Reese Kaplan -- A Heavy Heart Can Also Motivate Positive Actions

The timing of the Mets amazing grand slam into the National League Championship Series was obviously a moment of historic celebration to enjoy via YouTube video any time I find myself in need of pure and raw joy when a baseball rejuvenating moment is needed.

Of course, as a born pessimist I was ecstatic that the Mets made the postseason and considered that alone as a victory for the season that could have gone straight into the dumper based upon the way it started. 

Taking the first round of the playoffs in David Stearns’ former home in Milwaukee had disaster written all over it.  They were an experienced postseason team that weathered the loss of a manager, some key players and the season ending injury to all-time great for them Christian Yelich.  Somehow the Mets were able to prevail and give the postseason and even broader feeling of written-in-the-screenplay moment too good to believe.

Then when it meant the Mets would have to face Eastern Division champions in the Philadelphia Phillies, surely it was going to spell the end to a magical rookie New York Mets season for Carlos Mendoza, David Stearns and newly minted full time player Mark Vientos.  Still, the Mets were proceeding without Jeff McNeil and no one expected anything from Kodai Senga, yet at the eleventh hour the 2023 ace made his way back to start for the Mets.

Rehashing how the series unfolded is probably going to pale in comparison to the reality of it, but as the announcers and media reported, there were a few folks playing the games with a heavy heart.  Brandon Nimmo had just lost his grandmother and Sean Manaea made his domineering start just hours after learning his aunt also was now gone forever. 

While it’s disingenuous to try to draw an equivalency between the loss of human beings and non human’s passing away, the truth is that I was also operating in a melancholic torpor as my street dog adopted as a young puppy here in Malaysia two years ago succumbed to breathing problems after having wasted away to skin and bones.  It’s not like she was deprived of veterinary care nor starved at all.  We gave her fresh cooked real meat at every meal to help her try to regain the 20+ pounds she had lost but it became fairly clear after a month of illness that she wasn’t likely going to recover.

Sure enough, while out on Saturday a week ago a phone call came from the vet’s office with what was hoped to be news about her returning home this week after improving.  Instead, the doctor reported she had a seizure and in her highly weakened condition was unable to handle it.  The intensity of the tears were intense.  All of the sudden the little girl who was only just beginning her life was gone way too soon.  

Coincidentally, on the same day of the Francisco Lindor and Edwin Diaz heavy lifting for the Mets we traveled in a blinding rainstorm to meet a charity worker who helped feed and care for over 300 stray dogs who lived at a garbage dump where often the owners would arrive and simply deposit no longer wanted dogs as if they themselves were trash. 

As the car approached past the entrance gate, the rain slackened off to a mere drizzle and the road was completely filled with all varieties, sizes and health conditions of stray dogs who now called the dump site home.  It was like one of those pictures from exotic travel when a large group of sheep, cattle, goats or other animals blocked all traffic and all you could do was sit in your vehicle and wait. 

Shortly after arriving we saw that incoming garbage trucks and construction debris vehicles just progressed down the road and the dogs were conditioned enough to get out of the way.  Still, it was a bizarre experience and once the intended vehicles left we were again swarmed by the pack of wild dogs. 

It turns out that they came to associate incoming cars that stopped as being their daily source of food as that is one of the main duties of the animal humanity charity does, bringing bags and bags of kibble to put out in various location around where we were forced to stop driving.  When I saw a man arrive hefting the dog food, I got out of the car and the dogs approached me, not with growling or teeth bared, but in expectation that I too was there to help them survive with food. 

Eventually the woman I was supposed to meet there arrived in her vehicle and she took us on a tour of the area, pointing out a great many of the dogs by name and health condition.  She said that despite getting local veterinarians to offer up complementary injections, medicines and surgery, they still buried two carcasses per day.  Many new dogs continued to arrive via owner discharge and others arrived the natural way with mothers having puppies there. 

They say sometimes that when you go to a traditional shelter it is the dog who picks you rather than the other way around.  Standing in among surely the first 150 or so of the available wild dogs, two small puppies ran across a path and the one upon seeing strangers ambled down the small hill underneath the tall weeds after disappearing beneath them.   The black and beige four pound girl emerged onto the road and came over to us licking our hands and walking between our legs.  I guess she decided we were the ones she would adopt as her new dog parents.  

She was allegedly 4 months old, but considering she still has all her baby teeth and somewhat over sized paws for her small frame we're guessing younger.  We took her to the vet today to confirm her health, but he was away at a conference so she'll muddle through the weekend here at her new home until a Monday return there.  Thus far she's been quiet and well behaved, even tolerating a bath.  

Given the timing of this adoption I volunteered she should be called Shea or Mookie or some other Mets related moniker but I was overruled with the suggestion of the name Asta which any cinephile knows was the name given to the dog who was featured in all of the William Powell and Myrna Loy Thin Man movies.  So while she may not have the Mets in her given name, she has it in her blood as she became a new part of our family the very same day the Mets advanced to the NLCS.