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In a fantastic report for the Daily News, John Harper talks with Howard Johnson, Willie Randolph and Jose Reyes, who is trying to slow himself down at the plate to help avoid the type of slump he had at the end of last season.
Randolph, on Reyes’s slump, as quoted by Harper…
“Jose tried harder, harder, harder – and more was worse for him. But we forget that he’s still young, and the reality is that you’re going to struggle. People are making adjustments on you, and Jose is such a free swinger that he doesn’t make adjustments on the fly… We need to slow him down. It’s hard because he’s in attack mode all the time. Jose’s all go-go-go, and you love that, but good pitchers exploit that aggressiveness… Jose knows he’s a better hitter when he hits the ball down, but when you struggle the way he did last year, you don’t think about those things. I think Jose will be fine.”
…i think jose will be fine, too…as long as they don’t fill his head with too much information…he’s such a delicate case, because what makes him great, i.e., his quick, reckless abandon, is also may lead to his struggles…
…that’s part of maturing, though…learning how to balance it all…when to turn it one…when to turn it off…etc…and i believe, especially based on some of jose’s quotes to harper, that last season helped push along that maturation process…
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i was one of the first to bring jose jose to shea. i heard it at port st lucie from a group of drunken meatheads. i did it at every game i went to in early 06 then one day i heard it over the PA.
that being said, i think its a little old now.
It’s not old … it’s just over done. There’s a difference.
How about when the fans want to chant, the fans will chant! We dont need the PA telling us chant, clap or otherwise. These things are cool when and only when they are initiated by the fans.
Yup … the PA needs a muzzle.
Amen. A chant is only meaningful when fans are feeling a common emotion or having common thoughts which are strong enough to unite them in a universal choral effort. The “Jose” chant lost its appeal for me when the Shea officials caught on and began forcing it on us.
There is nothing that infuriates me more than a PA, scoreboard, or diamond vision telling me how to feel. If I want to chant, I’ll chant. I don’t need Chris Rock to tell me to chant “Let’s Go Mets” or “DJ Casper” and the “Cha Cha Slide” to clap my hands. If we wanted to yell “charge!” we would sound our own bugles.
In addition to the painful artificiality of the PA-induced chants, the sound system itself is wwaayy too loud and really ruins the traditional ballpark atmosphere (which Shea never had a reputation for anyway). Hopefully, the brass will catch onto just how criminal these atrocities truly are and nix the “Jose” chants and all chants altogether. At the least, they need to exclude such behavior from the new ballpark which they allege will have a more simple, comfortable, old-timey feel.
And if my memory serves me correctly, Keith is with me on this one.
How about doing it whenever Jose is actually worthy of praise?
TOTALLY AGREE!! It shouldn’t be EVERY hit or EVERY stolen base or run scored, but just moments when we need him to come through!!!
I was at opening day 2006 right on the field level by 1st base when I first heard and participated in the chant. I then brought it to San Diego when me and a few friends went on a Mets road trip and we chanted until he actually heard us and turned to acknowledge us!!
SINCE THEN IT HAS GOTTEN WAY OUT OF CONTROL….. just because it’s fun to chant, doesn’t mean it is deserved at every at bat…..
MAKE JOSE EARN IT!
that was me you heard by 1st base then
Not sure if this will be posted but I write for Metsmerizedonline.com and this is one of the upcoming topics that I’m blogging about. The article will be posted this Saturday if anyone is interested in reading and leaving their opinions
Help support fellow Die Hard Met Fans!!
yes. Not just that, but when it’s a key moment, when the crowd should be buzzing, when we’re excited.
Oh, and at every single at-bat he has in Citizen’s Bank Ballpark.
i think playing the jose chant and the fans doing the jose chant are appropriate at different times. does that make sense to anyone else?
the PA telling you when to chant it is like it telling you to clap your hands
if the scoreboard doesn’t tell me when to chant, how am I supposed to figure it out?
Only during clutch moments, preferably late in the game, whether its a huge triple to start off an inning or big RBI hit. It has a magical appeal to it and it never feels right hearing it before the 6th inning.
i totally agree…while I love doing the Jose chant as much as the next guy, I think it’s a little overdone.
opening day can’t come soon enough.
Yeah … they got it to the point where they would play it between pitches during his at bats, early in the game. Doing that has the same effect of Hot 97 running Jay-Z songs into the ground. People just get sick of it.
For you non Hip-Hop fans … keep your jokes to yourselves. It was an analogy. :)
I think Ive mentioned this before, but the greatest chant in the history of Shea has to be in Game 6 in ‘06 when Shawn Green got a big hit down the RF line and my entire section in the UD started chanting “Oy Vey, Oy Vey Oy vey Oy Vey, Oy Vey…..Oy Vey.”
I will remember that for the rest of my life….
I was actually told that i was “very rude” for doing that chant….
I’m Jewish and I officially admonish you for participating in a harmless, non-offensive(incredibly spur of the minute,intelligent, and relevant) chant that contributed in us winning a huge game….
