He hung the entire time, checked email like once (if I weren’t with Dave I would have checked mine 50 times and tweeted 100). He took a call from his son who had good news to share, and that was during the 7th inning stretch.

It was a close game and I silently wondered about a long extra inning game. Would we wind up watching 22 innings together?

It ended in 9 and we parted ways. He gave me his card and invited me to contact him directly if I have any questions. All in all a great night at the ballpark.
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There ya have it. I’ll follow up on some of the outstanding items we discuss here when I think the time is right.

I’ve heard a few things about 2012 and I think we’re all going to like them.

Big thanks to Dave for being cool about hanging out with some random blogger and to the usual suspects in Media Relations fir putting it together.

I hope we do it again some day, and I’m not just trying to get tickets. Hell, come to my house and hang on the deck. I always enjoy hanging out with a cool guy Mets fan.