31
2011
Thanks For A Wonderful Year!
An article by 
I can’t believe we are at the end of yet another year at Mets Merized Online. 2011 was a wonderful year for our site as we continued to grow far beyond my wildest expectations. I only wish that our beloved Mets was experiencing the same success as we are currently enjoying, but I assure you better days lie ahead for our Amazins’.
In 2010, we ended a great year with an average of just over 9,000 unique readers per day and over 185,000 daily page views. In 2011, we set new highs with over 11,750 unique readers per day and an average of 290,000 daily page views. That’s over a 30% increase in readership! December will end up being the best month we’ve ever had averaging nearly 12,600 unique daily readers per day.
I have no idea when we will finally plateau, but this has been one heck of a joyride – thanks so much!
Our Twitter readership in now up to nearly 3,500 users after gaining over 1,000 new followers in 2011. You can follow us on Twitter at @metsmerized. After ignoring Facebook for the last 4-5 years, we decided to become more proactive. Since adding a a new Facebook administrator a couple of months ago, we’ve grown to over 1,000 friends in a very short amount of time. You can Like us on Facebook by clicking here.
Of course all of this traffic led to incredibly high bandwidth usage and steep charges that necessitated some drastic changes to our site and a call for help to keep the site going. But thanks to the aid of many of our loyal and longtime readers, we were able to get through a very rough third quarter.
Specifically I want to thank and recognize the following readers: Desmond Loughman (Des), Bayonne Met Fan, Met Maniac, Eileen Curiel, Peter Shapiro, Joseph Fiumara, Donal Murphy, Alex Urena (Alex68), Kathleen Eltman (Kay), Mike Ollila, Mike O’Leary (Metsie), Raymond Arendt, Gary Borofsky, Paul Nassau, Michael Branda and XtreemIcon for their generous donations. There are countless more who gave all they could in smaller amounts of as little as $5.00 and I was as humbled and grateful for them as well.
It was an incredible feeling to experience the tremendous response and show of support we got after I posted my plea for help back in September. Those donations kept the site going for the rest of the year and well into the new one that begins in less than 12 hours. Some sites like to boast about how loyal their readership is, but here on MMO our readers proved that in the most amazing, profound and heartfelt way. Thank you all for that.
We have a brand new design that we rolled out in mid-September, thanks to my longtime partner and best friend, Kelly Horn. While they pay Kelly incredibly well as a production manager and head of the graphic design team at her day job, I am fortunate enough to have her amazing talents here on MMO for absolutely no cost at all. She works her magic day in and day out on our site and is responsible for keeping the site running as smooth as it does. She’s an awesome person to know and I just want to thank her for everything she does as our designer as well as her other duties as site administrator and one of it’s senior editors. The new design is faster, sleeker, cleaner and optimized.
* Those of you who access our site with your mobile and smart phones, welcome to our brand new mobile version of the site. 
That has been our logo ever since we began this journey seven years ago. And while a lot has changed since then, we have never strayed from our goals or felt the need to re-invent ourselves. We have remained exactly as what we started out to be all those years ago, and that is to become a Mets fan site where all opinions can be shared regardless of your point of view. There are more than enough Mets niche sites that are centered around one mindset, aspect or philosophy – we wanted to be more than that.
Mets fans come in all shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, etc. and we wanted to create a site that reflected that more than anything else. Our goal has always been to create a vibrant and thriving community for honest and passionate baseball and Mets debate and I believe we have achieved that. Does it get a little “too passionate” sometimes? Yes, no doubt about that, but I wouldn’t really want it any other way.
A blog is only as strong as it’s readership and we fully understand that our readers are our lifeblood. Me and the rest of the bloggers here on MMO feed off of your interaction and together we create one of the most diversified Mets communities on the web. What we have is very special to me and I’m reminded of that every time I get an email from someone who loves the site.
While our readers are our lifeblood, the heart and pulse of MMO has always been our bloggers. When we first launched MMO we began with what I called the Magnificent Seven. We started out with a Mets reporter, MLB reporter, Mets minor league guy, and four very passionate and very opinionated Mets bloggers. Since then we’ve had over 100 different Mets bloggers who have shared their opinions on MMO. Currently we have 31 active bloggers and that doesn’t include the dozen or so readers who frequently submit Fan Shots. That’s a lot of content!
From the very start, we always made one thing clear on MMO and that is that each post would be a substantial one and worthy of debate. We don’t just post links or quotes as stand-alones. We don’t post photos and then hit the publish button, but we do create our own Mets art and graphics and share them freely with all of our readers and even the players who we send many of our graphics to.
