Row V was at the very top of the upper deck at the old Shea Stadium. Section 38 was way down the left-field line. That's where I sat with my dad on Oct. 15, 1969, Game 4 of the Mets' first World Series. In truth, we had a better view of Flushing Bay than of Ron Swoboda making what I still consider the best catch in postseason history.
I was 8 years old, having just completed my first season of Little League in Great Neck, New York. I pitched for the Green Team and idolized Tom Seaver. That July I remember watching Neil Armstrong's one small step on a black-and-white television, but I more vividly recall watching Seaver's "Imperfect Game" against the Cubs earlier that same month. It was 25 up and 25 down, before the immortal Jimmy Qualls hit an opposite-field liner to left-center, the ball and my heart both plummeting to earth.
Now on a chilly autumn day, I watched through binoculars as Seaver would drop and drive, right pant leg getting dirty at the knee. The Mets beat the Baltimore Orioles, 2-1, in 10 innings, en route to winning the Series in five games. I floated home.
One day that winter, my mother -- earning first-ballot election in the Maternal Hall of Fame -- plucked me out of my third-grade classroom early to meet Tom Terrific. Seaver was appearing at the Abraham & Strauss store in nearby Manhasset in a promotion for Braggi Cologne. I was the first person in a line of hundreds. My mom and I had made a collage, which Seaver signed, "To Martin, Best Wishes and you have made a #1 poster, Tom Seaver." Reluctant to say goodbye, I motioned him down and whispered these exact words in his ear: "When I grow up, I want to be just like you."
In 1973, at 12, when the Mets made it back to the World Series, so did I -- for Games 4 and 5, both Mets victories. Sitting with my best buddy, Jon Chatinover, in the ninth inning, right on the cusp of adolescence, we talked about our team needing just one more victory for a second championship. It didn't happen, as the Mets flew west and dropped Games 6 and 7 to the Oakland A's.
A quarter-century old in 1986, I was teaching high school English in Vermont when I got the call from Jon. He had tickets to Game 6 against the Red Sox. Was I interested in going if the series went that far? In the wee hours, as Mookie Wilson hit a little ground ball wide of first, we were hugging total strangers, then joining the delirium on the Long Island Railroad. Years later, I would name my first dog Mookie. (I now live in Massachusetts, where that wasn't a particularly popular move -- though it might be now with the emergence of Red Sox star Mookie Betts.)
In the 1990s, as we hit our 30s, there would be no World Series for the Mets. But in 1992, Jon and I did converge on Cooperstown, New York, for Seaver's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I was writing then for the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts, and I persuaded the editors to let me cover this event on my own dime. Unfortunately I could not get the story to send properly on the old Radio Shack TRS-80 computer, and I had to dictate, spelling out every word I thought could be misspelled. When I got home I saw the column printed with both of my references to the Cy Young Award spelled as "Sy." Sigh.
Just a few weeks from 40, it was back to Shea with Jon for World Series No. 4 in 2000. The Mets would win just one game in that series against some opponent I cannot quite recall, but it would be that game, No. 3. Memo to the Mets' ticket office: That made me 5-0 in the World Series. Just saying.
I have lived up in New England now for more than half of my life. I am 54 years old. It is the Mets' 54th season.
In truth, I have not followed the team nearly as closely in recent years. Haven't even made it to Citi Field since it opened in 2009. But this summer, I couldn't help getting caught up in the drama. And in this marvelous postseason, I have become 8 years old all over again, never missing a pitch. I have marveled at the thunder of Daniel Murphy, reveled at the thunderbolts of Noah Syndergaard.
So on Halloween night, I'll be donning a Tom Seaver costume and traveling down to Citi Field with my son, Josh, to meet up with Jon Chatinover and his son, Keith, for Game 4.
I figure the Mets will just have to win three other games.
Marty Dobrow is a professor of communications at Springfield College in Massachusetts, and the author of "Knocking on Heaven's Door: Six Minor Leaguers in Search of the Baseball Dream."