Why Am I A Mets Fan?

Had some downtime at work today and cruised over to metsblog, because that's what I do when I have downtime anywhere and happen to be sitting in front of a computer. I came across this article, which was written by Mike Novara, of ESPN radio, and posted at the top of metsblog's main page.


In case you don't click on that link, the article is called "A History of Heartbreak," and pretty much details every depressing reason why the idea of being a Mets fan must suck to any reasonable person. In my lifetime, we've sucked it up for the majority of the 1990s, were good for like three years in the heart of the Mike Piazza era and then sucked again for a few. We brought in Omar and Willie in 2005, D Wright and Reyes came into their own and we added some other guys, but only for Mets fans everywhere to have their hearts broken once again in successive years when we really thought we would win it all.

Going back to the 80s, we won a World Series and another division title, but underachieved on the whole and didn't accomplish the dynastic success we were capable of. In the 70s, we had one good year. The 60s gave Mets fans of that generation the Miracle Mets but also the worst team in the history of baseball. And don't get me started on the trades. Ohhh the trades!

Nolan Ryan...Tom Seaver...Scott Kazmir...the list goes on. Novara goes into all of it in depth - I'd really recommend reading his article. It accomplishes the difficult task of putting into words the difficulty, the devastation, the scorn from across town...and certainly does it much better than I believe I could. Have a look if you haven't already.

Anyway, so I read it. I relived all the misery that's occurred since 1991, or approximately the time at which I officially became a fan. Since 1993, when I saw the last game the worst team money could buy played that year in my first ever trip to Shea Stadium. Since '94, when Jeff Kent ignored my autograph request and I watched John Franco blow a 9th inning lead from the front rows of the Mezzanine section at Shea. I relived it all, and soaked up some additional information about the Mets teams that I'll never have a firsthand clue about.

And it got me thinking. Why am I a Mets fan? Why do I deal with this? I'm probably taking years off of my life just by writing this. Why do I put up with the frustration, the agony? With as much time and money as being a sports fan in the modern world requires you to invest in your team, why do I continue to make my team the Mets? Since I realize this, why am I so stupid?

Why couldn't I just switch to the Yankees as an 8-year old in '96, when they won the first of those four late 20th-century World Series titles? That's early enough, right? That wouldn't have been immoral, would it? Why did I endure the ongoing drone of Yankees won the World Series taunts from my 3-4 class, when I could have just become one of them and gotten around it all?

I always thought Butch Huskey looked like that security guard from Little Big League. Maybe?

Why didn't the last straw come when Butch Huskey was our first baseman in '96? Why didn't it come in '98, when, as Novara points out in his article, the Mets had to win one game at Turner Field in the last weekend of September to clinch the Wild Card, and lost all three? Why wasn't the fact that I waited until I was 10 years old for the Mets to even come realistically close to qualifying for the playoffs a louder alarm bell?

Why wasn't Robbie Alomar the last straw? Or Mo Vaughn. Or Jeremy Burnitz, take two. Or Shawn Estes insuring that my team failed to get revenge on Roger Clemens when it had the chance, two years after Roger hit Piazza and threw a splintered bat at him.

And why am I as excited as ever for next season, when my Mets are the laughing stock right now of baseball, tshirthell.com, and pretty much every other credible staple of society. Why isn't this the last straw? Shouldn't the fact that I'm talking right now about how painful it is to root for the Mets be a louder alarm bell?

When I was in high school and I'd do something stupid, my Mom would yell at me primarily for giving myself unnecessary trouble. "Why do you do this," she'd ask, "why can't you just make it easier on yourself?" I wonder why she never told me not to root for the Mets. Why can't I just make things easier on myself?

Because being a Mets fan isn't about making things easier on yourself. Being a sports fan shouldn't be. In his fabulously penned, (keyed?) comprehensive "Manifesto" following the Mets' loss on Sunday, the outstanding Mets blogger Metstradamus offered this description of the fan experience:

You (blindly) invest your time, money, and faith in a group of men who don't know you from Adam, but you know way too much about them. And you support them. You support them with your money...with your time...and with your allegiance. You support them because you hope that one day they'll give you that feeling of exhilaration that makes you feel like you're actually one of them.

But why wouldn't I want to feel that more often? Shouldn't I just root for the Yankees so that I'll be successful in pursuit of that feeling? Why don't I just do what my friend does in football and follow a player (he follows TO) so that I don't have to deal with all this fan allegiance crap?

It wouldn't mean anything then. It wouldn't mean anything for the Mets even to have basically won their first division title in my lifetime last year. Front-running means rooting for a team for all the wrong reasons. When you root for a team just because they win, you're not in search of that feeling, you're just looking to cheer superficially.

As a Mets fan, you take the good with the bad. The name Mo Vaughn means as much as the name David Wright, 2002 means as much as 2006. The entire team getting busted for pot, at the end of a disappointing high-payroll, low-result season, the scene complete with the image on the cover of the New York Post of one of the club's young relief pitchers smoking a joint, is funny. The name Todd Hundley means something - not because his visage is in Monument Park, but because he was a gritty bastard of a catcher, hit home runs, looked cool, his teammates called him Hot Rod, and he was your boyhood hero anyway even if he never played in the postseason and drank too much.

The point is, you wait for that feeling, and it doesn't come and doesn't come and you feel the exact opposite feeling over and over again, but you maintain faith that one day it will. And when it comes, you hope that another day it comes again. You live and die with your team because as much as dying sucks, living is so nice.

One day this will all come to bear. One day it will seem worth it to a more objective observer. Maybe not. Maybe that day will never come. But being a fan is about the undying, blind, and at many times irrational belief that one day it will. One day I will actually sip a little champagne.

I love the Mets. I have no shame in saying it. My baseball team is one of my favorite things in the world. I get pumped for April like no other time of the year. And I rely on September to ease the transition back to business after the end of a long summer. The Mets are a permanent part of me, of my persona. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've been getting crap from Phillies fans the past few days, crap from Yankee fans, I've watched fellow fans defect, I even lost (again) a $10 dollar double or nothing bet from last year with my Uncle that the Mets would win the World Series. (PS, Adam Sommers - if you ever read this - it's okay, don't let the door hit you on the way out. You have the same feelings as every Mets fan right now and instead of taking them like a man you're running away like the wimp you are)


It's hard out here for a Mets fan. But give me pitchers and catchers, right now. Give me opening day. Give me next June 1, the beginning of this year's end. It can't come soon enough.

And regardless of what happens, I'll be here, just as loyal, and I'll be standing tall, because it's not only about loyalty - it's about duty, honor, and the sense of pride I get when I see a little kid with a Mets shirt. It's about the sense of camaraderie, of brotherhood, of common purpose in life that I get when I can say "nice hat" or "go Mets" to an older fan on the street. When I go to Shea and join 50,000 other people in the best rallying cry in baseball:

Lets go Mets, baby.

(Pictures courtesy looptvandfilm.com, dailynews.com, allthewrightstuff.mlblogs.com, bbc.co.uk, tshirthell.com)