We don’t have any posting quotas on MMO and that’s why on some days you’ll see five posts and on other days you’ll see a dozen. We write only when we have something to say. We believe that content is a huge part of our success, but that most of it must be original, insightful and opinionated. We have a couple of writers who cover all the Mets news for us so don’t worry about missing anything important, I promise you that you won’t.
We have assembled such a great team of personalities and all of them bring so much to the table. Most of our writers are middle-aged and go back to those seventies Mets teams, but we also have a few youngsters and senior citizens to round out the group and give our readers some rare and unique perspective.
We hardly ever agree on anything, but that only adds to our character and our brand. I can’t thank our writers enough for all of their contributions. They are the most amazing group of Mets fans I know and words alone are insufficient to say how proud I am to have them as part of our team. I will toast to all of them tonight at midnight and wish them all the best in 2012.
And finally, that brings us to the Mets. It was another rough year for the Orange and Blue, but lets not forget the many positive developments that came along with the not so positive ones. We’ve seen some players emerge and we can all agree that there is some great talent in the minors yet to come. It’s sometimes difficult to ignore the pink elephant in the corner when we talk about the Mets, but we have always been an inherently optimistic and hopeful bunch. No matter how bad things get, we still watch every game and wonder if this will be the first no-hitter. We still tune in and root hard for our players who give it their all day in and day out. We are as amazin as the team we love, and I can promise you that things will get better… They always do.
I want to thank Sandy Alderson, Paul DePodesta, Dave Howard, John Ricco, Jay Horwitz, Danielle Parillo, Shannon Forde and Ethan Wilson of the New York Mets for making MMO feel important and like we belong.
I also want to thank all the Mets players from Kingsport and Savannah to Binghamton and Buffalo and all the way up to the big league team in Flushing, who took the time to talk to us this past year and gave a richness of insights to our readers. We’ve interviewed over two dozen players in 2011 ranging from an original Met, Eddie Kranepool, all they way down to the newest Mets like Brandon Nimmo and Michael Fulmer. Thanks for everything guys!
So, here’s to a great 2012 for all of us and especially for our beloved New York Mets.
Here’s to a year full of great Mets memories and thrilling victories.
Happy New Year everybody and Let’s Go Mets!
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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Thanks to you, Joe D., and the wonderful team you’ve assembled. We have a lot of readers with diverse views but what we have in common is that we want MMO to succeed.
Thanks to one and all.
Thank you Joe, and Kelly for everything you do, you guys are the best! Thank you to the players who make it happen, your dedication and hard work. And thanks to the readers, for all your continued ideas and support. Happy New Year everybody!
Thank you Joe. Happy New Year to everyone at MMO. Lets Go Mets!
Happy New year Joe and remember none of this happens without you!
So while you thank us we thank you back!
You all do a fantastic job here and this is my first stop each and every morning. Lets hope for some better days in 2012 for the Mets and hopefully that begins with Wilpons being forced to sell.
Ditto, Seligman. MMO is my first stop practically every morning, along with a visit to Joe Janish over at Mets Today.
Can’t tell you how much I appreciate your site as I sit and read, process and respond to many of the contributors in the company of my own home…in the company of friends…
Happy New Year Everyone.
LET’S GO METS!!!
Happy New Year to MMO and my friends Alex, BMF, Omar, Vinny, Kay, etc.
Happy New Year to all on MMO – God Bless, be safe.
Remember at the end of the day, we are all NY Mets fans……..
Ya Gotta Believe……………
thanx joe. happy new years to MMO and all mets fans.
Thank you, Joe. looking forward to what you’ve got lined up for 2012.
Nice evening to party. Everyone have fun wherever you are and be safe and have a Happy New Year.
Thanks Joe fom Sydney Australia – where is has been 2012 for over twelve hours already. You have thrown me a lifeline with this wonderful site.
Happy New Year, Brother.
See you next month.
____________________________________
To the uninitiated, tlagee and Tommy2cat are brothers.
True Story: In 1968, tlagee went to 35 Met home games. On bat day, he got a Tommy Agee bat for himself and a Jerry Grote bat for me. Shortly before the LIRR arrived to take him back to Great Neck, the Grote bat fell onto the tracks and he risked life and limb to retrieve the bat and bring it home to his then 7-year old brother.
When he got home, he proudly presented the bat to me as he related his death-defying loyalty to the Mets, to me and to God and country. I get the bat, inspect it as an 7-year old would and asked. “Who’s Jerry Grote?” Don’t worry, Grote instantly became my favorite all-time NY Met.
