When the Red Sox lose– the entire city mourns! everyone is depresed. Same with the Phillies and the Cubs (yea there are White Sox fans but Chicago is a Cubs town in every sense)

When the Mets lose– barely half the city mourns! The other half is celebrating because they root for the most succesful franchise in MLB history. Many Mets fans have to catch abuse from Yankee fans, and the mourning process is a more solitary and often interrupted practice. So pity Boston and Chicago all you want– no one hurts more than a Mets fan!

This great collapse has made me wear my Mets hat longer than I would in the past. In the past it was as soon as the Mets were done it was off to my NFL team, not this year. I’m going to wear my hat until the end of 2007. My Mets pride is even more than it was before 2007. The Mets are my team and everyone around me knows it, win or lose, whether it be close or my a landslide.

I’m disgusted and disappointed, yet, proud.

Let’s Go Mets!!

If the baseball gods were fair (and they’re not, in fact they’re without question the most heartless, sadistic bastards money can’t buy) then the WS love would be spread evenly and each team would have to wait exactly 30 years between championships.

Throw in your occasional dynasties (braves/yanks/etc), the fact that some teams can loiter in sub-.500 land for years (pirates) and even bagging a WS every 30 years is a coup (cubs, sox, indians, etc).

But this is our chosen sport, the one we love like no other. The only major sport where the defense controls the ball. The one with coaches and managers who wear uniforms and cleats, not 3-piece suits. A sport where even a star player hitting .333 makes an out 2/3 of the time. No annoying clock to run down. It ain’t over til it’s over.

I have the dubious distinction of being born the same year the Mets were, the morning of the ‘62 all-star game, so that year-by-year breakdown really spoke to me. But I guess, just like my childhood in an extremely dysfunctional family, I try to remember all the good times and block out the bad ones, because despite all the wrinkles there have been many, many fond memories.

‘69 and ‘86 never would have tasted as sweet without at least *some* years of disappointment and heartbreak before them. As you get older, though, you get impatient and just want to see them win one again, ferchristsakes. Or, God forbid, maybe put together a string of 10 straight years either winning the division or the wild card.

Or, failing that, as least string together 10+ consecutive winning seasons, something we’ve never done.

Still, despite my 2007-sized migraine right about now, I’ll never root for any one else. Lets Go Mets.

I’m sure he’s just kidding though.

That’s the game we’ve chosen to fall in love with.

Let’s Go Mets

Ewwwwwwwwwww!

Anyway, here’s the retrosheet box score and recap of that game.