| My name is Dana Brand and I'm a Professor of English and American Literature at Hofstra University. In the summer of 2007, I published a book called Mets Fan which became a sensation among Mets fans. My book was about my experiences as a fan of the team from the time I was 7 in 1962 through the end of the 2006 season. I enjoyed writing Mets Fan so much that I decided to write another book about the Mets. It was supposed to be a feel good book but the Mets didn't cooperate. No Mets fan feels good after the past three seasons. But my goal is to bring you back in contact with the eternal Mets, a bizarre and perhaps unworthy baseball franchise that continues to receive the passionate loyalty of millions. I want to give you some idea of why we became Mets fans in the first place, and why so many of us remain long after saner people would have left. I also want to bring you back to the sounds, sights, and cramped seats of Shea, a place that we will always miss and mourn, however much we enjoy the better food and legroom of the new place. If you want to remember, or if you want to tell your kids what it was like to see a game at Shea, you'll find all the details and all the emotions right here. Even if you're not a Mets fan, this book will give you some sense of why people care about baseball and why they cherish the places where it is played. You can also order the book on Barnes and Noble or directly from Taylor Trade Publishing and the book is now in bookstores! |
| ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE LAST DAYS OF SHEA! “The Last Days of Shea is a truly terrific book. Filled with passion and sincerity, it offers a deeper understanding of what it means to be a fan.” Gary Cohen -- SNY Mets broadcaster "To me and millions of others, Shea was beautiful. I loved it when it had blue and orange steel plates on the outside and I loved it at the end. My memories of the place will last forever. In this wonderful homage, Dana Brand ties together our experiences of Shea, in a celebration of a place that, in memory, will always be far more substantial than most historians will care to admit." Howie Rose -- WFAN Mets broadcaster “Dana Brand's, The Last Days of Shea is a must read for any baseball fan. The communal experience of living and dying with your team is something fans experience everywhere. But there is something unique about Mets fans. The Last Days of Shea chronicles the ending of a ballpark but, even more importantly, it reveals the spirit and resoluteness of Mets fans as they bring their "ya gotta believe", attitude to their new home.” Ron Darling -- SNY Mets broadcaster |
| JUST RELEASED! “When I read Dana Brand’s books, I feel as if I’m learning about the heart and soul of the Mets fan. The Last Days of Shea is a great tribute to Shea stadium and to the spirit of the fans who made it such a wonderful place to play baseball.” -- Jerry Koosman, pitcher, New York Mets, 1968-78 “Dana Brand is one of the true Believeniks, and he's earned his Shake Shack burger the hard way: an x-ray of his heart would show a Shea-shaped scar." -- Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude “Why care so much about a baseball team? Dana Brand has figured out a way to articulate that pleasurable or frustrating heartache and make it understandable and even forgivable. If Mets Fan was filled with delights, The Last Days of Shea goes deeper: its real subject is loss and grief, and its prescription the consolations of philosophy. Brand is a first-rate personal essayist, who has chosen baseball as his focus the way Baldwin chose race or Hoagland nature. As Hazlitt and Liebling wrote about the art of boxing, so Brand writes about the psychology of the baseball fan.-- Phillip Lopate author of Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan and Writing New York |
| READ MY BLOG |
| TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Gary Cohen Author's Introduction "For Shea" (from Mets Fan) The Second to Last Home Opener 56,227 The Curveball Wait Till Next Year Making It Through the Offseason The Team Waxing: How the Mets are More Popular than the Yankees Pitchers and Catchers The First Exhibition Game The 2007 Season Begins June The Summer of Our Discontent Ralph Kiner Night The Real Meaning of Ralph Kiner Night Saving the Apple: We're Mets Fans, We're Goofy, Get Over It The Mystery and Myth of Motivation A Sunday in September No Choke My Birthday Party This Team Does Not Suck Washington at Valley Forge Remember the Maine It Isn't Fair Explanations What Did I Wan't? What Reggie Jackson Said to Me About the Mets' Collapse Say It Ain't So: The Mitchell Report The Signing of Johan Santana The Sign Man Going into the 2008 Season The VW Bus and the Maserati The Last Home Opener The Last Days of Carlos Delgado? My Mother and the Mets What Willie Said Day Game The Firing of Willie Randolph Tuscany Tile and the Wisdom of the East In the Booth The Guys in the Booth Subway Series: Going to a Yankees Game at Shea The Mets' Bar Mitzvah Winning Ten in a Row The Last Play at Shea The Worlds' Fair The New Stadium Shea Memories Crowds Going to the Game With My Teenage Daughter A Letter to the Future The Sweet Summer of 2008 Going to the Game on August 20 Going to the Game on September 10 Everything At Stake Good Vs. Evil Going to the Game on September 22 Going to the Game on September 24 Oy Danele September 25 Going to the Game on September 27 The Last Game Again The Whale War of the Worlds Visiting Shea on January 21,2009 |
| The Citi Field Bookshelf Mets fans are literate people and they don't have enough good books to read. To do what I can to encourage good books about the Mets, I'm going to be listing links to what I think are good recent books about the Mets. The links are to websites, but I will post reviews of all of these books this summer. I will rename this feature as soon as I learn that they will be selling Mets books at Citi Field. The books are listed alphabetically by author. |
Coburn, Joseph and
Foronjy, Katherine.
