The New York Mets officially began spring training on Monday and kicked off their 59th MLB season. As with every year, the phrase “Hope springs eternal” from Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man” echos in the background of all 30 MLB clubhouses.

Yet in the end, only 10 teams will make the playoffs at the end of September. A month later only one team will stand as World Series champions. However, there still lies at least a glimmer of hope in sections of every fan base.

New beginnings such as the start to spring training and Opening Day bring out immense excitement. What’s not to like? After months without baseball, fans are treated with a preview of a sport they get to enjoy watching for the majority of the year. With this preview is the benefit of a blank canvas which each team can write a completely new story on, with hope that it may be remembered for years on end.

While teams like the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers enter the season with high hopes of winning the World Series in 2020, they currently sit in the same spot as the other 28 teams in the standings.

Spring training serves as a restart button, and after a messy offseason for the Mets and for baseball in general, it is very much welcomed.

On Nov. 12, Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic released a bombshell article that exposed the Houston Astros’ use of technology to steal signs during their 2017 World Series championship season.

That immediately became the story of the offseason and led MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to open what he called, “a really, really thorough investigation.”

The investigation lasted nearly two months and resulted in MLB suspending Astros manager AJ Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow for a year, stripping the Astros of the team’s first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021 and fining the team $5 million. Both Hinch and Luhnow were promptly fired after MLB handed down their suspensions.

Some deemed the penalties light and wanted to see the players get punished and/or the team lose its 2017 title. While MLB’s penalties were limited to the Astros’ franchise and personnel, the punishments had a ripple effect that followed.

The Boston Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora one day later due to his involvement with the 2017 Astros when he was the bench coach.

Two days after Cora’s firing, the Mets fired manager Carlos Beltran due to his involvement with the Astros’ cheating scandal when he was a player.

The hard-luck Mets, who had nothing to do with the scandal, had to make a difficult decision whether to fire a former star player of theirs that they only hired as manager two-and-a-half months prior. In the end, his past involvement with the Astros and lack of communication with the Mets about it, made firing him feel like the only way to move past this distraction heading into the 2020 season.

While putting Beltran’s firing in the rearview mirror was not an easy task to accomplish, it seems the Mets’ latest blunder has helped to do so.

On Feb. 4, reports surfaced that billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen would be ending negotiations to buy an 80 percent stake in the Mets. Cohen, whose wealth and passion for the team ignited a hungry fan base, was reported to have had disagreements with the Wilpon family on the level of control they wanted to continually have on the team.

Mets COO Jeff Wilpon released a statement on Monday regarding the failed deal and indicated that they will be “moving forward to find a new transaction” and that they will “work hard to earn and maintain everyone’s confidence and trust.”

However, the Mets fan base was left devastated after pinning their hopes on an owner who has spent more money on a piece of art than the Mets ever have on a free agent.

Now on this day in February 2020, we are left with many unknowns. It is unknown as to how Luis Rojas manages in place of Beltran. It is unknown of whether the Wilpon family can make a transaction with another Cohen-esque person. It is also unknown on whether the Mets will perform like they did in the first half of 2019 (40-50 before the All-Star break) or the second half of 2019 (46-26 after the All-Star break).

However, what is known is that after over 100 days, baseball is back, the canvas is blank and hope springs eternal during spring training.