Back in New York after the four-game Met set with the Cubs in Chicago.

I joined high school pals Photo, Bonx and the Guz for the series finale Thursday afternoon.

All three of those guys entered Wrigley’s main gate with full-length personalized brooms despite being warned by security outside the ballpark that the items were not allowed inside.

The brooms were brought in good fun to celebrate a Cubbie sweep, said Photo. And to taunt me a bit.

The bag and camera policies at Wrigley are quite permissive but the Cubs specifically include brooms on their list of “prohibited items.” A cursory check of other MLB team web sites shows many organizations ban brooms including the Yankees. The Mets have no such specific prohibition.

Anyway, my trio of buddies got the brooms into Wrigley in defiance of the policy by inserting the long end into a pant leg with the bristles portion hidden under their shirts. Only Guz managed to get his broom all the way up to our seats. The other guys displayed them almost immediately after passing through the turnstile and were nabbed.

Thanks to Bonx, the tickets for this one were great. It was one of those all you can eat, all you can drink suite arrangements with open air seating. It was great fun.

Guz (pictured above) waved the broom during the seventh inning stretch before the 6-5 Cub win was settled. An usher soon arrived to confiscate it. The eventual losing run for the Mets came on a passed ball. The Mets have now lost seven consecutive at Wrigley and 18 of their last 24 meetings with the Cubs at Clark and Addison.

The night before, Harvey went seven dominant and exited with a 1-nothing lead. He had exactly a hundred pitches under his belt. It was an easy call to pull him. Temps had plunged into the upper 30’s and we’re talking about the franchise arm – early in the season – coming off major elbow surgery. There should be no debate about him being done at that point. But with Jerry Blevins on the shelf, the Mets haven’t found an eighth inning guy. Terry keeps jamming Carlos Torres into the equation and it hasn’t worked out. It didn’t on this night. Torres gave up the tying run in the eighth and then was allowed to give up hits to Rizzo and Castro to start the ninth. Collins asked Torres to walk Montero and then brought in Familia with nobody out and the bases loaded. It was a horribly botched sequence by Terry. I know it’s easy with hindsight but I was managing in real-time from my seat and I didn’t like any of the moves at the time. Familia got Soler but then lost Coghlan on a walk-off walk. Given the magnitude of the circumstances, I would have had Familia start the inning – or not used him at all. Just watching what he did in the eighth, it was obvious Torres wasn’t gonna get through the heart of the Cub order in the ninth without damage. And if you’re gonna use Famlia, you don’t intentionally walk Montero to get to Soler and remove margin for error.

But oh well. After the sweep was complete the next day, we sat at the bar in the suite for a full hour after game’s completion. That was a treat. Sitting in the ballpark with the cold ones flowing well after it’s over was a fun way to ease out of the park.

Guz dropped me off at the Blue line and I biked it from Cumberland station to my brother’s house. We watched the Bulls get eliminated by the Cavs that night. I don’t understand how the Bulls can part ways with Thibodeau. Nobody during my four days in Chicago could properly explain how a rift reached a point that one of the top coaches in the league is being pushed out. If there’s tension between Tibbs and Gar Forman/John Paxson, I’d simply clear out whoever stands in the way of the coach staying even if it means giving Tibbs the GM title. Controlling owner Jerry Reinsdorf should intervene unless he knows something that makes it such that he too can’t co-exist with the coach. Thibodeau’s uncanny implementation of a system that gains high level of player commitment to relentless defensive effort is a unique attribute in the NBA. If the coach goes, I think the Bulls take a step back with a guy like Fred Hoiberg.

As for Jimmy Butler: I wouldn’t have said this a year ago – or six months ago – but the Bulls have to give him a max contract and be done with it. He’s the rare max contract guy who has done enough to deserve it and will do even more to earn it.

Back to work on Wednesday. My building has some kind of gas line problem which has rendered the stove unusable and the laundry room off limits. The Super said this morning it could be “weeks” before there’s a solution. At least there’s hot water but it seems like every time there’s some kind of problem here lately, it takes forever for a fix.

I was back in the LF bleachers Tuesday night for game two of the Mets/Cubs series at Wrigley.

