Let’s face it, every baseball fan loves opening day, not just because it’s a prelude to summer, but because every team is on a level playing field in the standings and anything can happen.  Well, anything can happen within reason. As Mets fans, we’ve seen bad baseball over the years.  Remember when the team was so bad that they needed to fabricate a slogan, “The Magic is Back?”  It was laughable, but at one point that team (I think it was in 1980?) reeled off like 10 or 12 wins in a row, and the players started to believe that slogan even though they were woefully over-matched on the field.

The 2010 team is very much like the 2009 team, but hopefully without all the injuries.  Still, there are a few holes—most of the starting rotation, parts of the bullpen, second base, catcher and first base are question marks.  But really, if someone offered you Jason Bay, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana and K-Rod to start a team, you’d do that in a heartbeat, right?  We have to hope everyone stays healthy and plays to their potential–big ifs, but there could be big payoffs too.

Stranger things have surely happened, and I’m just glad spring is here and we’re talking real baseball again.  Now let’s do our best to strike some fear in the Phillies and the rest of the division.

Yeah, I know, that’s not exactly being a die hard fan, but as I wrote in a recent blog entry, as you get older, more important things (especially our kids) start to vie for our time, and watching a crappy baseball team that was supposed to be a contender is one thing I can personally do without.

So as I’ve been watching more football (the Giants and Jets are stunningly mediocre right now), and watching a World Series between two teams I can’t stand, my mind has wandered back to the Mets and how important this off season to them and to us as fans.  Watching the Phillies and Yankees with their patient hitters, power bats, (mostly) smart base runners, and pitchers who know the importance of getting ahead in the count, I hope that Omar Minaya is taking notes on how to improve his club.  He’ll likely tell us again at some point that injuries marred the season, but he’d better know that’s only part of the equation and changes need to happen this winter.

I mean, by the time my 2 year old boy is old enough to understand, I want him to be rooting for a better team than the one we just witnessed in 2009.

I remember once when the Mets told me they were moving away from the home they had lived in since I was born.  It was hard seeing them leave.  I was thinking I’d never see them again.  But they comforted me when they told me that they were just moving beyond the bullpen fence and that we could still be together.  It was that kind of thoughtfulness that made them so special to my heart.

What is it that we remember when we think of the 2009 Mets?  I think everyone who knew them would agree with me on this. It was their wicked sense of humor. When Oliver Perez was signed for three years and $36 million, we laughed because we knew that signing was a joke.  When players such as Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran went down with injuries, we chuckled every time Omar said they’d be back by the All-Star Break…then August…then September…then only Carlos Beltran would be coming back.  When Luis Castillo dropped the pop-up, we laughed because we wanted to blend in with the Yankee fans at Yankee Stadium so that we wouldn’t have to be the butts of their jokes.  That is what I will miss the most about the 2009 Mets.  They could make me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry (and bang my head repeatedly on a brick on the Fanwalk outside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda).  That was their trademark.  They did their best to turn our tears into laughter – incredibly demented laughter that once caused the Hospital For Special Surgery to consider opening a mental patient ward.  (They did not open one.  Apparently, they couldn’t afford the real estate needed for the expansion of the hospital.  Too many Mets players had taken up residence there.)

Their death was not sudden.  They had been dying a slow death since right before the All-Star Break.  The Wilpons refused to pull the plug on the team even when there was no hope of a recovery.  Perhaps they should have put them (and us) out of their misery sooner, but had they done that, we would have missed that one final spark of life during the season-ending sweep of the Astros.

The 2009 Mets did many things on this Earth (like educating us on the thousand and one ways to lose ballgames) and I’m sure they will do much more in Heaven.  Some angels might be taken out in the process, but they will be able to laugh it off in Heaven the way we were able to do so on Earth.

I will forever be grateful to have known the 2009 Mets. I will forever be grateful that they welcomed me with open arms into their new home.  I will forever be grateful for spending six months of my life waiting for my food at Shake Shack. All the memories I have shared with them will forever be cherished and remembered until I forget them.  The Mets will forever live in my heart…in our hearts.  The heartburn is just a coincidence.

