I’ve been running out of things to complain about with these 2015 Mets. It’s resulted in kind of a complaint deficit that I had to compensate for by griping about other stuff, like the lack of funding for the Near Earth Object program, or why an eagle would drop a large Northern Pike on my front lawn (actually happened — and what’s worse is my wife wouldn’t let me eat it!), or why David Wright and Lucas Duda have never done a rendition of Young Frankenstein’s “Putting on the Ritz” (for which I’d pay very good money) … or how exactly did aliens manage to abduct Daniel Murphy, replacing him with a mindless gurgly voiced cephalopod with limited mobility who only knows how to say “I’m Daniel Murphy” and “gotta turn two there” and “the creamed asparagus is a good choice.”
I’d complain about the Mets injuries but wouldn’t you know it their replacements are killing it. I guess I could complain about deGrom getting short-porched on a cold night at Yankee Stadium when it was probably hard to get a feel for your breaking pitch, especially if you skimped on the pine-tar schmear with your bialy … deGrom isn’t the first young starter to get bushwhacked in the Bronx and probably wont be the last, but I’m fairly confident he’ll rebound. No … if I’m going to complain I need something with the veracity of a sewage backup in my basement or a good smattering of dog vomit on my new carpet …
I was content to go on my dyspeptic way complaining about insignificant minutiae when bam it fell on the hood of my just-washed-and-waxed consciousness like a bag of used depends from a truck that just pulled out of a retirement home.
Before I expound on this struck nerve I must needs pen a disclaimer, some of my best friends are Yankee fans. In fact, this isn’t even really about the Yankees per se … like any fan base you have your bandwagoners, your contentedly irrational diehards, your knowledgeable “sane” group, and of course your dispossessed mentally unstables … it is what it is. I’ve never had a problem being friends with reasonable fans of any group, it’s the posers who get to me. Those for whom fandom is somehow a status symbol — emblematic of a “winning” persona.
Anyway … the nerve, which was struck … was only mildly irritating at first, like a discordant high key on a piano that keeps plinking louder and louder – plink … Plink … PLINK. It involved all this talk about Matt Harvey being a Yankee fan, going to see the games with his dad as a kid, blah blah … then, this only mildly irritating spiel somehow mutated like a three-eyed sturgeon into how Harvey will probably be a Yankee after his commitment to the Mets runs out … PLINK … PLINK! … and then Mike Puma tweeted the following:
“Could have been better for the Mets in the long run if Harvey got shelled today; it might be good if he grows to hate Yankee Stadium.”
PLINK!!!
It kind of reached a crescendo when during a Mets presser Harvey became so annoyed with the “Yankee fan” talk he felt the need to remind the press, “Um, you know I’m playing for the Mets, that’s who I play for.”
Then there was this in the NY Times:
“The scene that unfolded Saturday at Yankee Stadium was, in a strange way, perhaps close to what Matt Harvey, the Mets’ ace, had imagined as a child, as a Yankees fan, playing catch with his father.”
For Mets fans who aren’t privy to Matt Harvey’s innermost thoughts and memories this comes as a surprise — the Times still covers baseball? Who knew?
Still, at that point it was only mildly irritating — like when some new kid at your local pizza joint tries to give you the last slice of the old pie when a fresh one has just come out of the oven.
I guess some of this was precipitated by Harvey attending Derek Jeter’s final home game, which, granted, rubbed a few malcontents the wrong way, and I understand that Harvey-envy can cause Yankee fans to say and do strange things … but it wasn’t the “plink” that caused the string to snap.
As with most things we tend to be most threatened by arguments that carry a hint of truth. Mets fans have been so acclimated to disappointment that even when things are going great we hold our breath and wait for some other shoe to fall. In this case we openly end up wondering whether the Wilpons and their limited pocketbook will be able to retain a core assemblage of talent. Yankee fans will gladly remind us they are at the ready to take our players should we hesitate even a moment.
Harvey and Wheeler and d’Arnaud and Duda and deGrom won’t come cheap. Can the Wilpons afford them? Right now the answer is most likely no — not under the current budget, not even with an increase of 10 or 15 million. With higher gate proceeds the Mets might be able to increase payroll proportionately, but that isn’t a given and spending could very well be contingent on Ownership’s commitment to reducing debt. For Mets fans that would blow chunks like Kent Dorfman on Dean Wormer’s desk … blech.
But even that isn’t what sticks in my craw — I understand a lot of Yankee fans will echo a sour grapes refrain about the inevitability of Harvey in pinstripes — what really gets my goat is a press that actively promotes doom and gloom narratives for effect … Akin to poking Mets fans where it hurts, for the hell of it. The truth is it’s a tad early to start worrying about how many eggs we get to keep. Two or three years can be an eternity in baseball dollars. If the Mets win they’d be in the black in a big way given their very reasonable payroll, and ownership would be hard pressed to hold the line on spending.
Perhaps I’m being oversensitive, but when I read negative stuff about the Mets, it irks me because I’ve always entertained this notion that journalists should be unbiased, impartial, objective even … and that’s just not the reality here. Like they’re in denial of, oh I don’t know global warming or something, like they haven’t figured out how to switch from “suck” mode to first place. When you see the same below the belt snipes coming from journalists that you’d expect from fans, well you realize maybe they are themselves fans.
Lupica, Harper, Bondy, and a few others have always hammered the Mets like it’s some sort of trendy pinata. I’d understand it a bit more if it were solely a reflection of on-field performance, but the usual suspects invariably turn up their criticism every time things appear to be moving in the right direction. How can you possibly spin Matt Harvey into a negative? Convince the fans that Scott Boras is set to deliver him to the Yankees first chance. How can you deflate a 14 – 5 start? Remind them their competition has been underwhelming …
Or how about today’s headlines after the Mets dropped the rubber game of their three game set in the Bronx? The Daily News ran with E-Train and “Same Old Mets.” While the Post went with “Yankees Not Quite as Awful as Mets.” You’d think the Mets were 5 – 14 instead of the other way around. You almost get the sense that there are members of the press who just don’t seem to like the Mets very much.
And that’s ok … really, it is. Like I said, some of my best friends are Yankee fans … but if you’re going to be a fan, then be a fan, start a blog and buy some season tickets … but if you fancy yourself a serious journalist, well … the 14 – 5 Mets are major industry copy … as is Matt Harvey’s return. If you can’t see enough beyond your fandom to appreciate that, well you are at best cheating your readership out of a great story, and at worst you are stirring the pot and trolling for negative attention by continuing to degrade a long-suffering fanbase … Not to mention being woefully out of step with the reality of their resurgence.
