You might be frustrated and disgusted by watching the Mets lose to the Nationals, but it is far better than not having any Mets to watch at all.
October has to be the worst month because there’s baseball, but baseball without the Mets. At least in November there’s the start of the free-agent season, highlighted by the Winter Meetings, which is winter’s World Series.
January? You can see spring training from there, and February, regardless of the wind chill, gives us our first warming taste of summer.
It’s not like a greater force mandated you become a Mets’ fan. In some families you might be born into it, but eventually it becomes your choice to root for the Mets.
You rooted in the beginning when they lost 120 games. You rooted throughout the sixties until you were rewarded by 1969, the year of the Miracle Mets and when man first walked on the moon.
As a Mets’ fan you endured long periods of frustration and lousy ball, but once a decade you were rewarded by the postseason, in 1973, 1986, 1999, 2000 and 2006.
In a commercial David Wright said his greatest thrill was playing October baseball in New York, “that there’s nothing like it.’’
That’s the ultimate reason we watch our team, but there’s a greater, more intimate reason why you’re fascinated, enthralled or even consumed by the Mets. There was one incident, one moment, that made you into a Mets’ fan, win or lose, and lately it has been mostly losing.
If you’re willing to share, I’d be interested to know what was the defining moment, that despite a fifth straight losing season, makes you hang on for news about injury updates for Bobby Parnell and Matt Harvey, the progress of rookies Travis d’Arnaud, Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores, the uncertainty about Ike Davis and Lucas Duda… or about the outfield for next season…
It is why we’d like to see just one more time before the leaves change, Wright’s compact swing rip a ball into the gap and him running into second with a stand-up double.
I know that’s why he’s yearning for one more game in the Summer of 2013.
What are the reasons why you still hang on to the summer?
