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The New York Mets today announced 4,000 via Twitter, but of course, if you didn’t read the Tweet and just saw the image, you would only be able to guess what the 4,000 was.
Turns out the team last night won its 4,000th-ever baseball game, v. 4,374 losses.
If you’d asked me are the Mets only 374 games below .500 ever, I would have laughed and perhaps suggested they were 1,000 games below .500. But I suppose all those years between 1984 and 1990, when they were well above .500, contributed to this statistic.
At any rate, well done, Mets! Congrats on getting 4,000. Here is what we think the Mets’ graphic probably should have looked like ...
I know — this is a hockey blog. But the Devils play has upset me of late. (Plus, in the summer, this site will likely transform into a lot of baseball talk) And the Mets finally — for the first time since 1984 — have a blue alternate jersey (one for home, one for the road) — and they're debuting tonight in Philly. And it's NOT a black jersey. Doesn't matter the sport — I hate when teams that don't have black in their colour schemes add black to their uniforms. Oh, and did I mention it's currently 7-1 Mets? Please tell me this is a dream, a scenario where the METS are more enjoyable to watch than the DEVILS are right now? No way. No how.
And it hits you at that moment. No more Devils — and all you've got to left to root for is the team represented on this mug. And boy, that is not a good feeling at all. It leaves you longing for September and training camp.
You’ll forgive me. I’m digressing from the usual hockey discussion here to turn to the start of the Major League Baseball season. I promise this will be one of the rare times I switch it up to baseball.
I can’t help myself.
And it’s for all the wrong reasons.
Earlier today, a Mets-related website I love posted a video of Opening Day 2008, the last one ever at Shea Stadium. While it was really nostalgic to watch, it was all the more painful to watch because next week, when the Mets open the season at home, it’ll be at the very-cold, and just-not-home-yet Citi Field.
There are so many reasons why I can’t stomach Citi just yet.
Perhaps it was the opening season, 2009, which was one to absolutely forget.
Perhaps it’s 2010, 2011 and 2012, which were, as most Mets seasons are, dismal.
Perhaps it’s because there are so few great memories.
Not complaining about it, but
the Mets' biggest off-season
move was to introduce these
new blue jerseys — finally.
And that almost changed June 1, 2012 — when Johan Santana threw the Mets’ first-ever no-hitter. And yet, after that moment, the Mets went from being in contention — just a few games out of first place — to oblivion.
So I suppose there are numerous factors.
No memories.
Madoff.
The Wilpons.
And sadly, the notion there’s no hope.
I went to Spring Training this year for the first time. After all, I live in the city the Mets spend two months in each February and March. As I walked around, the most exciting part of it was seeing the Mets announcers — Eddie Coleman and Chris Carlin — and getting to chat with them both.
Yeah, David Wright was there.
But for the most part, it was hard to tell whom anyone was.
And during the course of the few hours I was there, it hit me, as it often does in March, that this season, like so many others, is doomed. Already.
It’s quite the antithesis of being a fan of the New Jersey Devils where, for any given season, we go into thinking a Stanley Cup championship is possible.
With the Mets, it’s now (and often is) wondering about whether they’ll win 70 games. It’s wondering which uniform they’ll wear (there are, after all, about 300 combinations thereof). It’s about wondering if the attendance will breach 20,000 on weeknights. It’s about playing in a stadium that makes me feel like every home game is, in fact, a road game.
Perhaps once the Mets play a post-season game at Citi that will all change. But the problem right there is the notion of a post-season game seems so foreign.
Until there are some memories at the stadium atop, home will always and only be at the stadium below.
Some say 2014 will the year.
But why not 2013?
It’s not like the Wilpons are in financial trouble, right? It’s not like we’re a team in the middle of nowhere where no one cares for baseball. It’s not like this isn’t New York? It's not like the biggest move of the off-season was the announcement that finally — finally — those of us who lobbied for it finally got alternate jerseys that are blue, and not hideous black.
They call the Nassau Coliseum, just a few miles east of Citi, the Mausoleum.
Yet I can’t help but wonder how much Citi Field will seem like a mausoleum come April — shit, Opening Day won’t even likely be a sellout, unless the Mets buy and give the already-overpriced tickets away.
And if April games are barren — and they will be — imagine what it’ll be like in May, June, July, August and lord, September.
It’ll be just another one of those typical Mets seasons — one that is over, like it’s portrayed in “Family Guy,” after the first pitch is thrown.
And boy will that create a lot of memories.
Memories most Mets fans will want to forget before they even happen.
The year 2008 seems like so long ago. We said goodbye to Shea, and with it, decades of good memories, too.
Yes, this is a Devils/hockey blog. But I am going to tell you a baseball story today, one that, ultimately, goes back to our great sport.
Yesterday, my buddy Joel McGuirk and I travelled two miles to go to the Mets’ spring training facility here in our hometown. Joel has lived here in Port St. Lucie for seven years; I am here, now, close to a year. In our backyard is the stadium where the Mets open up their spring season Saturday afternoon — and when we travel the city this and next month, chances are we’ll bump into a Mets’ player, coach, executive or broadcaster.
Yesterday was great. I was just a few feet away from David Wright. And Jonathon Niese. And Terry Collins. I got to have a quick chat with WFAN’s EdColeman. I was able, also, to catch up with a pal, ChrisCarlin, who does Mets’ pre- and post-games on SNY.
There were a couple hundred others there, too — there to see the Mets field balls, play catch and take batting practice.
It was, indeed, enjoyable to watch — for a few minutes. And yet among the hundreds who were there, some were cheering and yelling and screaming when someone knocked a ball out of the park. It was February — and they were into the practice the Mets were putting on.
David Wright signs autographs for fans at the Mets' spring training camp in Port St. Lucie, Fla., on Tuesday, 20 February 2013.
And yet, as I stood there, hopelessly pessimistic that this Mets’ season is going to be as bad as every pundit has said it will be, I once again reverted to my roots. I once again stood there, wishing David Wright was MartinBrodeur, wishing Jonathon Niese was AdamHenrique. I wished Terry Collins was PeterDeBoer. I wished SandyAlderson was LouLamoriello.
Because when it comes down to it, baseball is a bore, really (especially if you root for a team that practically never wins) — and there’s no greater sport than hockey. Period.
Yes, some of the Mets players stopped for autographs, including the aforementioned Wright, and Ike Davis — and others. But it was not the same as if it were hockey players.
Even after all its issues — the lockout comes right to mind — being in the presence of Major Leaguers made me realize, even more, just how much more exciting a game hockey is.
I was a baseball fan before a hockey fan. And I’ll never drop baseball (that is, of course, unless there’s another strike, like 1994).
But sometimes, it takes a trip to the ballpark to realize — there’s no better game, there’s no better sport, there’s no better athletes than there are in hockey.
And no baseball autograph or photograph can or ever will change that.
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