Mets Fans: A Balanced Load?

I don’t think Mets fans are any more reasonable or have any more perspective.

Maybe there are more fans that are than other teams, but certainly not enough to create any real trend.

For what it’s worth, accepting it as a given that a team is rebuilding/not competing and that one is okay with that from a long term perspective does not make a fanbase more reasonable.

but personally, Mets fans are some of the worst ones out there. A lot of it probably has to do with the crummy radio/print/TV media, which, in turn, influences peoples’ opinions of things. “They’ll be there for the team through thick and thin”? Because of our repeated misfortunes over the last couple of years, a large segment of the bandwagoning people have detatched themselves from the general fanbase (a good thing, relatively speaking), but how many “true” fans have you heard say things like, “Boycott Citi Field until X”, or “Yay, we signed Chris Young! When do we win the World Series?” or, “Sign Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford and trade for Adrian Gonzalez at all costs!” To me, all of those things demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding, I guess I’d call it. A “true” fan, you have that fundamental lack of understanding. “But you rarely find a Mets fans who lets his team’s misfortunes truly upset him any more than a few minutes after the game is over. Life goes on. There’s another game tomorrow.” Personally, I think the 2007 and 2008 seasons, followed by the injury-plagued 2009 team has demented and cynicized a large portion of the fanbase, because you hear too much of what I addressed above in earnest, and true ‘desperation’, or ‘disgust’ or whatever, and resignation when that does not happen.

But, yeah, I don’t have a very high opinion of most other Mets fans, present company excluded.

Many Mets fans are willing to ride out 2011 so that we’ll be much better in 2012. One step backwards to take two steps forward. But no matter how we try to rationalize losing, however, the pain is still there.

just look at the comments on the Mets facebook page. they’re not even paying attention this year. why? because the team doesn’t have a chance to win the World Series. there were no bad contracts given to free agents and they’re indifferent because there’s no new name to latch onto.

the bitching will gear into full swing tomorrow when irritated Jets fans (who know even less about football than they do about baseball) get in on the act.

no, i’m not bitter. not one bit.

I’ve been thinking lately that these two are a collective metaphor for the Mets. This is because we traded away Tom Seaver, but kept Ed Kranepool.

I’ve got to repeat this, because after 33 years, I still am dumbfounded. We traded away Tom Seaver. We traded away one of the ten greatest starting pitchers of all time. We traded away “the franchise.”

On the other hand, we kept Ed Kranepool. Even in the free agency era, there are still players who spend a long career with one ball club. Players like George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Tony Gwynn, Sr., Derek Jeter and Kirby Pucket come to mind. Who is the closest that we have had to them? Ed freaking Kranepool. The local kid who played in 18 seasons for the Mets. If Kranepool was with another team, he might have been a retired professional baseball player in 1969 at the age of 24. The man gets an 18 year career, with a ridiculous pension and a World Series ring, that produced 4.4 rWAR, and he’s a fair weather fan. You would think that he might show a little gratitude. Then again, any team stupid enough to keep Kranepool for 18 seasons, while trading away Tom Seaver, probably doesn’t deserve his respect.

The Mets, when they suck can really damper my summer considering what just happened to the Jets AGAIN and the recent history of the knicks. A long uneventful baseball season hurts more than any other sport. I’ll be watching and speculating with WHAT I HOPE ISN’T false hope from pitchers and catchers in 3 weeks through the dog days up until October when the Phuckin Phillies will probably rub another trophy in our face. Do I care too much? sure. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

tend to take individual losses in stride but extended losing streaks can put me in a long funk. The only exception was game 7 of the 06 NLCS. I watched it with my grandfather a Mets fan sice the start of the team and it has to be ranked as the most heart wrenching loss of my entire time as a sports fan.

Therefore, we have developed mechanisms for dealing with the Mets failures. We often have the process either shown to us by older Met fans or we learn very fast. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, we simply know how to deal with it. The thing about the Mets is that you can’t fall out of love with them. You just move on to the next mind blowing, heartbreaking occaision. One thing I have noticed about Met fans is that there is always something that we are ULTRA competitive about. Work, school, hop scotch, alcoholism whatever it may be we are determined to be anti-met in our real lives.

