We learn by association.
We remember who we were with and what we were doing on important dates. 9/11, maybe the Hale-Bopp comet, maybe even the Kennedy assassination or Nixon resigning. And always right there is baseball and the Mets. You may have a detailed recollection of 1986 or vivid memories of what the world was like in October of 1969.
For me, 1969 was about a house fire and the Mets, while 1986 was about Paris Island and the Mets. But 2008? Oh, 2008 I will always associate with one of our nation’s worst ever financial downturns and the Mets getting hella ponzied!
Let’s take a trip back to 2008 where we meet up with this ordinary guy in Queens. Let’s call him Rodney. Rodney and his wife are big Mets fans and they buy a house they plan on fixing up and they sink all their money into it right? And everything is cool and they plan on using some equity to fix the place up and get season tickets when suddenly, bam. Their house is worth half what they paid! It’s just like when Fred Wilpon found out that what he thought was a cool half billion in reserve, was, absent…only not as bad.
Rodney wasn’t able to borrow against accrued value because, ha, there wasn’t any! Again, like when Fred Wilpon tried to borrow as much money as he could and had to settle for a Bank of America bridge loan!
Eesh.
So Rodney and his wife made do with old kitchen cabinets the way the Mets made do with Nick Evans. Instead of new floors, they got more of Mike Pelfrey and his mouth guard. Something like that. The Wilpons still had a team and Rodney still had a house and in 2008 both were crappy! See, collision of worlds.
Then in 2011 Rodney gets a visit from an insurance adjuster even though he hadn’t made a claim. This 1950’s poindexter looking guy just stood outside with his clipboard taking notes, and he wasn’t appreciated by Rodney one bit. Rodney especially didn’t appreciate how this insurance dude was looking at his chimney. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later Rodney and his wife got a letter telling them to fix their chimney or their policy would be cancelled. Rodney was accused of something amounting to “poor chimney maintenance.”
So Rodney vowed never to let anyone with a pocket protector anywhere near his house. He even dusted off his dream of training a squadron of attack pigeons. In the end he simply repaired the chimney, switched insurance companies (to a company that wasn’t sending out gaggles of poindexters in Ford Fiestas looking for reasons to rescind policies in “high foreclosure” neighborhoods), and he put off training pigeons to crash into the faces of anyone possessing a clipboard or a passing resemblance to Jeff Wilpon.
Now, you ask, why should we care about Rodney?
Well, you see, most people would think Rodney and his wife had it pretty bad, but as bad as they had it, it was not 500 million bad. Rodney and his wife worked hard and they fixed their place up bit by bit and regained some of their equity.
The Wilpons? The Wilpons hired Sandy Alderson.
But they were still pretty cheap.
Maybe if, like Rodney, Fred Wilpon had gotten a visit from the insurance adjuster of Christmas Yet-to-come telling him to sign Cliff Lee or lose his franchise, well, maybe then he would have spent more. But it was the banks with their vested interest in the upkeep and operation of the Mets who became concerned. After all, in 2012 some estimates had the Wilpons owing upwards of 1.5 again, billion dollars.
Now it struck Rodney as somewhat unfair that he had to fix his chimney, paint his exterior, update his electrical and replace his plumbing while the Wilpons fielded the likes of Brad Emaus and tinkered with ticket prices. Brad Emaus would be like Rodney wrapping his old toxic lead pipes with duct tape and asking the city inspectors to have a gander. See, in 2011 the inspectors wanted to see that nice new PVC pipe of the 8.7 WAR Ben Zobrist variety, not Jason Pridie and some cheapo linoleum. But the Wilpons went with the duct tape and the linoleum and kept the bankers at Bay with a few nominal acquisitions and a whole lot of rebuilding talk.
And Rodney was OK with that because he is a Mets fan and he understands sacrifice. So what if the Wilpons tried to pass off some secondhand Craigslist appliances as new? Rodney and the Mets had a big turn around coming and sure enough the Mets turned things around with playoff appearances in 2015 and 2016.
Now here is where the story gets murky. A host of pitching injuries derailed even the most modest expectations for the Mets in 2017 and the team came in at 70-92 and fourth in the NL East.
OK, one bad season, no biggie, you just move on right? Not so fast Rodney!
You see, Rodney and his wife also had their share of setbacks during those years. There was the time the kitchen ceiling collapsed and the time the main sewer line backed up. But they cleaned themselves up and got back to building a better life.
And the Wilpons? Would they also dust themselves off from 2017, liquidate a few assets and remain focused on the prize? Yes?
Nope. Not at all. Not even close.
It appears that the Mets’ purchasing power was hobbled this time, not by a Ponzi scheme or a host of bad contracts, but by the very 70-92 season they’d hoped to turn the page on. So the “cash flow” problems never really went away, and the one bad season that most big market teams could shrug off with a few checks, instead forebode many more just like it.
This reminded Rodney of the time he thought he could finance his home renovation by selling produce from his little backyard at a local farmer’s market. It didn’t work because he didn’t have nearly enough produce and the bank was not OK with “We had a bad batch of turnips, but the cucumbers are looking good,” as a reason for Rodney’s failure to repair a roof leak.
Fred Wilpon also was unable to finance 2018 with 2017’s proceeds.
Rodney took solace in the fact that the Mets still had their vaunted pitching core, that they only needed a decent supporting cast. But Mets fans are quickly realizing that there are no reinforcements coming. There will be no legion of filthy Dwarves or even Ian Kinsler.
Rodney and a great many Mets fans are in an uproar as we speak on Twitter. Not because they are “New Yorkers” who feel they somehow deserve better than fans in Boise or Toledo, but because they’ve watched this team’s core come together and they think it’s a good one with two playoff trips and a World Series appearance already under their belts.
They think, that failing to provide the necessary backup for this group would be like spending all your money buying a Kentucky Derby contender and then being unable to afford a saddle. It’s got to be like a crime against baseball or something. No one wants to watch Jacob deGrom pitching meaningless games down the stretch. Everyone wants to see Noah Syndergaard pitch a deciding game.
You see Mets fans like Rodney are smarter than your average Cubs fan. They know that baseball owners don’t make their money at the gate, they make their money by purchasing a team in Chavez Ravine for $330 million in 2004 and selling it for 2.3 again billion in 2012. So it’s all very confusing to Rodney and his ilk. Why would the Wilpons try and operate a $2 billion dollar asset with nickle and dime gate proceeds?
Rodney and his Mets faithful continue to wonder why the forces governing this great sport, namely MLB, Rob Manfred, the banks, Elrond. Why they continue to permit the Wilpons to run out this 1962 Berlinetta on cheap Dunlops?
That’s why Mets fans like Rodney are upset. It’s not because of some imagined “Yankee envy,” it’s because of the mind-numbing negligence of wasting the tremendous gifts of a Mets cohort as talented as this one on a broke as a church-mouse property owner who forgets to turn the furnace on before a deep freeze.
