The pieces are all familiar. We’ve been here before. There are two games left to the year and the Mets are out of it. Again. We fans sit on the sidelines and watch other guys have fun for the next couple of weeks. We watch, intrigued and happy for the Orioles and A’s. We watch, bored by the Yankees and Braves. We watch, impressed by the Reds and Nationals. We watch, because it’s more baseball: if the Mets won’t give us any, we will settle for these other guys. Of course, we fans all realized it was going to go this way since the middle of July. 
I’ve been watching Mets baseball in earnest since 1972 and this is one of the few seasons I can name which left me neither exhilarated, nor outraged. I don’t love this season. I don’t hate this season. I “nothing” this season. It’s an odd feeling. I’m looking back at seasons that stand out, because they make no impression on me. The first one I can think of is 1992, when David Cone was sent away and I was down to cheering Chico Walker and Kevin Bass. 1996 was less than memorable, despite my first ever trip to Port St. Lucie and the debut of Rey Ordonez. 2003 and Art Howe’s luminescence, Mo Vaughn’s girth and Jose Reyes’s first blooming passed me by like a wraith. This year just ending has the same kind of amorphous quality. If you ask me — in my dotage, years from now – what I remember about 2012, I’ll probably mumble something about R.A. Dickey and wins, Matt Harvey coming up and some gobbledy-gook about a no-hitter. Everything will be lost to the mists. You have to give this team credit, though: they worked really really hard to get me to not pay attention. Speaking as a fan who considers himself rabid, it takes something to have me not care. It may take Sandy Alderson’s making a Minaya-esque splash this off-season to shake my Queens somnambulance. Sadly, I don’t see it happening, if yesterday’s announcement of the retention of the entire coaching staff is any indication.
I read with great interest my friend and colleague Mack Ade’s – get well, Mack! — comments after my last post. Were I a more cynical man, I’d have dismissed them as over-optimistic about 2014. The fanboy in me, though, is hoping against hope that he’s right.
Maybe that will keep me paying attention in 2013.
Follow me on Twitter @CharlieHangley .
This season certainly has been interesting. Sometimes having a good team that dominates and has no issues is kinda boring as a fan. When there are problems or things aren’t going as planned, there is a lot to talk about and it makes the season interestnig.
It seems like the first half was eons ago. Sweeping the Braves to start the season? Mike Pelfrey? Chris Schwinden? Santana’s no-hitter? Mike Baxter’s incredible pinch hitting? That was all this year.
I hope people realize that the baseball is round. Anything can happen. Past performances does not mean future performance. There are too many examples of predicted “bad” teams doing great things.
The Mets never gave us a Christmas present, may be this year will be the first with a signning of Wright and Dickey?It would be a gaint step in the right direction, with hope that the best is yet to come?
Hey Charlie:
I don’t react to Mets seasons that don’t result in playoff games.
You know me, and you know I’ve said this for the past five years. I became a much better Mets WRITER when I stopped being a Mets FAN.
This is all about decisions and the team that took the field this season were the result of two General Managers, and, frankly, I’m not very impressed with Sandy Alderson and his troika of VPs.
Minaya made bad decisions also…signing Bay, letting Jesus Flores get lost in the Rule V, but I don’t see much more bad coming out of his camp. The Santana deal was worth it because all four ‘can’t miss’ prospects, missed.
The majority of bad decisions (I’m talking the 2012 team, not Zack Wheeler) putting players on the field this season include: Andres Torres, Ramon Ramirez, Ronny Cedeno, Frank Francisco…
Look… bad decisions were made that cost this team.
Charlie, your reaction to the season seems to be the scariest of all.
Nothing is worse than sentencing someone to indifference, which is what you’ve done. The Mets were of no consequence, the lowest of all in the priority and care realm. They did not anger you, frustrate you, thrill you, leave you with hope, etc…
It says you need a vacation and the Mets need to do something to bring back your pulse!
I have experienced this before: It happened with the New York Rangers when they went season after season after season without even reaching the playoffs even though 16 teams did! It became so listless and lifeless that Ranger fans stopped booing. Then…Jamomir Jagr carried them on his back to their first playoff appearance in many years and the faint pulse revived.
I hope that the pulse responds, with a jolt of electricity: Clear! Zap! Clear! Zap… Perhaps the resuscitation will come via the young Mets pitching that Mack sees reaching the World Serious by 2014 (I agree with him).
Hang in there!