Surreal

Needless to say, the past 24 hours have been very surreal. Yes, that sounds like a cliché, but I’m not really sure if there is any other way to describe it.

It was surreal when Matt Yallof called me from the set of the SNY studio ready to go on the air as his role of host for the Mets’ pre-game show before Game 1 of the NLCS. Matt had heard some weird news and wanted to know if I had heard the same thing.

“There’s a report out there that it was Lidle’s plane that went into the building,” Matt said. “Do you know anything?”

As soon he spoke that sentence, my instant messengers, text messages and two telephones erupted simultaneously. Ignoring that cacophony, I immediately hung up with Matt, IM’d Mike Radano, and figured, “forget that, I’ll call him.”

Mike and Cory were pretty tight, to the point that they not only played many rounds of golf together, but also frequently talked to one another about baseball and other things that friends discuss. In fact, it got to the point where if something odd occurred in a game and we couldn’t figure out what was happening from the press box, we’d press Mike into text messaging Cory down in the dugout or clubhouse. That’s how we got the lowdown on why Cory was ejected from a game last June against Tampa Bay.

I got Mike on the way home from the bus stop with his boys and came right out with it.

“What have you heard,” I asked.

“About what?”

He didn’t know.

“I’m not joking around. I’m being very serious. I just got a phone call from Matt Yallof and he said the plane in New York was flown by Cory… ”

“I’m calling,” he said and hung up.

The next time I heard from him he was on CNN with Anderson Cooper.

Then I saw Cory’s picture on CNN with the “1972-2006” beneath it.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

The phone and the computer remained busy until the early hours of the next morning. I turned off the TV just to escape those ominous dates. I had not thought about it until now, but 1972 is a year behind me and the same year my sister was born.

Of course, curiosity got the better of me. I flipped CNN back on and saw Dennis Deitch with Paula Zahn. Then Todd Zolecki with Larry King. And of course, Radano with Anderson Cooper.

Later, I told Radano that I could imagine Cory thinking it was kind of funny that people he knew were on CNN as noted experts. Heck, even I got a few invitations to join the media fray.

Through it all, I couldn’t stop thinking about Cory. I vividly recall the last time I saw him – in the hallway next to the conference room after his trade to the Yankees had been announced. We shook hands, wished each other good luck and then I noticed Jimmy Rollins sitting on the floor with his back against the wall.

Why was he sitting there like that?

Still, I can still see his knowing smirk, and I can see him waiting there at that island in the center of the clubhouse waiting to chat after a game. I remembered his first day in Philadelphia when he drove all night from Cincinnati after he had been traded late in the 2004 season. I remember seeing his little boy dash around the clubhouse with the other kids. I remember him telling me about his outing at Pine Valley and how he sculled a shot that nailed the flagstick on a totally different green than the one he was aiming for. I remember when he indicated that he had read my blog. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or flattered. I remember laughing out loud when he explained the real reason why he was tossed out of that game against the Devil Rays last June.

There are too many things to remember and just not enough time.

Anyway, though I’m sure Cory would get a big kick out of seeing people he knows talk about him on national television, I don’t think the sadness would go over too well. So from now on we’re getting back to our regularly scheduled programming. After all, time is much too short.

Speaking of which, Cory had a wicked sense of humor and I bet he would have found it a bit amusing that Alec Baldwin was a little inconvenienced yesterday... too bad, Alec.