Staying Grounded

As I mentioned the other day, the Mets are slowly trickling into Port St. Lucie and the mood seems to be pretty upbeat. Everybody's confident after the Johan Santana acquisition, and it seems like the players are just as serious as the fans are about coming back with a vengeance this year and destroying the rest of the National League again, a la 2006. That's refreshing.

We've even got players making Jimmy Rollins-like guarantees. Carlos Beltran, over the weekend, on the Mets' chances this year in light of the Santana deal:

“With him, I have no doubt we’re going to win our division. I have no doubt about that…So, this year, tell Jimmy Rollins we are the team to beat.” (metsblog)

I'm not sure if Beltran, normally a quiet, just-goes-about-his-business type, wanted to stir up some controversy or was just trying to sound cool. But here's Endy Chavez, in the New York Post yesterday:

The Mets' recent trade for ace left-hander Johan Santana is "a guarantee for us to make the playoffs," Chavez excitedly told The Post yesterday after reporting to camp early. (NYP)

If you read the entire article, it sounds less like Endy wanted to send anyone a message, and more like he's just excited about the Mets' having a great pitcher on their staff. Endy seems like he's more Carlos Beltran than Jose Reyes, and fourth outfielders - even legendary fourth outfielders - don't usually make these sorts of predictions. Here's the rest of his quote:

"[Even] if he has a bad year, we're going to get 15 wins out of it," the backup outfielder added. "I mean, he's unbelievable. If he stays healthy, we're going to be in for a great season."

Two things at work here. Number one: aghhhhhhh. After we were doomed in 2007 by complacency and over-confidence, the last thing we need right now is anything that will breed more complacency and over-confidence. We should be confident - we just added the best pitcher in baseball to an already solid roster. And we need to regain some of the '06 swagger that was lost last year. But this confidence needs to be of the quiet, "we're going to beat you and we know it but we're not going to say anything about it" sort, as opposed to the "we're going to beat you and we know it so we're going to broadcast it and end up looking stupid in the end" sort.

Secondly, I'm a little concerned that the Mets' players might be expecting a little bit too much from Santana. Not that he's not likely to win at least 15 games - especially in the National League. But the rest of the Mets cannot let themselves see him as some all-powerful, messianic savior, similar to the kid in CYO basketball who scores all the points.

Johan Santana is an awesome acquisition, obviously; and the Mets definitely know that having a bona fide ace at the top of the rotation is going to be huge this year. But our team and fanbase also need to remember that 25 players win games, series, divisions, and championships, and that Santana is just a piece of the greater puzzle.

Especially after being supremely cut down to size just four months ago, I trust the Mets to stay grounded and not get too far ahead of themselves. Then again, I trusted the Mets to rise above mediocrity for about four months last season and it never happened. This year, though, the last thing anyone wants is another colossal embarrassment. Here's Carlos Delgado, he of the "sometimes I just think we get a little bored" comments at the end of last season:

"You can talk all you want, you can say all you want, but at the end of the day, all that matters is what happens between the two white lines," Delgado said. "I think the addition of Santana is a big key for us. I think we got the best team. It's just a matter of going out there and executing." (newsday)

It's fine to think you're the best, but you have to go out and back it up on the field. The Mets have the right attitude going into Spring Training. Fulfilling this season's potential will be about maintaining proper focus and discipline, and if Willie Randolph is good for anything he should be able to help foster the right approaches to taking back the National League East. The Mets know that they're in solid position to be a juggernaut this season, but for this to happen they also must understand the importance of keeping both feet on the ground.

(Picture courtesy nytimes.com)

Pitchers and Catchers

Pitchers and Catchers have reported to Mets camp, as another baseball season slowly comes upon us.

The four-month slog from early fall to mid-February seemed like even more of an eternity this year. After the way last season ended, the only story for most of this off-season was the tragic irony of the Mets' need for an ace and perceived impotence in the hot stove market. In a year where we as Mets fans are more eager than ever to turn the page, there was little to look up about for most of the winter as the Phillies and Braves made small but significant upgrades, while the haters and the naysayers dumped on the Mets and said we were nothing more than a third place team.

The thing about perceptions is that they can do a pretty effective job of influencing reality. Coming to camp with virtually the same team as the one that collapsed last September probably would have put us in contention, but we'd be hearing it from those haters and naysayers and the entire season would have been played under an asphyxiating cloud of uncertainty and doubt.

There's nothing in baseball, or life, like a fresh start, and instead of doom and gloom the narrative going into Spring Training reads much more optimistically. The biggest thing the Johan Santana deal did was re-establish the Mets as the team to beat in the NL East - sorry Jimmy Rollins. With their dominance in 2006 and position atop the division for most of last season, for the first time since the late 80s the Mets were the team everyone tried extra hard to beat - that made it harder to halt the collapse once it started. The sense, of course, was eventually lost at the end of last year, but now it's back.

For all of the renewal associated with the Mets and being a Mets fan since Willie and Omar took over, the team still hasn't climbed the big hump. We've been competitive, fun to watch, and our games have been well-attended again. But the final hurdle still hasn't been cleared, and in that sense getting Johan Santana almost makes the start of this Spring Training feel like Spring Training in '06.

Spring Training

Back then we had made several major off-season acquisitions, and as the season got underway, Mets fans most of all were cautiously optimistic. We knew we had a good team, but the Braves had still won 14 straight division titles, and we didn't quite make it the year before.

This year, we're humbled by the collapse but also aware that our team just got lucky and acquired the best pitcher in baseball to emphatically fill the hole at the top of our rotation. We had a good team to begin with, better than the haters and naysayers would have given us credit for, but now we don't have to hear about our lack of an ace or marketable prospects. As fans, we're cautiously optimistic yet again, this time that the new buzz generated by bringing in Johan Santana will help us kick out all of last year's demons and own the National League again.

