The New York Mets have seen darker days than this; the midnight massacre in which Tom Seaver was traded away comes to mind. Another bad time for the Mets and their fan base was in the early 90’s when the Mets had the worst team that money could buy followed by the failure of Generation K. 2002 was a horrible year as the Mets signed a bunch of over the hill players for a lot of money plus there was the messy legal battle between Nelson Doubleday and the Wilpons for ownership of the Mets. 2003 saw the Mets win just 63 games that year and in 2004 the Mets didn’t do that much better even though they “battled” all the time.
The Mets brand got a jolt of life in 2005 when Omar Minaya was hired as the GM and quickly signed Pedro and Beltran. 2006 saw the Mets just miss getting to the World Series. 2006 also brought a lot of new fans to the Mets as they were relevant again; they had the new, young superstars of David Wright and Jose Reyes leading the team. 2006 didn’t end the way the fans wanted it to, but there was hope for 2007 and beyond. For a new Mets fan base, 2007-2009 might seem like the darkest days for the franchise and I understand their point of view since they haven’t followed the team as long as other Mets fans have. So for those new fans I quote Harvey Dent from the hit film The Dark Knight: “the night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn is coming.”
I believe that quote really applies to the Mets. Yes 2007 and 2008 ended in horrible collapses on the last day of the season and we really don’t have to speak about 2009 anymore. 2010 is not starting the way we envisioned it would with Beltran missing at least a month due to knee surgery and Jose Reyes missing opening day and perhaps longer with a thyroid condition, but the dawn is coming. In fact the dawn is in Florida with the Mets.
This Spring we have seen the future for the Mets, and it looks bright. Ike Davis is knocking the cover off the ball as is Fernando Martinez. So far this Spring Jenrry Mejia has been practically untouchable and is being considered as a setup guy for K-Rod. Josh Thole is also coming along nicely and as we saw last year, he’s close to being ready for the majors. Jon Niese has also impressed me and could very possibly make the opening day rotation. It has been a long time since the Mets had this much promising youth in Spring Training that actually have great futures ahead of them in the big leagues. These kids will most likely be with the Mets by next year if not sooner in some cases.
I understand all the bad communication and injuries that have plagued the Mets and it’s easy to be pessimistic and see nothing but dark days ahead, but the dawn is coming and will be here soon.
