Mets 2 Phillies 5

When you're a visitor with a one off chance of seeing a top flight sporting occasion, you want something memorable. Like when we went to see Newcastle United and the Toon had three men sent off - two of them for fighting each other.

Going to see the Mets was one of the things I was most excited about before we went, but I desperately wanted it to be memorable, and it was, but for the wrong reasons.

On a freezing cold night at Shea Stadium we saw a Mets pitcher melt down in front of us. With two out in the third inning he inexplicably walked four players, effectively giving the opponents two runs. [NB - if a pitcher throws four pitches outside the strike zone the batter gets to walk to first base. The guy at first moves on to second and so on. So you can walk in a run if the bases are loaded and the better doesn't swing at the fourth wayward pitch.]

Then with the bases still loaded, the pitcher proceeded to hit the next batter with a pitch, automatically walking him to first, and with everyone moving up a base, scoring the Phillies a third.

It was one of those rare occasions that will probably get dragged up again and again, like the triple sending off, and we were there to see it. Unfortunately there was no way back for the Mets and by the end of the ninth we were so cold we just wanted the game to end.

Still it was great to go and see a game at Shea, especially as the stadium is going to be pulled down soon and the Mets will move to a brand new stadium next door.