I honestly feel that it’s hard to judge the Mets fanbase based on the last decade. I follow the Mets mainly due to my friends (and soon my hopefully future career) and I have watched this fanbase deal with the laughable Steve Phillips getting to keep his job while Bobby V, a talented manager in a sea of untalented managers, loses his job for something that I don’t believe was his fault, from having one of the most talented cores in baseball surrounded by mediocrity like Luis Castillo, Ollie Perez, and so on, and managed by someone who literally chuckles after loses and injuries and so on.

I mean, this isn’t like the Royals, who just seem to maintain a constant level of low expectations. Mets fans should rightfully have high expectations for their team because they should be better than this and they should be contenders with the talent they have, and I don’t think they just shrug off a loss like the article suggests, because I don’t think any caring fanbase just shrugs off bad management & a poorly run organization like that when the team has the potential to get to the WS. I think these days they might, due to the last 2 seasons and the common sense realization that they’re probably not going to be a contender in the NL East for another few years or so, but I think the rebuilding phase might be somewhat exciting for Mets fans this season, especially with a new GM & manager.

I’ll be honest, I somewhat envy the Mets fanbase because of shit like this that I have to deal with on my end…

In stark contrast to the most vocal Yankee fans—who insisted an already loaded team HAD TO get Cliff Lee OR ELSE—I feel like most Mets fans are measured and reasonable in their expectations for 2011.

oughta spend more time reading post game commentary here @ AA. I think he’d see things differently.

Sniff-sniff. You guys (and gals) smell what I smell? Baseball season. A dim light flickers in the distance. “CAN’T WAIT!”

i sit in my basement listening to choppy sounding mets broadcasts on WFAN from philadelphia.

pooping

Steady Eddie says he doesn’t watch the Mets unless they’re “a good product.”

I don’t agree

I don’t know there is some satisfaction in being a fan who suffers though bad baseball and then finally seeing the team become something. I know I was young but I remember watching the Mets in the late 70s and seeing some bad teams. Then all of a sudden you see Mookie come up , and Hubie Brooks who had to be dealt to make us better. You start to see some excitement. then guys come via trades or FA like Kingman coming back, and Foster but break your Met heart. Finally Keith Hernandez comes, Strawberry and Doc come out of the minors, a very good supporting cast fills in and boom you have 1986 and all the great feelings.

as much as it pains me to not win, that heart break is what makes winning so much better. It is true with the Mets there is some satisfaction just havinga wining season and making the playoffs. a WS win is so rare you have to enjoy the smaller wins.

As a Steeler fan it is so much different, if the Steelers do not make at least the AFC Championship the season is a total failure, and really unless there is a SB win they have come up short of expectations every year

when the Mets win and if the Islanders ever win again, there is a different feeling for me than when the Steelers win. A feeling of removing the torture just for 1 off season

Mets Fans: A Balanced Load?

If you want to indict me as apathetic or a ‘fair-weather fan’, that’s your opinion. Losses don’t bug me and wins, while awesome, don’t usually raise my spirits. It is just a game to me not life and death, and I affiliate myself with a team I enjoy and cherish immensely but they have little to no control over my emotions.

I simply realize that I do not know as much about baseball as I think I do, hence, I’m extremely disinclined to make snap judgments about the Mets’ state of affairs like the litany of boisterous callers who bombard WFAN with apocalyptic proclamations on the team from Queens. I find that I live my life much better by simply letting the outcome go 5-10 minutes after the game has ended and going on with my life. Don’t misconstrue this as me not caring about the team, but they’re not everything to me. I’m just wired to move on from whatever outcome may occur in a given game, and still have a sense of ‘cynical optimism’ (oxymoron, perhaps) because tomorrow’s outcome is still unknown.

That being said, I do envy people who still can watch the game through a lens of subjectivity. I’ve immersed myself into sabermetrics so heavily, that sometimes I only watch games objectively, which can be pretty damn boring. In a way, I’m quite glad the broadcasts only show the rudimentary statistics because they actually shine a light on the same kid who cringed when the Mets lost 5 in a row in 1998 to lose the Wild Card and had to live through the Yankees winning 4 in 5 years in Northern NJ while just getting into the sport.

While you can dismiss certain parts of Calcaterra’s statement as complete bullshit, there is a kernel of truth because he describes me perfectly. I have no qualms with the ‘die-hards’ at all, you have a different experience and a different way of approaching the Mets and that is fine. I just do not go about it the same way and I hope you don’t begrudge me for doing so.