Here’s a challenge to you dedicated Amazin’ faithfuls:
Tom Seaver, Jeurys Familia, José Reyes, Bobby Bonilla,
David Cone, Tim Foli, Rusty Staub, Lee Mazzilli, Kevin
McReynolds, Bill Almon, Hubie Brooks, Jeromy Burnitz,
Roger Cedeño, Matt Den Dekker — What do they all have
In common? You can go home again, after all. (Daniel Murphy
kind of belongs to this fraternity, Mets who left the team but
Later returned, but he gets an asterisk. He left as a great
Clutch hitter who became a Met-killer for the Nationals,
And has returned… as a Mets’ broadcaster.) Hey, sometimes
It works, but not every time. Ask Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.
But as the poet Whittier once wrote, “For of all sad words
Of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!”
And so there are players who take the chance
To relive a somehow sadly lost dream.
They hear the echoes and once again dance,
Hoping to find magic with their old team.
Does it ever happen the way a player dreams it will?
Ask Albert Pujols, the once and then future Cardinal,
A man who returned to St. Louis 11 years later and
Hit homer number 700 and several others (after he was
Labelled “done” by every other team). It’s enough to
Keep them fantasizing about hearing once again the
Fanatic cheering of the home-town fans!