2 posts tagged “mets”
I swore off the whole damn thing not a week ago. I vowed that I would shun for the rest of the baseball season a team that I had long rooted for - the New York Mets.
But that's like kicking the White Horse cold turkey.
Not going to happen.
Once upon a time my Mets were a pack of loveable also-rans - playing hard, having fun but not always coming out on top.
But they had their surprises. I was too young for the baseball miracle that was the 1969 champion Mets. But I saw a lousy team suddenly blossom and make it to the World Series in 1973. I was hooked.
They weren't the Yankees (the other New York team - - - the ones we must forever be compared to). The Yanks were juggernauts without a soul. They threw around big money contracts and lured big names.
Not my Mets. They grew their players through the minor leagues.
And then came 1986. The Mets were rough-and-tumble, scrappy and pugnacious. And they won. Big. And they won a championship. A winning team that you could give your heart to.
The years became lean. Then a period where we took some pretty good shots at the top. Once we made the World Series, but the hated Yanks beat them. Then another backslide.
But a couple of years ago the Mets came of age again. They grew new talents... a poster-boy third baseman who could hit the tar out of the ball. A Dominican speedster who electrified the crowd with his all-around skills. And the Mets did something else -- they started to spread the money around too. And they added big-time established stars to their lineup.
Mets fans were okay with that, especially when we made the playoffs in 2006 and came a win away from the World Series. So close. And we were fine with these guys.
Then a year later - 2007 - they choked. A sports term - choke - meaning you have the win in your grasp and you let it get away. That's what they did, losing an ungodly number of games at the end of that season and giving up what seemed a sure hold on first place.
We were hurt, but believed we'd get over it. And then the Mets continued spending big. They forked over something like $137 million to land the services of an elite pitcher. That's okay, we Mets fans thought, they got to turn it around.
And this year -- with all that talent -- they played like logy uncles with their belts undone after Thanksgiving dinner. They seemingly lacked heart and hustle and drive. They were damn hard to watch. They were like the A student who couldn't stop cutting up in class.
So after a particularly bad loss - I vowed I'd stop following the team I had always followed. I made it public (well, at least as public as my Facebook and Twitter sites).
And for a few days I paid them no mind. Then I glanced at the sports pages. Then I check the score on the computer (just a quick glance mind you).
Then a funny thing happened. They started winning, beating teams who were ahead of them in the chase for the playoffs.
And tonight, as I finish this post, they have won their fourth-in-a-row. And they look, well, worthy of the fan adoration I've always showered on them.
Now, I know how this sounds. It's pathetic in a way. I accept that. I'm a grown man with kids and a job and bills to pay.
Why get so worked up about a ball team.
And even if you accept the fan concept -- why get so carried away, like some swoony teen-age girl.
I don't know. I can't explain it.
Just like I could never explain to my parents my ritual at night when going to sleep.
On one wall of my bedroom I had plastered posters of every Met player of the day. It was to the left of my bed.
If they won, I would sleep on my left side, facing the poster. If they lost, I'd go to the right, giving the poster papers my back.
Tonight I sleep on the left side.
So how does it feel my journalism compadres?
How do you enjoy the life of being examined from every corner, judged on every output?
Once upon a time we'd have to deal with angry phone calls or letter to the editor. We could field the call and chalk it up to "another disgruntled reader/viewer/listener." The letter might make in the paper, might not.
We did our thing and who would really change it.
Oh, but now it has changed. We - the scrutinizers - are being scrutinized. From every corner and in every fashion.
We have our constant critics and our in-house complaint stations. We have the self-investigations and the reformers.
So tell me my fellow-journos, how's it feel being on the inside of that globe?
I'm a sports junkie and a devotee of the New York Mets. The team has played lousy and just changed manager. The new man in charge, Jerry Manuel, has a gift of the gab. Over the weekend he entertained the press before the team was ready to head back to their home field. The fans have been rough on the under-achieving Mets. Some players are getting booed just as they step onto the field.
So one of the reporting gaggle asked Manuel how one of the boo-birds favorite target - a scuffling reliever - would handle the hoots back in New York. Manuel spoke about how the most beautiful flowers need not only fertile soil but fertilizer. It was a colorful way of saying that the booing can only make the players stronger.
But that's not how the New York Post heard it. "Manuel Likens Angry Mets Fans To Fertilizer," was the headline. This has long been the Post's scrubby style - twist and turn words so that it fits a nice narrative, in this case: New manager kicks fans and keeps the team in a beleaguered state.
The old days might have meant a phone call to an editor (likely ignored) or a piece of mail plopped in the ghetto of the letters section.
Now ... the Post is judged -- and with the full quote provided so you can make the call. And it's not just by one blogger, but by many. And the press performance also becomes part of the narrative. And sometimes it leads to a public flogging by none other than Keith Olbermann.
So how does it feel to be judged, dear journalists? It's damn uncomfortable sometimes. And it can throw us offguard, make us think twice about a story approach or the use of a quote (although I doubt the NY Post feels the same. To them any publicity is good publicity).
Perhaps, in this case, turnabout is not only fair play but maybe makes the press play fair.
Maybe it makes our work stronger (And note, I'm not bringing fertilizer into this, lest someone gets the wrong idea).
