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Biggest Week of Mets Baseball in Years

This next week or two may be the biggest games the Mets have played since the last week of 2008, and they also might be the biggest games they’ll play for years.  The Mets record, as well as the Phillies and Braves, will greatly determine the look of the team going forward this year, and maybe even next year too.

Sandy Alderson has said he would consider trading Carlos Beltran right now a white flag, but if the Mets play poorly over the next two weeks, that white flag is inevitable anyway.   It’s probably not just Carlos Beltran either; The Mets won’t get a ton for guys like Chris Capuano or Jason Isringhausen, but if the chances of contention plummet there will be little reason to keep them.   If they manage to climb closer in the race, the small return from trading those guys won’t be worth gutting the team.  In a way, the Mets could finish a handful of games above or below .500 based on how they do in these next bunch of games.

Either way this season will likely be viewed as a step in the right direction, but if the Mets fall out of it here and restructure the team with next year in mind, the record and excitement levels will fall.   That probably won’t be enough to prompt many to invest in this team, raising projected income and in turn, payroll.  As the memory of the last Mets game fades, we’ll be subjected to more financial news regarding the Picard lawsuit and the Madoff mess.  Their will be speculations about Einhorn’s control, about how much the payroll can possibly go up, and if the Mets will actually field a competitive team.   So the only real news will be mostly doom and gloom again, which won’t help sell tickets.  Just today someone called into WFAN in the brief 20 minutes I had it on proclaiming there is no way the Mets compete for five or six years.

If the Mets climb back into the race and get closer, Sandy Alderson will be more likely to keep players like Beltran, and may even look to add a reliever or someone, especially if the player can be helpful beyond this year too.   Whether or not they can or will win a playoff race is not the point here, the point is that if they stay close and prove that they can play with anyone it suggests that the Mets may not be years from competing.   They could go into the offseason with fans thinking they’re getting close and with the right moves, including resigning Jose Reyes, the Mets could be a very good team next year.  

There’s going to be a lot of stuff to watch with this team this year, and if they remain competitive and winning games they’ll bring in fans to watch versus fans switching gears to what could be a returning NFL season or something else.  Jose Reyes could have a record breaking season, as despite spotting the opposition 11 or more games, he’s still got a commanding lead in base hits.  David Wright will be returning, one of the Mets franchising players who they’ve sorely missed.  Johan Santana may return, and while that’s still up in the air, as is his effectiveness, it will be nice to see him on the mound again.  I would like to be at his first game back if I can at least.

It all starts tonight against the Phillies with your hero in attendence.   The Phillies aren’t taking the Mets seriously, opting to give  Halladay and Lee some extra rest coming off the break and pushing them back until after the weekend.  Facing Vance Worley, Cole Hamels who the Mets routinely beat, and Kyle Kendrick is not a daunting task.  Hopefully the Mets can get a hot start to the second half, while exposing the Phillies pitching depth, and start catching both them and the Braves who are playing the Nationals this weekend.

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All…or nothing.

This team is very all or nothing this year.  It feels that way sometimes in games, and now the whole season is at that point.  The whole relationship with the fans is at that point too.  Win, and everythings golden.  lose, and the floodgates will have opened.  

This season has the potential to be great, to create two or three or more all-time Mets favorites, ones that might even surpass guys like Keith Hernandez and Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry.  
It could also tumble down, and have fans calling for these guys heads.  Even the ‘franchise’ ones.  This weekend will start to tell the story, and hopefully it’s only the beginning of the story.
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Mets Believe Mets Fans Believe They Can Win

I was at the Subway Series games this weekend, and while a lot of the juice has gone out of it, there was still excitement in the air. The lack of juice could be attributed to both teams struggling. I didn’t hear one “Jet-ers Boy-Friend” chant for A-Rod. No Hip-Hip You’re-Gay! No Captain Cologne! (Admittedly, some of these are better left unsaid) There were still a good amount of Yankees fans being positive, cheering “Der-ek Jet-er” and other assorted lame Yankees chants. Despite the Yankees being in arguably a worse position than the Mets, their fans are still more optimistic.

The argument everyone always falls back on is they’ve won in the past. But winning in the past doesn’t do anything for winning in the present. The only thing it affects is confidence, and part of that is fan confidence. Who do you think has more confidence in their team, and their own performance? Cano, or Castillo? Both are playing badly, but one guy is having his head called for constantly and booed. The other is certainly souring faces, but he’s not yet being chased out of town or having fans seriously consider releasing him. Sometimes if you tell someone that they are a certain way enough, they believe it themselves. When Delgado comes up to the plate, everyone at Shea is convinced and screaming at him that he’s going to ground out to second, so he’s thinking about grounding out to second. Just like you can’t stop thinking about the giant elephant in the room. Conversely, Derek Jeter comes up in a big spot thinking he’s going to come through because that’s what everyone always tells him he does. So he hits roughly the same ground ball, but instead it seems to go a little faster, and just seems to find that hole between second and first.

