Thoughts on Mets Fandom

Being a Mets fan living in Washington, DC, it's very rare to make it up to Shea Stadium to see my favorite team on their home field. That is one of the reasons why my fairly new tradition of going to see the Home Opener with my Dad is a highlight of my year (not to mention the quality father-son time). Yet, in the last two seasons, I have come away disgusted, disappointed, and disillusioned with the Mets organization and especially with a very vocal minority of their fans.

The Mets are supposed to be the quirky, independent, and fun-loving younger brother of the corporate, buttoned-down New York Yankees. During yesterday's home opener, the Mets management seemed to put this quirkiness away in a museum dedicated to Mets past. The tribute video to Shea Stadium included clips of fans parading on the field with posters, a stagecoach riding around the bases, fans charging the field following one of their amazin' victories, and I'm sure none of these endearing events occurred within the last twenty years.

Even after these events and promotions became impractical and unprofitable, the Mets hung onto some semblance of character with a manager like Bobby Valentine and players like Turk Wendell, Benny Agbayani, and Timo Perez. Notice that all of these figures were involved in, what was the turning point of the New York Mets organization, the 2000 World Series.

The 2000 World Series (the Subway Series) is still the most painful experience in my baseball life (including the 2006 Game 7 loss and the epic 2007 collapse). The Mets got thumped by their intra-city rivals, stamping the Mets forever as second-class citizens in their own city. Rather than embracing that status and pursuing the niche market of a beloved team, the Mets organization set out to copy the Yankee winning machine. The last two managers in the post-Bobby Valentine era have been Art Howe and Willie Randolph. They tried to replace Valentine with two Joe Torre clones who have emphasized "professionalism", another word for boredom (honestly, who would you rather have in the dugout, Torre who might as well be asleep, or Valentine and his fake mustache?).

Unfortunately, a copy is never quite as good as the original. The Mets organization and the Mets fans are trying to be the Yankees and doing it badly. The Mets wanted more money, so what do they do? They rip-off the Yankees' idea and create a local area sports network which provides biased coverage and cheesy news. The Mets wanted a new stadium, so what do they do? They design a new ballpark that desperately tries to look like every other new stadium in the country and removes 10,000 seats, forcing up ticket prices and making people turn to the Mets own network to watch the games. I understand Major League Baseball is a business, but, it doesn't mean that I have to enjoy seeing my team lose its identity for a few innings of Johan Santana.

Even more disappointing is the Mets fan reaction to all this. The Mets fan has become a party to this selling out. We oggle the new stadium and buy into the constant Mets' spin. We have changed from "wait 'til next year" to the Yankees' mantra of "World Series or else". This display of absolute obsession was on display at yesterday's game and turned violent on several occassions. Rather than cheering on their own team, several fans in my area barraged a lone Phillies fan with insults, food and beer. There was an actual altercation in the section next to me because a man wore a Nationals hat. This is absurd! Mets fans have always been some of the most passionate fans in baseball, but now we have begun to turn out passion into hatred and unreasonableness. It's also self-defeating; I have a hard time believing that this do-or-die attitude has nothing to do with the Mets' disappointing .500 performance at home the last few years.

I love the Mets and I can't imagine myself rooting for any other team, but I'm afraid that the Mets I loved are no more. Rooting for Yankees-lite with a bunch of wanna-be Yankee fans is just not the same.