The time has finally arrived. The ideal candidate, the object of the savvy Mets fan’s affection will be free to reciprocate in a matter of three weeks. Heck, he’s already free to negotiate with whoever he wants right now. David Stearns will finally have his Suds City chains broken and he will, if he so [...]
Five years. The guy said five years. Five years to a World Series championship. Well, we’re now in year three and the distance between where this team is and a World Series championship is about as far as between now and 1986. Steve Cohen is – purportedly: some opinions differ – a lifelong Mets fan. [...]
It took a bit of convincing. The early evidence flew in the face of what we’d all heard. A lot of us – myself included, of course, or I wouldn’t mention it – fell into the trap of thinking that how it is in the moment is how it will be forever. Patience is a [...]
I seem to start every piece I present here with the reminder to our readership – and myself – that we are fans. Fans who are not privy to the inner workings of the team we love. Fans who are not in the clubhouse every day to witness the interpersonal byplay of the players we [...]
Yesterday, my friend, the proprietor of this space, Brian Joura posted a reminder that yes, it’s still early. I, myself, had forgotten this little fact, even though I’d written something similar only a month ago. Amid the drudgery of this early season, when a team with World Series aspirations got out of the gate with [...]
We are fans. We forget. Sometimes we forget that -- in the cold of early spring or late autumn – this isn’t football. Small sample sizes and the freshness of the 17-game NFL season recently concluded often fool us into thinking how it is right now will be how it is in perpetuity. That’s a [...]
As snow falls on my backyard, spring is here. There are actual baseball games on the TV, cablecast live from points south and west. Think baseball is floundering? ESPN reported the Cardinals/Mets exhibition game two weeks ago garnered their highest ratings ever for a spring training tilt. The World Baseball Classic is in full swing, [...]
OK, so it’s not 1980. Kansas City is playing Philadelphia for a championship this evening, but it will have nothing to do with bats or gloves. Back in those heady days of ’80, it took six games for Philly to vanquish KC. This one is a one game, winner-take-all proposition, in a neutral setting, in [...]
OK. So we’ve all had about a week to grouse and lick our wounds. It became officially official – because these things do make a difference, as we’ve come to find out -- only a couple of days ago: All-Star SS Carlos Correa will not be a New York Met after all, instead opting to [...]
You will forgive the Mets fan if they seem bewildered. We have been trained – by outside forces, inept ownership/management, historic tomfoolery, etc. – to hope for the best, and expect the worst. The double-edged sword called “winning the winter” has backfired far too often for this franchise and longtime fans can never feel comfortable [...]
Baseball fans – and particularly Mets fans, I think – are a lot like dogs: if something happens once, it happens all the time, every time. It becomes instant tradition. It seems that’s how the Baseball Gods want it. We Mets fans used to listen to Ralph Kiner on the broadcasts and he would bluntly [...]
Oh, what might have been… The Mets looked primed to take a major step towards securing the NL East Division title. Looks can be deceiving. For ordinary mortals, Jacob deGrom’s stat line would be impressive: six innings, five hits, no walks, 11 strikeouts, three earned runs. That last bit was the problem. deGrom was rocked [...]