Opening Day. Baseball owns that term. The regular season starts tonight. It means spring is here, and it recalls wistful childhood memories that seared our love for the game into our minds forever.

I've got a memory someone suggested I share – if you don't mind terribly. It's slightly painful, actually. I'd picked the worst time to become a Yankees fan: the late '60s. They were an aging dynasty facing a changing game in changing times. Everyone else in my neighborhood was a Mets fan. As the Yankees sank to the cellar, my friends had Tom Seaver. I had … Horace Clarke.

Yet, as fate would have it, and with Shea Stadium closer to the neighborhood, I attended virtually every memorable game of the 1969 season that came to be called the Miracle Mets. I was there when Seaver pitched a perfect game for 8 1/3 innings. I was there Sept. 9 for a crucial game against the Chicago Cubs when a stray black cat strolled onto the field in the first inning and stopped right in front of the Cubs dugout. The cat stared, the crowd roared, and then – poof – it disappeared under the stands.

It was a moment for which there were no words. It capped a colossal collapse for the Cubs, who, in August, had a 14-game lead over the Mets. The Mets won that night, captured first place the next day and never looked back. The Cubs never recovered.

But I still wasn't a Mets fan.

My friend Jimmy and I were there Sept. 24, Fan Appreciation Night – they gave out key chains – when the Mets clinched first place. I suggested we leave early to "beat the traffic." When I got home, he called: "Turn on the news, you idiot!"

There on TV, hundreds of Mets fans had stormed the field after the game to pull up the mound, the bases, anything from that night when perennial losers clinched a playoff berth.

"That coulda been us," Jimmy's yelling. "We coulda got first base!"

Naturally, this was blamed on me not being a Mets fan. My friends considered it a cosmic penance that the Yankees suffered another dismal season while the Mets, who'd never been above ninth place in their history, clinched the pennant and headed to the World Series.

They were given little chance of beating the mighty Baltimore Orioles, but, as a show of solidarity, I boldly predicted the Mets would win in five games, four straight. Like I knew? To back that up, I went down to Shea and bought a ticket for Game 5. There were just two people ahead of me at the ticket window. I bought a nosebleed seat. Five bucks. And it was a day game. In October. Times sure have changed.

I left school early that day. As the game progressed, you knew destiny was calling. The Mets would indeed win in five, four straight. Toward game's end, I'd snuck down to the field level so that at the last out, I could jump onto the field, grab home plate, first base, anything to stick in my friends' faces.

Of course, no way a 13-year-old kid has a shot at first base or anything else against a bunch of rabid grown men fighting for a bag. So I drifted into the outfield, wandering around like hundreds of others and pulled up a huge strip of grass. What I'm gonna do with it, who knows.

Heading home, I entered the subway car and it was already crowded with rush-hour commuters. Everyone was stoked about the Mets. I was standing there with this giant roll of grass under my arm when a commuter said, "Hey, is that from Shea Stadium?"

"Yeah, right field."

"Ya know, my kid's a huge Mets fan. Think I could have a piece to take home to him?"

"Sure. No prob."

Before ya know it, everybody was asking for little chunks of sod. By the time I got off the train, I had a piece of grass about the size of an iPad. Now what?

I went home, planted it in the backyard, but it died.

And dat's my story.

I still love this game, but I'm still not a Mets fan.

Bruce Maiman is playing baseball again for the first time in 30 years, but now it's in a senior league. Reach him at brucemaiman@gmail.com.

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