In conclusion, this is not the time for us to grieve the death of the 2009 Mets, but it’s time to celebrate their lives, all nine of them.  They kept playing until the schedule told them they couldn’t play anymore.  They kept trying to come back to play ball despite their injuries so that we wouldn’t spend the first six innings of the game tailgating, not knowing (or caring) that there was a game going on inside.  They showed us how not to run the bases by making those mistakes for us so we could learn from them.  That shows how much they thought about us and how much we should think about them.

So at this moment when we are about to lay this season to rest, let’s all think back and remember how the 2009 Mets made an impact on our lives.  This is not the moment for us to shed our tears but we should all be thankful that we were given the chance to have known a team called the 2009 Mets.  They will be missed but I know in time (like in six months or so), I will meet the Mets again. We will all meet the Mets again and I’m sure they’ll make us laugh again, hopefully for the right reasons this time.

Watch football.  Well, I was gonna do that anyway, but with the Mets in free-fall, the NFL and college football seasons cannot start soon enough.

Play more golf, and hang around the clubhouse for a few beers.  No need to rush home because the Mets are on TV.

Pay closer attention to reality shows like “More To Love,” because there is nothing left to love about this Mets team.

Take the wife and kid out for ice cream after dinner, knowing that we can take our time and, if we decide to turn the game on in the fifth inning, we won’t care that the Mets are already trailing 8-2.

Not care that Fox blacks out all other Saturday afternoon games, forcing those of us in the South to watch the Braves or Cardinals.  Not care because I’d almost rather watch those teams right now. 

We can peruse the NL Standings each morning, wondering if our Mets will do the unthinkable and let the Nationals catch them from behind. 

Cut grass.  Rake leaves.  Paint the house.  Clean the gutters.  When all of that seems like more fun than watching the Mets, you know the season is over before it’s over. 

Eat cheeseburgers and drink milk shakes, getting a head start on bulking up for the winter months. 

Call my dad and commiserate about the team he brought me up watching, then turn our attention to the Giants.

Finally, we can do the one thing we have no choice but to do, and it pains me to say this in August.  Yes, we can “wait ‘till next season.”

Below you will find the Opening Day roster for the 2009 Mets.  Some of these players have been traded, some are on the disabled list, some are stuck in traffic, yada, yada, yada.

Starting Pitchers: Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, John Maine

Relief Pitchers:  Pedro Feliciano, Sean Green, Darren O’Day, Bobby Parnell, J.J. Putz, Francisco Rodriguez, Brian Stokes

Catchers:  Brian Schneider, Ramon Castro

Infielders:  Carlos Delgado, Luis Castillo, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Alex Cora

Outfielders:  Marlon Anderson, Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church, Daniel Murphy, Jeremy Reed, Gary Sheffield, Fernando Tatis

Let’s catch up on where these players are now, in case you’ve forgotten about them.  After all, those were the players referred to by Citi Field public address announcer Alex Anthony on Opening Night when he let out his traditional “Ladies and Gentlemen.  Here they are!  Your 2009 New York Mets!”

Johan Santana:  Out for the season with an elbow injury, perhaps caused by lifting too many big chipotle cheesesteak sandwiches at Subway restaurants.  His injury is like “you know who big”.

Mike Pelfrey:  Has remained injury-free all season, but it’s not like he hasn’t tried.  He tumbled to the ground on Opening Night when his cleats got caught in the dirt, but was uninjured.

Oliver Perez:  Spent over two months on the disabled list from May to July.  There is now some concern that he may have suffered a neck injury from twisting it to look at the long home runs he gave up to Jayson Werth and Carlos Ruiz on Sunday.

John Maine:  Has been on the disabled list with what the Guinness Book of World Records is calling the world’s most tired shoulder.  Guinness is also researching the length of his rehab assignment to determine if Maine will be adding a second world record to his résumé.

Darren O’Day:  Pitched in four games for the Mets in April before being designated for assignment.  Was picked up by the Texas Rangers and has pitched beautifully in Arlington, keeping them in the Wild Card chase that the Mets fell out of weeks ago.

J.J. Putz:  Has been on the disabled list for nearly three months and was scheduled to make rehab appearances in Brooklyn but was shut down.  His right forearm is still hurting and there is now a slight tear that has been discovered.  He will be shut down for the rest of the season and will now stay in Brooklyn to practice for the next hot dog eating contest.

