For better or worse, I’m a Mets fan and have been that way since I was a kid. Being a fan of any team created in the 1960s with an “ets” as the major part of its name is coextensive with being able to endure and be inured to vast amounts of disappointment and even pain. The Nets? Moved to Jersey and then they became terrible. The Jets? They moved to Jersey and for the most part became terrible. The Mets? Well, at least they had the good grace to stay in Queens but apart for sporadic flashes of brilliance, are often prone to disappoint.
The Mets are actually tied with the Dodgers as the fifth most popular baseball team in America – up one notch from the number six slot last year – this according to a nationwide Harris Poll of 2,163 adults conducted online between June 13th and 20th by Harris Interactive. The Mets have risen steadily from the number 11 slot back in 2008. Hated rivals the Philadelphia Phillies are only ranked at number seven and the particularly loathsome Yankees are at the top of the heap at number one and have held that slot every year consecutively since 2003, yet another reason to despise them. Boston came in at number two and Atlanta third in American popularity.
One of the greatest assets the Mets have going for them is that they’re not the Yankees. By virtue of this alone, they are guaranteed a loyal cadre of fans irrespective of their prospects in any given year. I’ve worn my Mets hat at Baltimore’s Camden Yards (a great ballpark) and been high-fived by all and sundry in the stands and on concession lines. For Orioles fans, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In Boston people give me the thumbs-up.
I’ve been to the new Yankee stadium with some good friends and felt like Christians might have when visiting Rome’s Coliseum back when the lions were playing there. (No, I didn’t wear my Mets hat).
This has been a year of less and zero expectations for Mets fans. Attendance is down by more than 140,000 for the first half of the season. The Mets ownership is besieged by lawsuits from the Madoff trustee looking for a gazillion dollars and the Wilpons also lost a ton of cash in the Madoff fiasco on top of this, which is definitely crimping their style and their cash flow. Hedge fund wunderkind David Einhorn is poised to put $200 million into the team but this hasn’t happened yet. The Mets have been saddled with some mighty expensive payroll obligations many of which are for dud players procured during the reign of former General Manager Omar Minaya who was a big believer in overpaying hyper retail price for fading stars, never-have-beens and never-will-bees.
In a year where so many of the team’s top stars have been on the disabled list (injuries are a constant plague for the Mets) surprisingly, as I write this during the All Star break, the Mets are actually over .500 (barely) but have been playing exciting, fun and scrappy ball manned by a team primarily composed of recent graduates from the Buffalo Bisons (the Mets AAA minor league club) and other minor league teams including their new manager Terry Collins who spent umpteen years in the minor league wilderness before landing the big job at CitiField. Collins has essentially pulled off the impossible by turning around the miasma of utter hopelessness, poor morale and dejection that pervaded the clubhouse for the past few seasons and delivering if not a pennant-winning season then at least a respectable one against heavily overmatched opponents.
Right after the All Star game the Mets traded away uber-expensive closer Francisco Rodriguez (“K-Rod”). K-Rod never lived up to his hype and generally delivered nail-biting and heart attack inducing performances in the ninth inning. Every team wants a Mariano Rivera so every team feels they need an expensive “Superman” closer to end the game. Realistically, there are maybe a handful of guys pitching today who fit that bill and the rest are wannabees and pretenders. Better for the Mets to rotate different guys from the bullpen into the ninth inning slot (or let a good starter finish a complete game, heaven forbid) and save the money K-Rod was getting.
Likewise as we approach the July 31st trade deadline the scuttlebutt is that Jose Reyes (probably the most exciting shortstop in baseball today) and Carlos Beltran may also be sent elsewhere. Reyes brings much momentum and drama to the team but he’s as fragile as a china doll – injured nearly every single year for some stretch or another and he’s on the DL right now. Can Reyes stay healthy for the next five to seven years? My guess is not as he’s always under the weather for some period and he’s only 28. Beltran? He’s never lived up to his potential, he’s pushing his mid-30s and he also costs a fortune.
My sense as a fan who goes to and watches a lot of games is let’s clear out all the deadwood along with the high-priced hand-carved mahogany – especially anyone and everyone associated with the ancien régime of Omar Minaya. That means high maintenance and temperamental pitchers like Mike Pelfrey. It means Reyes and Beltran. It also means David Wright who, while a heck of a nice guy and a good player, is no great player, no clutch player and no team leader. It means Jason Bay who was one of the biggest overpriced underperforming acquisitions of all time. Sweep them all out. I know I speak for many fans when I say, “let’s watch the young up and comers.” Tampa Bay won a World Series with these kind of guys. So have the Marlins. Let’s watch the hard charging Bisons out of Buffalo fight for stardom in the majors. It’s a lot of fun, it lowers the Mets owners’ costs, it lowers our ticket prices, it lowers our expectations, which in turn will lower our pain, heartache and disappointment. Met fans would rather root for young bucks on their way up than overpriced, underperforming lugs and we don’t need to try and mimic the Yankees with one of the biggest payrolls in baseball because that’s a contest the Mets will never win.