Mathematically Alive (a
film). My review.
Darling, Ron. The Complete
Game.
Hernandez, Keith, with
Silverman, Matt. Shea
Goodbye.
Kanarek, Jacob. The Mets
in the Seventies: From First
to Worst
Prince, Greg. Faith and
Fear in Flushing: An
Intense Personal History of
the New York Mets My
review.
Ryczek, William. The
Amazing Mets, 1962-69
Silverman, Matt. Mets
Essential
Silverman, Matt and
Springer, Jon. Mets by the
Numbers
Foronjy, Katherine.
Mathematically Alive (a
film). My review.
Darling, Ron. The Complete
Game.
Hernandez, Keith, with
Silverman, Matt. Shea
Goodbye.
Kanarek, Jacob. The Mets
in the Seventies: From First
to Worst
Prince, Greg. Faith and
Fear in Flushing: An
Intense Personal History of
the New York Mets My
review.
Ryczek, William. The
Amazing Mets, 1962-69
Silverman, Matt. Mets
Essential
Silverman, Matt and
Springer, Jon. Mets by the
Numbers
| LINKS |
"Here is where all those seasons happened. Here is where we ran onto the field in 1969. Here is where the ball
went through Buckner’s legs. Shea is where I’ve been. I will miss it as I miss a parent or a grandparent. I
know it has to go. But I wish it could have been there for all of my life. I will endure its passing, but I would
have loved to have been an old man in these seats, under these lights." From "For Shea." in Mets Fan, 2007
went through Buckner’s legs. Shea is where I’ve been. I will miss it as I miss a parent or a grandparent. I
know it has to go. But I wish it could have been there for all of my life. I will endure its passing, but I would
have loved to have been an old man in these seats, under these lights." From "For Shea." in Mets Fan, 2007
| 1969 To Honor the 40th Anniversary of the Greatest Baseball Miracle of All Time, please enjoy this essay from Mets Fan |
| Please friend me on Facebook (Dana Brand) and follow me on Twitter (danabrand). I don't really get Twitter yet, but I'm trying. |
| Stay tuned for the official announcement of THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE NEW YORK METS: A CONFERENCE AT HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY Chaired by Professors Dana Brand and Richard Puerzer April 26, 27, and 28, 2012 |
| ORDER THE BOOK ON AMAZON! |
| THE FIRST REVIEWS! "Brand not only does a tremendous job describing his feelings of Shea Stadium, he also captures the true essence of what it is to be a Mets fan" Bill Price, New York Daily News, 9/2/09 "The Last Days of Shea is ... a touching memoir... Dana Brand is ... the Proust of Mets bloggers." Michael Kimmelman, The New York Review of Books, 11/19/09 "If someone is going to have the last word on Shea, I’m glad it is Dana, who went to the Polo Grounds and to Shea before I was born. He expresses his feelings and the feelings of Mets fans as well as anybody who’s ever taken up a pen and tried. ... Ol’ Professor Shea gets as close to the Mets soul as anyone ever has." Matt Silverman, author of Mets Essential, 100 Things Mets Fans Should Do Before They Die, and co- editor of the recently released The Miracle Has Landed: The Amazing Story of How the 1969 Mets Shocked the World |
| READ SOME SAMPLES! The Curveball (You know which one.) The New Stadium (Shea when it was new.) Going to the Game on September 10 The Last Game |
| ARCHIVED RECENT APPEARANCES October 16 I was featured, along with Al Weis and his family, in an article by Mark Herrmann in Newsday, commemorating what happened on October 16, 1969: You Could Look It Up, 40 Years Ago Weis Was a Hero October 16, I was an in-studio guest on "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" an episode of Colin McEnroe's Show on Connecticut Public Radio. Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Other guests included Will Leitch of NY Magazine. This is a particularly successful discussion of the psychology of baseball fandom. Listen to it or download it here. November 1 10pm, I will be on Sports Talk Live with Frankie the Sports Guy at 1240 WGBB AM November 19 The Last Days of Shea was the focus of an article by Michael Kimmelman in the New York Review of Books entitled "At the Bad New Ballparks' |
| Check out my BULLETIN BOARD for more information about my upcoming appearances. I am happy to do interviews or read or speak at your library or group. You can contact me at danaabrand@yahoo.com |
| UPCOMING APPEARANCES March 4 7:30 pm, I will be giving a reading and talk at the Friedberg JCC in Oceanside, LI (Doors open at 7 for this event, at which baseball food will be available) March 5 8 pm, I will be giving a reading and talk in the Reference Commons of the Library at C.W. Post University in Brookville, LI |
| Buy a unique and personally inscribed copy of either The Last Days of Shea or Mets Fan for just $15 per copy (a big discount on Mets Fan) plus postage. Send me an e-mail at danaabrand@yahoo.com Indicate 1) the address to which you’d like me to send the book(s); 2) The name of the person(s) to whom you’d like the book(s) inscribed. Please also tell me anything you might want me to know about their Mets fandom. I will send a copy right out with a personal inscription to the person you indicate. In my return e-mail, I will tell you how much is owed, and the address to which you can send a check. |