The next year, we witnessed Marichal’s duel with Gary Gentry in the 1-0 thriller punctuated by Agee’s 14th inning walk-off solo shot to catapult the Mets to victory.
I gots me the best brother in the world…HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Cool story!
Happy New Year MM!
Thanks 2Cat – Nice story to remember and tell. Lots of love to you and the family.
tlagee — “Thanks Joe fom Sydney Australia”
Your brother told us a great story. But why did his brother choose to wind up in Sydney? I’m married to a woman from Melbourne, Australia. She tells me that her city is the hands-down best city in all of Down Under. I’ve been over to visit Melbourne a few times and indeed it is nice — but there is only Aussie Rules Football there and the Australian Open tennis. What do you do for kicks in Sydney besides read MMO and check out the great opera house?
My belated New Years greetings to you!!!
Des -Happy New year to you and your family. I married an Ozzie from Sydney who I met in NYC – we both work in television. We moved to Sydney back in ’95 and while we divorced years ago we share the most wonderful daughter in the world.
The is much competition between Melbourne and Sydney. Melbournites are parochial. They love their city and have little time for us Sydneysiders. Melbourne is a bit more European in style while Sydney is more American. I find Melbourne a bit dour and boring – but hey – that’s what I’m supposed to think. My partner is from Victoria so we have to keep this comment on the QT.
Thank god for cable. I get ESPN and FOX Sports so I get plenty of live games – both Mets and the New York Football Giants. So I really get my sports fix and don’t need to indulge in Ozzie Rules, rugby or cricket – though I had fun following Australia in the Rugby World Cup that was played this year in Auckland.
If you come through Sydney with your great Ozzie wife let me know and I’ll buy you a beer and we can talk about the Mets (or cry in our beer).
My only regret is that I didn’t come across this site sooner than I did.
Thanks so much to MM for such a wonderful read.
Wishing you Joe D., Kelly, and the rest of the MMO writing staff and site, continued success in ’12. Happy New Years’ to you all !!!
Like you website, go into it every day. I have one question. Why did you drop the link in blogs for Amazinavenue.com . I have to sign in instead of going to them after you.
I think it’s a sin that the mets are just wasting time, there’s a whole lot of free agents out there still that could really help this team, oh yeah the mets say thanks for 2011, why thank us when really there was no year, oh yes thankyou mets for 4th place. Give it up for those wilpons, sure again they gave us a season to remember, just like a great xmas. So thanks mets for another awesome year and 2012 because we know where this up coming season gonna brings us.
Thank you Joe. I don’t always agree with your posts but you keep the Hot Stove burning in the cold winter months and make the off season enjoyable.
Have a blessed New Year!
Happy New Year everybody and congrats to MMO for an awesome year!
Thanks for all you do Joe D and the rest of the MMO crew.Happy New year!
Happy New Year to the staff of MMO and all the writers and readers. It’s great to have a site like this to catch up on everything Blue and Orange. Too bad we don’t have a great team as well. Hopefully I can live long enough to see the Mets rise one day to another championship. Life is short and we need to appreciate what we have. Best wishes to all.
–The Only Mask Man
Happy New Year to everyone behind this great Mets site and all the people who comment here too. I love to come here and read all your articles and comments every day. To me this is the best site for Mets fans. Thank you!
The only think that I do every morning exactly on time is to go to the MMO site at 7AM here in Arizona. Watching the games is not enough for me out here in the Southwest, having grown up just 10 minutes from Shea so I look forward to reading all of the good postings as well as the bad ones. As a lifelong fan, I scratch my head at times reading the different points of view and some of the weird speculation but….
The coming season may not be pretty one for the team and being the 50th season will make it a bit tougher but it will be part of the overall rebuilding process. Sandy Alderson was brought in to clean up the mess and he is doing just that. Jose’s departure had to be based on the financial situation that the Wilpon’s are in. They will never sell unless they are forced to because there is so much money to be made in the future. Unfortunately, we will be in the proverbial cellar while we await the growth of our pitching prospects and we will probably see other contract dumps in the next year or so to acquire more young guns for the future…..
Let’s see more growth and development of our younger players like Ike Davis and Ruben Tejada along with the rejuvenation of David Wright and Jason Bay. Maybe we get lucky and Johann Santana can come back and give us a few good starts enticing other teams willing to part with their young prospects for some pitching help down the stretch run of 2012.
The biggest problem for this team other than dollars has been health so let’s all hope that our guys stay healthy for the upcoming season…..
Happy New Year to all !
Thanks for everything MMO and continued success. Happy New Year to all Mets fans and always remember ya gotta believe!
Keep up the great work and thanks for all the updates.