Mets fan rituals in & around Shea

If the New York Mets make it into the World Series against Detroit, many of the lesser-known baseball rituals in and around Shea stadium will continue for a few more glorious games.
Inside the stadium, Pat, an usher as his father was before him, will continue to don his uniform, and affix a button from the Beatles concert of August 15, 1965, the first time he worked at Shea.
&#8220Ray Kilroy,” (not his real name - he hates attention) a doctoral candidate in English Literature and college instructor who since high school has supported himself by selling beer at every major sports venue in New York City, will once again disdain the corporate types near the field for the real fans in the cheap seats.
He is a legend among beer vendors. If you knew his real name and asked a beer vendor at Shea, or the Garden or Yankee Stadium if &#8220Kilroy” was working the upper level that day, the response would be the same, &#8220Where else would he be?”
Outside the stadium, desperate fans will be using their cellphones, describing their appearance and known locations as if they were filing their own missing persons' reports - searching the crowd for the late arrival who has the game tickets.
There will be bear hugs and high-fives as they meet - like old friends after a generation's absence. There will be the cash-palmed handshake of &#8220pals” who have never met before, as tickets are scalped.
Once more, ticket speculators (that's the official title of this bastion of free enterprise) may wander the crowd repeating, &#8220Tickets” with the perfect intonation that could be either an offer or a request (&#8220honest officer, I'm buying not selling.”)
A Shea tradition - watching the game free from the transit landing out past right field - will be gone once the new ballpark is built.
But for &#8220rail birds” like Danny, Anthony, Liam or John, who arrive hours before a big game to stand and peer through the slot between the right field grandstand and the scoreboard, there will be a few more freebies.
Tony, who has lived just two blocks from the Stadium grounds for 23 years, has his own sports ritual. When the first post-season game was scheduled for 4 p.m., Tony planted himself like a sentry in a folding chair at the curb in front of his house. His daughter, Olga, had to drive to school to pick up the grandkids, Nanette and Nanita, and without Tony's stewardship, could easily have ended up parking in Elmhurst.
Tony guards this prized free parking spot like a lion covers its prey. As you approach, he will continue to point you away like an umpire calling a line drive foul. As he chomps on his black, Anise-flavored Italian cigar, he invokes the three irrefutable statements to a ticket-holding Met fans &#8220We live here. It's for my daughter. We want to watch the game, too.”
To cosmically enforce the point, at that moment she pulls up with the girls, in their Catholic school uniforms. What is it like to park in your own neighborhood on game day?
Olga's response is the classic, &#8220Fuggeddaboudit.” She expounds, &#8220When the Mets and the U.S. Open are here at the same time, it's hell.”
Hell will freeze over soon, win or lose.
Winter will come, and baseball will be forgotten for a few hours even by the faithful. However, come spring, like the flowers and the weeds, it will come roaring back.