New York Mets

On Tuesday night, I was at a New York Mets baseball game in a private skybox as a guest of one of my vendors. For those who have never been in a private skybox for a game, it is a very different experience: you enter the ballpark though a special door, and they take you to your floor in a special elevator. They serve food and have an open bar serving beer, wine, and cocktails. Vendors like to have customers in these skyboxes, because it gives them a good opportunity to schmooze with them for a few good hours, and unlike sitting in the regular seats, you can walk around and talk to people without disrupting anyone. It's fun, but you miss some of the game because you're too busy schmoozing (if you're the vendor) or being schmoozed (if you're the customer).

You can tell the New York Mets are in last place: the stadium had just a few people in it, and whole sections of the stadium were empty. One of the guys in our skybox obviously didn't like the Mets much - he changed the channel on one of the televisions to the World Cup Hockey finals, and spent the game sitting at the bar at the back of the skybox watching hockey instead of baseball!

It was a good game, though, and the Mets won 7 to 0. I had fun.

You compare this to the New York Yankees, where the stadium is always packed and you get stuck in traffic for over an hour trying to leave after the game is done.

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Speaking of the New York Mets, here is a little joke:

A New Yorker dies and goes to hell. After a few days, the devil comes by asks the New Yorker how he likes it in hell. "Oh, it's great! I love the weather down here!"

"This guy is supposed to be in pain because of the heat here, " says the devil to himself, and cranks the heat in hell up higher.

The next day, the devil comes by the New Yorker to see how he is doing, and finds him in a good mood, "I love the weather down here," says the New Yorker, "after the last winter we had in New York, this is a big relief!"

The devil gets angry at this, cranks the heat WAAAAYYYY up, and says to himself, "let's see how he likes the temperature down here now!" But, when he comes back the third day, he finds the New Yorker relaxing in a beach chair reading a book, and oblivious to the heat.

"Maybe this guy would suffer more in the cold!" says the devil and cranks the temperature WAAAYYYY down. So, the temperature in Hell drops down and a huge blizzard starts blowing.

The next day, the devil comes by and sees the New Yorker jumping up and down in a snowbank, "The Mets won the World Series! The Mets won the World Series!"

Author's Note: There are a couple of sayings here: "Hell will freeze over before the Mets win the World Series." and "The Mets have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning the World Series."