Hey Met Fans, What Are You Thankful For?

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• Connor O'Brien November 22, 2012 at 1:15 pm

  I am thankful that I have the luxury of worrying about a baseball team on a daily basis. Some people have much more important things to worry about.
• Joey D. November 22, 2012 at 2:27 pm

  I’m so thankful that the Mets have been a part of the fabric of my life since the beginning. As a young lad of just ten years of age, the Mets being born came at a time of the expansion of my own growing up and so the two of us just clicked.

  This love affair is solid – it’s gone through the early funny days to the unbelievable 1969 season that seems like it was only yesterday, to the down days, the re-birth in the eighties and everything that followed.

  It is still solid although at this time, there is indeed a bit of a separation – a much needed one. The average, middle class Met fan – the lifeline of the fan base – was slapped in the face by the Wilpons by their desire to milk them for every penny they could with unreasonable ticket prices in a smaller ballpark geared towards too much an abundance of crass commercialism. Omar, for all his faults, still had the persona of one of us. Sandy, he resembles the type of boss with indifference for the laborers working under him.

  This is not the Mets I grew up and fell in love with. The Mets I fell in love with generated a desire for the fans to share in the warmth and fun that going to a Met game was all about. There was an integrity in the way they conducted themselves with the fans.

  Hopefully, those days will return either in new ownership or an about-face from the current one by being more in touch with the fans that made the greatness of the franchise what it once was. It might sound (as John Lennon would have put it) that I am a dreamer and living in an imaginary world, however, it was that escape from reality into that imaginary world that the Mets are for. By being cold and corporate it’s not there for me.
  • MetsWatchman November 22, 2012 at 8:19 pm

    You nailed it Joey D. And very eloquently put I might add. My sentiments exactly.
  • TP November 22, 2012 at 10:14 pm

    Joey D.,
    I second the kudos. Great post. Despite this direction, as said above, I am thankful for the luxury of being able to escape from real life by following this baseball team.
  • hotstreak November 22, 2012 at 10:25 pm

    Hi Joey,

    During the Payson, M. Donal Grant era was bad. Which is worse. Pick your poison. It was really the Davey Johnson era and all the rest were either expansion growing pains, Donald Grant era, Bobby Bonilla, Vince Coleman era, Yes there was the Mike Piazza era and then the Omar era which was close but no cigar and now the mess and the Madoff era. Not too many happy seasons. But we had Bob Murphy, Ralph Kiner and Linsey Nelson and Casey Stengal during the growing expansion pains. Imagine 50 years and no real home grown everyday player superstar except a big maybe with Wright and Reyes. Betran was a gift few here apppreciated including me until his last year here. We are passionate but less patient because ot two collapses and also because we are tired of losing. No rebuilding and losing is a bad combination.
    • hotstreak November 22, 2012 at 10:44 pm

      Oops: I forgot the Miracle Mets. Gil Hodges, Cleon, Jones, Ed Charkes, Don Clendenon and Jerry Goate, and you know the pitchers.
      • Joey D. November 23, 2012 at 12:03 am

        Hi Guys,

        Glad to know you share my sentiments. The owners/front office have made it too much reflective of what we are trying to escape from. They certainly seem different from the Shea days when we could all go to a game and just think of winning. Guess their true colors came out with Citi Field when the average fan was shunned off.

        Yes, we knew the M. Donald did not want to spend money on players and drove it into the ground thinking he too could make a profit because the fans would still come – a lesson he had to learn the hard way by making us suffering – something the Wilpons were out of touch with as well – perhaps not realizing that the big core of Met fans come from working people who just can’t be so frivolous with their money or simply underestimating our intelligence.

        That’s why I find it worse now than even that Grant era – perhaps because while he was ruining the team and less and less of us showed up being so angry with the direction the team was heading toward, there was something less personal about it. Guess it was because we saw him squeezing the team but not trying to squeeze us at the same time – even with the Seaver fiasco and wanting him to sell the team too. The Wilpons and Sandy Alderson took their indifference to anything other than the all mighty buck to a new level when suddenly we found ourselves having to think twice about the money going to a game was going to cost us.
        • hotstreak November 23, 2012 at 5:57 am

          Hi Joey:

          During the Donal Grant era, I did not even watch the televiseed games. I literally could not watch how bad they the Mets were. I waited for the Sports on the 11 PM news to get the score. Yes the Casey Stengel Mets were loverable. I was thrilled to have a NL team after the Dogers left. Today with the internet and blogs it is very hard to go cold turkey which plenty of us will be eating all week.The casual fan or the jump on the band wagon types can do it now but I can’t. Can you? I speak not of attendance only but commitment of time and interest.
          • Joey D. November 23, 2012 at 12:41 pm

            Hi Hotstreak,

            I can’t ignore the orange and blue and not root for them – it’s in my blood as it is with you. But somehow it won’t be the same with this ownership and front office they have now assembled – that’s the way I think many of us feel and the only way to show it would be by the empty seats – which I feel bad about for the players deserve more from us but find there is no choice due to the dysfunctional parents they have meddling in that special relationship.

            The lack of attendance plus the angry comments by those like us on all the Met blogs out there might eventually get them to recognize that the only way they will make any money is to sell the team.
• Metstheory22 November 22, 2012 at 4:52 pm

  I’m thankful I’m not a Florida Marlin fan. As bad as we have been, they keep landing below us and after this trade, might again. Our owner tried for years to win when he had or thought he had money. Loria tried for less than one year and gave up quick.
• Willis November 22, 2012 at 6:27 pm

  I’m thankful for the young Met pitchers: Harvey, Edgin, Wheeler, Familia, Mejia, Montero, Tapia, Fulmer … The Mets have always won with pitching and defense. Hopefully, we are on the cusp if another great era of solid Mets baseball.
• Gregg November 22, 2012 at 10:03 pm

  That there is at least a chance (probably just rumor) that we will have new ownership in the next few years.