Whoever told you that needs to loosen up and get a life. The saying ‘Oy Vey’ itself is about as casual as it gets. Its not even a religous epitathat. Anyway, it was at that moment that I realized we really do have the most intelligent fans in the world….I still laugh when I think about it…
Steve Summers would say that about Green
Definitely need to limit the amount of Jose’s. That “everybody clap your hands” thing needs to go as well, especially since no one continues clapping beyond 2 or 3 seconds after. I don’t understand how it’s useful.
Like the waves of old leave this one up to the fans…that being said i’m even more excited for a Citi Field that is engineered to better retain the sounds of the crowd, the chants, the screams…more rockin than a billy joel concert!
Citi-Arena is going to suck. Too small for New York City. Too expensive for baseball fans that want to go to more than 1 game a year.
We get it you do not like Citi FIELD. Give it up
Wah!!! Because I really need those extra 10,000 seats that nobody sits in during the weekdays….pffft DJ is right man, give it a rest….
Option 5: Constantly . . .From the first pitch to the last out.
Option 6: Only after a “walk-off” steal of home.
ONLY DURING THE PLAYOFFS WHEN JOSE SPARKS A RALLY, PERIOD, END OF STORY.
Feel strongly about this…Why give opposition any other “incentive.” Its alomost embarassing the way the pa system operates during our home games. Feel like its operated by some teenager, but I realize games are geared towards them. Between every friggin’ pitch it seems, their is retarded NOISE! Jose-Jose, to me is just something that should be eliminated.
Can’t get out of mind how St. Louis was singing that in visitors locker room after our season died.
When he drives in a run
I loved the Jose chant when it started spontaneously by the fans and was stimulated by Jose doing something good. A hit, a steal or an RBI. Then it started on the PA system BEFORE he stepped into the batters box. That made me very uncomfortable for a few reasons: Extra pressure on Jose; a reward for being him rather than doing something important in the game and it annoyed the opposing players.
Why look for trouble before he does anything?
Afterwards, it’s great and becomes part of the celebration and the cheering.
My two cents.
I think it is fitting after a big hit or a run scored or something. However, I think of any of the Mets, he is the one with the bullseye on his back, due to this dumb chant and his fervor in playing the game. To be honest, if he wasn’t a Met, he would be another Rollins or Larry.
Uhhh… I can’t believe what I’m reading here… This is a 24 year old man who also happens to have a child…
If he can’t handle the “pressure” of “Jose, Jose, Jose, Jose”, then what is he doing in the big leagues?
I say we stop babying this guy and treat him like what he is: A guy in his mid-20s… Rather than treating him like a 16-year-old.
I find it amazing that so many people worry about trivial rubbish like this. What effect will the Jose chant have on Jose? The other team? Are you morons serious? If only the fans would take the actual nuts and bolts of the game as seriously as they do frivolous crap like this. These are professional athletes. Your effect on them is minimal. Whether the crowd is screaming and yelling or sitting there with their hands duct-taped over their mouths isn’t going to affect the outcome of a game.
Well this is a subject near and dear to my heart. I have always maintained that my brother and I started the Jose chant in 2005. I was at a BK Cyclones game in 2005 when some old soccer fan started chanting “ole ole ole” over and over again, I think he was drunk, haha.
Anyway, we decided to do it for Jose just to see if it caught on, so we started on opening day 2005. We were in a loge box in the right field area. We did it every time he came up, and by the end of the day, after some odd looks, about 100 or so people had joined in.
We went to a game in Philly on June 21 and sat in the upper deck. in right field. Several Philly fans wanted to fight us because we wouldn’t stop doing it during his entire at bat. (Side note, NOTHING annoys those idiots more than constant Mets chant. When you go there, just be as loud as possible, They sit on their hands all game long.)
There were a ton of Mets fans at the game and by the end of the game, we had enough people doing it that I got calls from NY that they could hear the chant on tv. It was after that game that it started to blow up.
I was shocked when I heard it on the PA at Shea one day. I know it had picked up amongst the fans because I would hear it more often and I wasn’t the one starting it. It was awesome.
Last season, I had stopped doing it every at bat. It gets to be too much, and I’m getting older, I need to conserve my voice more!
I feel it makes sense before big games…1st at bat on opening day, against the Phillies, Braves or Yankees. In any big situation, top of the 9th, big rally, etc. it’s a must. When he does something big, of course. and DEFINITELY on the road as MUCH as possible. It really annoys fans of other teams.
It’s a sing songy chant that gets you moving and it can get loud in a hurry. And it’s become more than just a Jose chant, it’s like Lets Go Mets chant in that it is identified with the Mets and you know exactly what team the fans are backing when you hear it.
I’m sure someone will come on and say “you didnt start it! I did” or something like that. That’s fine, I’m sure others thought of it as well. I know when I first did it and I had never heard it before until i did it. So I’m not looking to fight, just telling my little part.
That’s all.
Lets Go Mets!
Just Give Me Jane Jarvis on the Hammond Organ…no p.a. system, it really kills the atmosphere…of …baseball