Opinion: The Season is Over
…this stinks…it really does…i’ll write more tomorrow, but before i shut it down for the day, let me just say how disappointed i am…
…i was painfully disappointed in 1988, when the Mets lost to the Dodgers in the NLCS; and i was painfully disappointed during 1999’s NLCS, when after a miraculous come back against the Braves in Game 5, they lost in Game 6; and i was disappointed last season, after Endy Chavez’s outstanding catch, and with momentum on their side, the Mets layed up and squandered yet another NLCS…
…this time, they didn’t even get the 
opportunity…
…this year, they had a seven-game lead with just over two weeks of baseball left to play…instead of seizing the opportunity, they lost 12 of their final 17 games, to finish with one more loss on the year than the Phillies, who saved their bad play for April and May, instead of September and June, like the Mets, and such is baseball…every game counts…and so the Mets played one additional bad game…one game, some place between April 1 and September 31, and they will not get to the post-season because of it…
…as you know, i never lost faith, actually…for whatever reason, unlike the previous let downs, i never doubted that this team would lose…yet they did…and i think that’s what makes this so hard to accept…
…in the end, i believe this current group of players got a bit sloth like through much of the summer, and those bad actions became habit and spilled over in to crunch time…i hesitantly blame Willie Randolph, because while i respect his confidence and believe it is ultimately a good thing, i suspect it may also have helped to create a sense of entitlement that morphed in to a sense of apathy, which led to the team’s uninspired play…ultimately, however, i mostly fault the players, who are professionals, and yet who actually went on record as acknowledging their malaise, like Carlos Delgado, who in early September told reporters, “We’ve got so much talent, I think sometimes we get bored.”…there’s nothing worse than wasted talent unfortunately, a price will be paid for this disappointment, and that’s what i am most disappointed about…
…i like these guys…i have enjoyed cheering for them…and, for the most part, they have been a ton of fun to watch…i liked the smiles, the hi-five dances, the walk-off wins, the celebrations, the quirkiness, the SI covers, and the electricity that we saw so much of over the last two seasons…but, because of the last 30 days, that is all going to change now…
…this team almost certainly cannot return in its current form…when you think about it, ever since Carlos Beltran’s strike out in Game 7 of last season’s NLCS, this team has done nothing but retreat, and i don’t know how the same group of men can re-group after all that disappointment and unfulfilled potential…this is not to say they must rebuild, not at all, but the general dynamic of this team will need to change…there are people who need to go, and who that will be remains to be seen…