My Dad and I entered about 515 PM for the 705 PM start. Balls were flying over the wall in BP. Many were landing in the gloves of adult ball-shaggers who navigate stairs and seats to receive their prize. Late in the Mets’ hitting session, a deep shot to left-center field struck the face of a fan who wasn’t paying attention. The fan appeared to be OK but he was taken behind the seats for a looksie by medical personnel. Cubs ushers scurried about in the aftermath looking for people who saw what happened. They acted as if they felt some responsibility for the guy’s failure to see the ball coming.

You gotta keep an eye out in the bleachers. The balls are coming at you with pretty good frequency.

Noah Syndergaard’s MLB debut was solid. He had a dazzling first frame. Upper 90’s on the gun with effective off-speed pitches. What really took wind out of his sail was a poor defensive play by Met third baseman Daniel Murphy in the bottom of the third inning. Fielding a grounder by Kris Bryant with two out, Murph dogged the throw which allowed Bryant to reach first base. Snydegaard was forced to make an additional 19 pitches to close out that inning. It was an unnecesary extension of the frame. The scorer ruled Bryant’s routine grounder a “hit” but it should have been an error on Murphy.

Met fans have long been frustrated by Murphy’s failure to make routine plays while manning the second base position. It’s an even tougher row to hoe now for Murph at third base where the throw is even more difficult for him to make quickly – and accurately.

I kinda think Murphy’s days are numbered. He’s a .300 hitter but he has no position to play. His struggles on defense offset his production at the plate.

Bryant hit a home run for the second straight night and Arrieta coasted through the Met lineup over eight strong. 6-1 Cubs was the final.

The rhetoric directed at Met LF Mike Cuddyer from numbskulls in the LF bleachers Tuesday night was beyond what I’m accustomed to hearing anywhere else in sports. This was pretty vile stuff that centered heavily on twisted sexual innuendo and the like. It bummed me out hearing it. Rather than embrace and appreciate a Cub roster with such promise, large groups of mostly young white men seemed more interested in jeering, mocking and threatening a Met player standing 15 yards away. There was nothing fun – or funny about it.

As I sat there with my Dad, I thought of Lee Elia’s diatribe and the question of Cub fan employment status. Who are these kids? How did Wrigley become such an incubator for beyond-the-pale fan conduct?

On the flipside, it warmed my sports fan soul to see Met manager Terry Collins locked in animated discussion with Monday night’s starter Jake DeGrom during BP. Collins and DeGrom appeared to be offering give-and-take on the subject of the young pitcher’s throwing motion. Television analyst Ron Darling said Tuesday that something about DeGrom’s delivery has changed since his successful rookie campaign. Collins and DeGrom (pictured above) took turns simulating different arm angles and release points. Collins was clearly in instruction/guidance mode and DeGrom was enthusiastically all-ears.

Later, Collins could be seen talking at length to a group of fans down the third base line.

The things you don’t see or hear on TV/radio game broadcasts are often some of the richest moments of the in-house experience.

16-ounce cans of Old Style poured into a plastic cup are $8 – not the $8.50 I cited in yesterday’s recap.

The encroachment of Sheffield Avenue by the yet-to-be-completed renovation of the RF bleachers is kind of hard to digest given what that thoroughfare has looked like since I was a kid. It’ll get better I guess when the construction perimeter is removed – but we’re talking about a neighborhood that appears to be slowly getting squeezed by the owner of a ballpark who knows he has leverage. I’m not up to speed on the machinations of the City of Chicago’s oversight of Wrigley’s renovations over the last couple years but it looks to me like gaudy is winning the fight over restraint. If Ricketts isn’t careful, he’s gonna ruin the place with one too many bright and shiny accessories, fixtures or expansions.

Harvey goes tonight. I’m not the kind of sports fan who needs my team to win but I’d love to see #33 shut down the Cubs Wednesday if only to quiet the stooges in LF.

My Dad and I took a Howard-bound Red to Morse after the game. We had parked his car there earlier. The drive from there to my brother’s house in Park Ridge is about 25 minutes.

That’s it for now. Let’s score some runs.