When I left my home in Las Vegas, Nev., to come to Georgetown, I knew I was leaving behind a special part of my life. I have grown up as an avid fan of the New York Mets. Having inherited this team from my New York-born parents, I can say with pride this year that I stay true to the Orange and Blue. Each and every day throughout my middle school and high school summers, I sat with my parents and cheered on my favorite baseball team despite its mediocrity and consistent losing seasons. As the Mets had not made the playoffs in nine years, I figured that coming to Georgetown this August would only leave my parents to watch yet another unsurprising, late-season collapse. No sentimental feeling needed in this regard.
But on Sept. 26, the Mets did exactly what nobody expected them to do — they clinched their first National League East title since 2006, placing my parents thousands of miles away from me in one of the most glorious moments in New York Mets history. Though I have never felt homesickness from being away from home for long periods of time, this moment seemed like it was missing something fundamental about the joy that I gained from watching my favorite team. I realized immediately that the passion I have comes from the people with whom I shared the Mets, not the Mets themselves.
But when the playoffs arrived in early October, I walked proudly into the Healey Family Student Center donning my Jacob deGrom T-shirt and Mr. Met baseball cap ready for the first Mets playoffs game since I was in the fourth grade. As the introductions to the game began, more and more Mets fans wearing orange and blue came to enjoy the game in the TV room as well. Each couch quickly filled with people just like me: Hoyas passionate about a team who had already accomplished the seemingly impossible.
As the game wore on, everyone slowly revealed their personalities and attitudes toward the team. Like many New Yorkers, they were opinionated, sarcastic and oftentimes brutally honest about their feelings toward the players, but our one commonality lay in our undying support of the “Amazin” Mets. I felt that for the first time in over a month, I was watching the game with a family. A new family, in a new home.
Victory after victory brought the Mets closer to the “Fall Classic,” the World Series. Last Wednesday, my new family of fans gathered around a crowded TV in our new family room to watch the Mets play the Chicago Cubs in a potentially World Series-clinching game. In the first inning, the Mets took a commanding 4-0 as a result of two home runs, each one raising us to our feet in jubilation. High-fives, cheers and smiles filled the room with glee. No matter where we all came from, our undeniable joy linked us in celebration. Did some of us talk too much? Definitely. Did I scream too loudly? Probably. But every family has people like this, and we were no exception. When the final strike of the series sent our team to the World Series, we jumped to the tune of immense joy and shared sibling-like hugs in Georgetown’s Healey Family Student Center.
As a freshman, I had my doubts about where I would find my place in a school so far from home, but in just a month I have realized that the Georgetown community holds the special trait of uniting people in a variety of ways. Of course, the Hilltop lacks the quality of the home-cooked meal, the desert scenery of the Vegas Valley and the genuine comfort of being with family, but my experience with my new friends has brought me as close to my life at home as I could hope. No matter if the Mets can claim the World Series championship this week, I have been assured that the Georgetown community can provide exactly what I wanted in the college that I chose: a home away from home.
Sean Berman is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service.