So how about we go about our business as Mets fans with a little bit of swagger and confidence. We just crushed the Yankees, winning the series 4-2. Play that way all season and the Mets would win well over 100 games. We’ve gained on the Phillies, and we’re coming with a vengeance that they should be frightened of. Even bad teams can win frequently, and whether you think the Mets are good, bad, or somewhere in between, lets go out there and root like we think and know they will win the game instead of constantly telling them how they’re going to fail and not good enough for us. Maybe they’ll start to believe it too.

Oh, and Jerry Manuel telling everyone that the it’s the Yankees town isn’t helping. All it did was give fodder to the newspapers to continue talking about the Yankees and treating the Mets like the second team.

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How I Got Kicked Out of Shea Stadium

How I Got Kicked Out Of Shea Stadium

I didn’t cause trouble, start a fight, have any alcohol, berate Barry Bonds, a Yankee fan, or anybody at all. I didn’t interrupt the game, distract anyone or make a nuisance, yet when me and my friend moved our seats in the 8th inning of Thursday night’s Met game we were kicked out, and not just of the seats, or the level, but of the whole stadium. Now I’m not saying that I belonged there, or I had any right to be where I was, but the idea that me and my friend sitting down in a seat was in any way a security concern that necessitating escorting us out of the building.

Only ticketed fans are allowed in the field level seats, but everyone is allowed in for batting practice. Since the majority of ticket holders in the field level are often corporate boxes and owned by businesses rather than fans, there are always a ton of extra seats, more so then any other sold out section. We’re not alone in doing this, I routinely hear and see other people who have stayed in the level from batting practice and fill one of these empty seats. Sure it’s a little unfair that we paid $9 for the seat and the people legitimately buying those seats paid $60+, but we’re not taking away anything from them. I’m not exactly rolling in money at the moment, but the Mets are one of those luxury’s that I’m willing to spend money on. Between me and friend we probably spend $2000 last year on the Mets, which is a lot of money for us, even if it’s nothing to the Mets. We’re mini-season plan holders this year, we support the team, good and bad. We’re not trying to put one over on the Mets, we’re just trying to enjoy the game.

We sat out in the outfield where we were hanging out for batting practice, hoping to catch a foul ball that sliced into the seats, or a ball tossed from the Mets in right field. Later on we moved to some seats near middle of the level, behind the Mets dugout. In the 8th inning, a lot of people got up to leave, so we walked down to one of these sections, 6 rows from the field, figuring it’s not often you can even buy these seats if you wanted to, it’s a nice view. We sat down and a security guard came over and sat across from me, and asked for my ticket. I responded that we’d just leave. I was thinking “Busted, oh well, no big deal, I’ll wander away and watch the game from somewhere else.” He continued to ignore everything I said and kept asking for my ticket, so I finally caved and gave it to him, thinking maybe he just wanted to make sure I didn’t sneak into the stadium or something. Eventually he asks us to get up and come with him, so we get up and go with him, escorted by 10 other security guys at the end of the aisle and they keep pointed and telling us to walk that way, instead of leading us anywhere. They’re rude and nasty the whole time as my friend tries to ask them what the big deal is and what they want from us. They walk us to Gate D, and push us out, telling the guy posted there not to let us back in, keeping my ticket in the process.

What bothers me most is that we obviously weren’t causing trouble, and once the game was over we’d have been allowed there anyway to try to get autographs behind the dugout. Although I have noticed a security guard standing on the dugout after a game be really nasty to a bunch of 12 year old kids hoping to find a Met walking out of the dugout after the game for an autograph. Then there was the clincher last year, when me and my friend waited in the crowd to try to buy a shirt after the game. It was slow, and the place was mobbed. As it ebbed, the security guards repeatedly tried to get people to leave get out. It’s understandable that they just wanted people out so they could finish up and go home, but at the time they were doing this was when the Mets were coming back on the field to celebrate with the fans that were on the field level and had stuck around. So a couple of fans up on the mezzanine weren’t what was keeping them from locking up the stadium.

Obviously this isn’t going to change anything for me, they don’t know who I am and I doubt they’ll really recognize me when I walk back into the stadium Saturday. It’s just a souring experience for the first time I’ve ever left a Met game before it was over, and what I take away from the experience is sad. I’ll remember next time not to respect the security guys, I’ll just walk away from him immediately and head back to my seat, or watch the game from a different location. This situation will be moot in 2009 anyway, when standing room only seats and the layout of the stadium won’t have a designated area where we’re not allowed.