It was a special chant. One that was coined by a beloved New York Met. It was the rally cry of not just a Mets team that seemed to be going nowhere in 1973, but the cry of every Mets team and fan that followed for years to come.
“Ya Gotta Believe!”
It was a cry that came out of Tug McGraw’s mouth in what seemed to be a mockery of M. Donald Grant’s clubhouse speech in the locker room. Later McGraw clarified, it indeed was not to mock, but to seriously get the players to believe in themselves. Little did McGraw know just how important his phrase would be.
At least it used to be.
Mets fans of today believe in very little. They do not believe in their owners. They are ashamed. It is a fan base that is scared to believe in the new front office and dugout operatives. Too traumatized from the old regime. Finally, very little faith is bestowed on the 2011 team. Injuries seem to prevail and are still a sore spot thanks to the decimation of players in 2009.
The fans appear to be dying. Or maybe they are just scare and angry.
Excuses are not acceptable by a team who underperforms. Ironically, Mets fans have their own set of excuses for not going or watching games. Some of my favorites range from “They aren’t winning” to “I’m not spending any money until the Wilpons sell” to “They suck”.
Gone are the days of going to a game just for the thrill of it or to spend time with the kids.
I always loved being a Mets fan because this fan base exuded passion for their boys in orange and blue. There was such a love for this franchise like I had never seen among any other fan bases. It really was like one big family who supported each other through the good times and the bad times. Now the fans are like a family whose parents are going through a separation. They are choosing sides. Those who wholeheartedly still support the entire organization and those who are just too disgusted to bother.
Perhaps it is the venomous anger that is killing this once great fan base. They forgot how to believe. Now they just want people to pay for the misery forced upon them. The release of Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez is not enough. This fan base wants more.
It seems Mets fans will never believe again until the Wilpons are gone.
My heart breaks for McGraw. If he were here, I wonder what he would say. One phrase comes to mind: “Ya Gotta Believe!”
No matter what!
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With Opening Day for the Mets falling on April Fools Day, we’re playing it straight this year at Mets360. But click here if you want to see last year’s April 1st entry.
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This is one fan who will always be a fan and never hide. I was out and about late last season with my Mets shirt on, when the Mets were out of the race, and a Yankees fan says he can’t believe I’m wearing that shirt. Nuts to him!! I love the Mets and frankly, I’m very excited to see how this team and it’s new management evolve over this year and years to come. Let’s GO Mets, first, last, and always!!
You have a soul! Congratulations!
I also still believe in being a Met Fan no matter what. And I do believe that the owners made every effort to improve the team. Look at their payroll as proof of that. But decisions and health prevented good times from rolling in.
And this team now does have a good chance this year.
So lets start the season off, and enjoy.
It is refreshing to know that there are fans who stick with the team no matter what. That is what being a fan is all about. So kudos to you both for keeping the spirit of Tug McGraw alive.
@okaytoday – That has always been an argument of mine. People keep calling Fred Wilpon “Fred Coupon”. How can you call a man “Coupon” when he opened up that checkbook and written millions upon millions of dollars on this team? It makes no sense.
Except he keeps doing for the wrong people: Bonilla, Alomar, Vaughn, Castillo, Perez, Madoff…oops! 😉
Well we can thank the GM’s of that time for that. lol Madoff was all Fred.
How many people can go “to a game just for the thrill of it or to spend time with the kids.” ? At three or four hundred dollars a family.
Even if you can afford is that how you want to spend your money. I stopped going to games when the price reached 13 or 14 dollars. Baseball’s charm was that it was always the working stiff’s game. People would decide they felt like going to the game and pick up tickets at the box office. Didn’t have to plan, you got to see if the weather was nice, didn’t have anything else to do, because if you did there is always another game tomorrow.
Now it is a week’s salary for many people, and they will play the game through a blizzard rather than cancel and give your money back. I for one would just as soon turn the TV on and if the new equivalent of Ollie Perez entered the game I can turn it off and do something else. And not be out several hundred bucks.
Spot on, John. Gone are those days when a dad could spring for a couple box seats for a twi-night double header and buy them at the box office for a reasonable price. Those seats are now reserved for the big spending corporate guys who can go sit inside, have a few drinks and watch the game on tv. This team is all about squeezing as much money as they can out of their fans. Imagine having to pay more because the game is on Saturday or the opponent is a ‘big name’ team, or the seat you’re sitting in is in the front two rows of a section. The Wilpons are guilty of a huge miscalculation with this stadium and their pricing. 12,000+ less seats, but thats ok because they’ll jack the prices up and they’ll still come out on the plus side. Except they forgot one thing, a good product on the field. I used to think they were smarter businessmen than baseball men. Now I know thats not true either. They would go along way with some good public relations if they said ‘We screwed up and we’re going to scrap the tiered pricing and go back to what we were charging at Shea’ Sadly with the financial shape they’re in thats only dreaming on my part.
EXCELLENT !!!!
The Mets have had a lot worse teams that this. You don’t even want to know how depressing it was to be a Mets fans in the late 1970s. For the last few years the Wilpons have forced a badly conceived team to refit when it’s needed rebuilding. If Collins and Alderson can clear out the dead weight while putting together a winning record, the fans will start to come back. If they stop ripping off the fans with their multi-level pricing scheme and charging families the most to go to a game when they have time to go–like say, summer–more people will come.