You'd rather have a buzz surrounding your team in mid-February than dark, ominous clouds, and the buzz this season is as bright and sunny as the Port St. Lucie sky. It's a different buzz than last year, when everyone was excited because we almost made the World Series the year before, but there wasn't as much substance behind it because we hadn't really done much to tangibly improve our team.

And the gigantic tease that was last season followed the same script of all talk and no substance. The Mets talked like champions and played like losers when it counted. Now we have the opportunity to make up for it. The sense around Mets camp, so far at least, seems promising. It will be all about making good on this year's late winter buzz.

(Pictures courtesy metsblog, springtrainingonline.com)

2007-2008 Super Bowl Champions

An extended commentary on Johan Santana and the Mets vastly enhanced prospects for 2008 is forthcoming. In Omar We Trust.

But it's necessary first for us to pay homage to the extraordinary Super Bowl Champion New York Giants. Quite honestly I wasn't sure when I was ever going to say that. The Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.


I've written a few times in this space about the Giants and Eli Manning, Spagnuolo's D and the sense I had after they beat the Cowboys that they had nothing else to prove to me. I'm devoted to no sports team more than I am to the Mets, but this is the greatest season I've ever watched. I've been following the Giants, too, since I was five years old. I cried during the waning moments of Super Bowl XXXV, have the 41-0 win over the Vikings on tape, remember the brutal loss in 2003 (the '02 season) to the 49ers, was there when Danny Kanell and co. blew it in '97, and have watched the end of the last two seasons with the same disgust as every die-hard Giants fan. In short, the Mets play for only six months every year. I depend on the Giants to get me through at least 4 of those off-months, and anticipate the first week in September with the same excitement (well, almost) as the first week in April.

This has to be considered one of the greatest Super Bowls ever, one of the greatest Super Bowl upsets ever, one of the greatest upsets - period - ever, and one of the greatest seasons in NFL history. For the Giants, this was the true perfect season.

Not measured in an undefeated record, all-time scoring marks, or having a supermodel-dating quarterback who threw 50 touchdown passes in the regular season. Not measured by the genius of a coach going for a record-tying fourth Super Bowl with an unmatched year of icing on the cake.

No, the 2007-2008 Giants, the little team that could, told they couldn't by the sports pundits, kept alive by the right arm of the quintessential little brother, the Mama's boy who finally found himself, treated their fans to a roller-coaster month of victories against football's best. Over the Cowboys, their playboy quarterback, and their 12 pro-bowlers in Dallas. Over the legendary Brett Favre against the legendary Packers in legendary Lambeau Field in conditions that could be described as nothing less than epic and legendary. Over the New England Patriots, inevitable champions, penciled in at 19-0 since mid-October. 18-1.

You can't help but feel good for Eli Manning

The Giants can't be seen as anything short of a team of destiny. A team that had to fight to even make the playoffs, who lost several big games in the regular season, becomes just the second team in NFL history to win a Super Bowl without having played a home playoff game. (The Steelers set the standard two years ago) This is a team that went just 10-6 in the regular season, but moved past all the uncertainty, began to believe in itself at the right time, and did its thing with grit, guts, moxie, and determination. They stayed in every playoff game - in each they trailed at some point in the second half, but always were within striking distance - and then were carried over the top in the end by the right combination of good luck and outstanding individual and group performances.

When I was younger, I would look at the lines in the paper, having no clue what they represented, and root for the underdog because it always sounded cooler than "favorite." Since I've been a fan, the Mets and Giants have certainly been "underdogs" quite frequently. But these games, the climax of this season, turned into the kind of thing I'll tell my kids about. As I've grown up, I've developed a stronger and stronger appreciation for those times when I can tell I'm witnessing history. This season, culminating in a dramatic Super Bowl upset of an undefeated team, the perpetual underdogs wrote a mythic underdog story. That catch by David Tyree, after Eli Manning somehow didn't get sacked. This whole thing would make a great movie.

David Tyree celebrated his touchdown score, then made one of the great plays in Super Bowl history

It's funny because this game was kind of like the win that started this entire Patriots dynasty, or whatever you want to call it. In Super Bowl XXXVI, no one gave the Pats a chance, with their rookie quarterback and team of nobody's. The Rams were 14 point favorites - a bigger spread, even, than last night's (the Pats were favored by 12). In Super Bowl XLII, the "all-Joes," in the words of Antonio Pierce, prevailed in another sensational ending to another awesome game. Once again, David won. But this game is even bigger just for the gravity of the circumstances going in. Undefeated vs. 10-6. Victory against the most impossible odds.

It's essential that we appreciate these moments, as sports fans or even as casual observers. There are so many more underdogs than favorites in life, much more rugged scrappiness than so-called perfection from person to person. I would appreciate nothing if I were a Patriots fan today. Sorry, New England, I know this sucks. These circumstances notwithstanding, however, you just have to feel good for the Giants right now. The rag tag bunch with the good guy QB and the defense that was literally dropping to the ground in exhaustion in the 4th quarter from trying to stop the Patriots' offensive juggernaut all night are champions this morning. They pulled it off, and if that doesn't speak to the best feelings and values in most of us, I don't know what does.

There will be a parade for the ages in New York City tomorrow. The Super Bowl Champions will celebrate on Super Tuesday, so I'll be up here trying to get out the vote for Barack Obama, but I'm sure it's going to be just as epic, just as legendary, as the end to this Giants season. Soak it up, fellow Giants fans. We've just witnessed a great run to end maybe the greatest year in our team's history. Our season just came.

(Pictures courtesy giants.com, citizen.co.za, newsday.com. Video courtesy bttwtopteam.com)