Sometime during the fifth inning of a game on a soft summer evening at Citi Field, our gaze strayed from our beers and sausages to the radiant green field and then to the scoreboard.
My son Nick and I noted that Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers was throwing a perfect game against our Mets.
Well, of course he was. The Great Kershaw versus the hitless wonders known as the Mets qualifies as a mercy killing. Inning after inning rolled by, and zeros piled up on the scoreboard with a metronomic certainty.
A side benefit of being a Mets fan this year is that you become a specialist in the many ways a team can fail to hit.