I agree that the Mets teams between the Seaver trade and the Davey Johnson hiring were much, much worse than the 2009-2011 versions. It’s not even remotely close.
But I disagree that the teams of the last few years needed to be rebuilt. They needed a) good health and b) better construction on the margins. Alderson and company should be able to address b) pretty easily.
Nobody should go if they think ticket prices are too high — families, individuals or corporations. It’s the only way ticket prices will ever go down.
as a latino its been difficult to stomach listening to all the anti-latino talk from met fans mad about Minaya and his choices…to be honest its made me question if i should remain a met fan…or would this have happened to any other fan base that employed the first Hispanic GM in baseball
I feel the same way. Being a latina and listening to anti-latino talk makes me nauseous. The Mets were not the first. Minaya was a GM with the Montreal Expos before coming to Flushing. I don’t think the anti-latino talk should question your loyalty. You have to think where your loyalty stems from.
Any GM would have gotten the hell Minaya got. He gave Mets fans so much hope in 2006. The team just started to crash and burn afterwards. Some bad signings helped to make him public enemy number one for awhile. It was just worse here because the fans are so tired of being treated like second class citizens in their own city. Don’t let an angry mob change your mind on who your team is.
Yeah, the Mets and their relationship with Bud Selig helped Omar get that position..I also believe Omar was the first Asst. GM in MLB during his tenure with the mets from 97-2001.
I’m sure any GM would’ve caught hell..and Omar did deserve some criticism for some moves he made and other moves he did not make…
and had the criticism just been kept to that…then i wouldnt have a problem with it..
for example…
bash him for not resigning chad bradford…darren oliver…trading away lindstrom..henry owens…releasing ruben gotay…all these things were head-scratchers that eventually led to holes in middle-relief and 2B that were critical to our non-success in 07/08…
there is enough substantial stuff to talk about w/o bringing up race and xeonophobia…
in my opinion…alot of these sports writers ( who are white/suburban/and have xenophobic tendencies themselves ) know how the bulk of their audience feels and more importantly know how to tap into alot of those emotions by focusing the blame and making latino players the scape-goat….
do u think its a coincidence that 3 months after Omar is hired Adam Rubin writes this article ? –> http://articles.nydailynews.com/2005-02-27/sports/18294360_1_omar-minaya-roberto-alomar-spanish
at the time the article was written..the mets ranked 5th in % of latinos on roster…why were there not articles written about the 4 other teams with more latinos than the mets…( who pre-omar ranked 13th )
i hate making things about race, its 2011 and one would think we should be past that…but its hard to root for the mets alongside some folks who think anyone named gomez or lopez should be mowing the grass at citifield…not playing on it…
Great article Tanya !!! As a proud Mets fan embedded deep In Phillies country I proudly wear my mets shirt and hat whenever I can. I try and support the team whenever they come to Philly and look forward to taking my daughter to her first mets game in queens this year. I never get when other fans hide themselves away when the team does poorly. Your baseball team allegiance should be part of who you are no matter what. Whether you like the management of the team is lousy your a fan of the TEAM which should never change. Heres to a great season and proving everyone wrong
Thank you Paul. Glad you liked it. It must be pretty brutal to wear your Mets gear out there. Lord knows it was difficult for me when I want to college one train stop away from Yankee Stadium and the train was filled with Yankee fans. lol You are a thousand percent right when you say “Your baseball team allegiance should be part of who you are no matter what”. It’s so true. Unfortunately it is the case with so many. They have very little tolerance. I think this Mets team will prove quite a few people wrong.
This is for all of the comments about tickets. I will go on record to say HELL YEAH THEY ARE TOO HIGH! lol I mean, what the hell! It would be nice to knock the prices down a few hundred dollars. But that is not the only reason. There are other ways to support your team.
There are Mets fans who run and hide, change their profile pictures or just stop watching the games on their tv sets the minute the Mets run into some trouble. I understand some of these games are hard to watch, but to stop watching altogether is not right.
I remember growing up where I didn’t even know about the Yankees because I don’t remember ever seeing a Yankee fan. It was all Mets fans in the 1980’s. I didn’t know about the Yankees until around 1995 or ’96. Then I was like “Who the heck are they?”. Mets fans always stuck by their team. It just doesn’t seem to be true anymore. They lost yesterday and people are like “here we go again”. There 162 games in the year. How about watching them before killing them?
As a die-hard Mets fan, I love and will always love my Metsies. At this point in time though, I believe that To truly support my team, I cannot support them; financially that. As long as fans spend money-going to games, buying mets merchandise, the Wilpons will be making money. As long as they make money, they will continue to own this team. Our only hope is for the Wilpons sell. One only needs to look back at what the fans New York Giants football team did years ago when the team were constsntly losing. They burned their tickets and refused to go to games. Giants ownership heard that and ever since they have been a winning organization.
Interesting article. I get a lot of abuse from Yankee fans. It can be frustrating at times to see & hear arrogance of the Yankee fans ridicule the Mets & fans like us. The media kinda blows the Mets off, especially ESPN. The Wilpons have too see & realize that for the good of the franchise, they should sell the team! Sandy is doing the best he can cleaning up Omar’s mess & at the same time trying to bring respectability back to the Mets. I will always be a Met fan regardless what other people think, so I say “Lets Go Mets”!
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