The New York Times has a wonderful tribute to Doris Bauer. Who she? For the rest who do not follow New York City-sports call-in radio, Doris from Rego Park, who died in 2003 (Could it be that long?), was the staunchest of New York Mets fans. She may have had a special hotline to the radio station WFAN (66 on AM radio within the Tristate Area) for all I know, since it was a wonder how regularly she was able to get thro the typically busy phone lines.

Her timing was always impeccable. Doris’s m.o. was the wee-hours call to ubiquitous WFAN original The Schmoozer following either a spectacular loss or win. As the Times article and reader reactions attest, Doris, with her distinctive cough, was a fount of baseball wisdom.

As noted. she mostly would phone in the heat of midsummer. But she might chime in during the deep-night of winter, when the snow was “as high as an elephant’s eye,” and the players she loved were hibernating between season past and the one to come.

If any über-fan is deserving of her or his own melody, it is Doris from Rego Park.