I am truly at a loss for words today concerning the Mets. Normally on Mondays I give out the “Monday Morning Metsy” Award to the Mets player who has exemplified great play for the past week. For this Monday, I can find none who deserve ANY accolades save Nick Evans, and he hasn’t even been around for a week yet.
What can be said about this team that hasn’t been said already? Everywhere you look from ESPN to Sports Illustrated to many fan threads, are taking stabs at what the Mets problem could be. Some say its age, while others suggest management issues or even the possibility they were never a good team to begin with. I can’t say for sure what the problem is, and any move made by the Mets to rectify the problem is only a shot in the dark. They could resurrect Gil Hodges and find the fountain of youth for Tom Seaver and I’m still not convinced it would make that much of a difference.
Maybe the problem is me. Not me by myself, but Mets fans collectively. Have we become so ingrained with a culture of finishing second that no matter how jazzed we are about a team in the preseason, thoughts of imminent failure come with the first losing streak?
If so, have those same worries and expectations found their way into the very fabric of the franchise? Could this be why we mercilessly boo at the drop of a hat? Maybe we have just accepted the possibility that the Mets will always be a second class citizen in NYC next to the Yankees and their seemingly insurmountable 26 World Championships.
I for one refuse to buy into the Chicago Cubs,”Wait ‘till next year!” mentality. I am a fan of the New York Metropolitans baseball club, and proud of it. While I am disheartened at the current state of things, I will remain loyal and “true to the orange and blue”. Looking deep inside myself I know things could never be any other way. I’m just not myself without the Mets. They are simply part of who I am…
I’m certain that many of you readers feel the same. I refuse to buy into the Yankee mystique, Philly pride or that moronic tomahawk chop in Atlanta. The past is the past, and while I respect it, take pride in it and sometimes loathe it, it is still the past. The future is now. Anything less than a championship is a failure. Time to play like it fellas. I’m not calling it a season just yet… Let’s Go Mets!