The law firm of Feliciano, Green, Parnell, Rodriguez and Stokes has been able to remain healthy, but they have occasionally been known to lose a few cases.  After performing their duties on the mound, they are considering taking on some medical malpractice suits that their injured teammates have presented to them.  The suits are based on the Mets’ inability to disable them when they needed to be shut down, exacerbating their injuries and keeping them out for longer periods of time, effectively wiping out their 2009 seasons.  There are numerous plaintiffs in this case, some of which are presented below.

Brian Schneider:  Spent six weeks on the disabled list from mid-April to late May with a muscle strain in his back.  Apparently, he also has a muscle strain in his bat, as his batting average has dipped below the Mendoza line.

Ramon Castro:  Lost his backup job to Omir Santos and took his Imperial Death March theme music to the South Side of Chicago.  Soon after, he caught Mark Buehrle’s perfect game.  It was the first time he was the catcher for Buehrle.

The entire Mets infield (Delgado, Castillo, Reyes, Wright, Cora):  Except for Castillo, the other four are currently on the disabled list getting their cases together for their attorneys.  Somehow, Luis Castillo is the only infielder not to make an appearance on the disabled list this year.  However, he did miss four games when he forgot to use two hands…on the Citi Field dugout handrail.

Marlon Anderson:  Stuck in traffic somewhere.

Carlos Beltran:  Has been on the disabled list since June.  Wants to return but has not yet run the bases.  Has spent his time off practicing his new guarantee for the 2010 season to be revealed during next year’s spring training.

Ryan Church:  Took his two home runs to Atlanta in a trade for Jeff Francoeur.  No word if the Devil joined Church when he went down to Georgia.  Also apparently donated his concussion to the David Wright Foundation.

Gary Sheffield:  Did the equivalent of turning water into wine by turning a right leg cramp into a 15-day DL stint.  Has played relatively well despite his tender legs.

Daniel Murphy, Jeremy Reed and Fernando Tatis:  These three 2009 Mets have not been injured this year.  That’s because they hold the natural antidote to the injury bug that has permeated throughout the Mets clubhouse.  Unfortunately, since the Mets’ medical team is being taken to court by the residents of the DL Hotel, there is no one left to take their blood samples so that they can cure everyone’s maladies.  Ah, sweet irony!

Manager Jerry Manuel has not been injured, but he was recently seen in this disturbing image, making a gesture resembling a gun pointed at his head.  No word on whether GM Omar Minaya was anywhere in the room when this picture was taken.

There you have it, my friends.  You have now been reacquainted with the team that took the field and was in the dugout on that early April day when hopes were high and injuries were low.  Regarding those injuries, there is something positive that could come out of it.  The majority of the team will now be eligible for the 2010 Comeback Player of The Year Award.  Now if only somebody could just locate Marlon Anderson.  I knew the Mets should have included a GPS system for his car in his contract!

I said last week that the errors were still happening but that awesome hitting, speed, run production and effective pitching were covering them up.  Now, as injuries to Carlos Delgado, Alex Cora and Jose Reyes have hurt the team offensively and defensively, the weaknesses are once again exposed, and they have also run into a very hot (though Manny-less) Dodgers’ team. 

I have no doubt that the Mets will regain the magic they showed in the first half of this month, but the ugly baseball being played is a very disturbing constant.  Pelfrey balks three times?  Church forgets to touch third base?  Those types of mistakes should never happen in the big leagues.  And the Mets, with their enormous payroll, should not rank third in the majors in errors (32, trailing only Washington and Seattle).

And I don’t want to harp on the negative, because there has been so much to be optimistic about as well, but the Mets currently rank tied for 27^th in baseball with just 26 home runs.  The Yankees, by contrast, have 61 homers even with A-Rod missing the first month and a half of the season.  The division-leading Phillies have 51, and do you want a telling statistic?  The Phillies have committed just 11 errors, lowest in the majors. 

Like I said, I really believe the Mets will turn it back around, and hopefully they do before facing the Red Sox this weekend.  But it’s not going to be a smooth ride.  So strap yourself in, Mets fans, and let’s hope we don’t all puke at the end of the ride.