Wednesday, January 25, 2012

A Bittersweet Miracle: A Look Into the Met Mentality.

    It seems the Mets are a team built on destiny. The basis of which is amazing and miraculous. Of which has become part of their history, imbued in the mentality of fans. Given these miracles, this destiny must be failure, a weaker sibling of the far dominant New York Yankees.
   According to Dictionary.com a miracle is: 1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. 2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God. Which is included with two other generic terms.
   The Mets were first given this image in 1969, their first trip to the World Series. They were faced with beating the Baltimore Orioles, who had a vaunted staff of four aces, two of which would win Cy Young Awards; the Mets were known since there 1962 inception as losers. The most remarkable example being their premeire year were they lost a record 120 games... it still holds today. They won the 1969 World Series in five games, against all odds.
   This trip has been ingrained in Met culture for years. Remember what a miracle is: An act of God. One of the tenets of being a Mets fan is Almighty God has to intervene for us! There is nothing wrong with getting by with a wing and a prayer, but it seems to imply that God only helps the Mets sometimes. He won't help us All the Time, which most Met fans would like to happen.
   This leads to a subtle acceptance of futiliy. If not for some miracle, we are not to succeed, which seems to be more of a curse. A thought that lowers expectations. If one becomes a Met fan, its implied we are going to be terrible; we inherently have no athletic talent, and we need divine intervention.
   It is hard to go into past 20 years of Met history to see when they were, at least "lucky." This is because I have a weak handling of history in the 1990s and I can't objectively see which moments were deemed miraculous from 2000 to now because having lived through this team's history, I have found it burdensome to relearn it through historical ends.
   I'd like to point out that there are only two periods were the Mets were inarguably dominant: 1986 (Champions) and 2006 (losing in the second round). When entering World Series they have always been underdogs except for 1986. This includes: 1969 (Orioles), 1973 (Athletics), 2000 (Yankees). Even in 1986, they astoundingly came back in Game 6, as highlighted by the Bill Buckner error, to win, and ultimately, to be crowned champions.
   Beating the odds has become a necessity in order to remain relevant. Instead of being a smartly run organization in the vein of the Dodgers, Yankees, or even the Marlins; Met fans are at the mercy of random chance for what may seem to be years to come.

Fred Wilpon: current owner


Sunday, January 22, 2012

To commemorate the nacient beginnings of this blog, I am posting up bloopers instead or actual news. Enjoy!




Special thanks to Mr. Casey O'Connell, who's been with this blog since day one!

I would also like to include this link to the original "Who's on First" skit that this blog's title pays tribute to.