My mother’s always sending me odd Mets/baseball cartoons she sees. This one, and I’m not sure where it’s originally from, came in the mail the other day. If you don’t know who Sisyphus was, here’s his Wikipedia page. Basically it’s a Greek myth about a king who tried to outsmart Zeus and was punished by being forced to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity. Just when the ball reaches the top, it would fall back to the bottom.
Presumably this is a statement on the Mets quest for a championship. Everytime things start to get good, the boulder roles back to the beginning. Perhaps it’s Sisyphus in the back of peoples’ minds when they call for a fire sale. After all, Sisyphus doesn’t start pushing the boulder again when it’s only rolled halfway back down. I have no idea why the Mets player is wearing #1.
Perhaps the cartoon is only referring to the Mets of recent times, since they have successfully pushed the boulder to the top twice in their history. Although perhaps the last time it was about to fall it got stuck on Bob Stanley and Bill Buckner.
The cartoon might be better attributed to baseball as a whole. To win a championship a team has to accomplish so many tasks, from signing and promoting the right players, maintaining health and effectiveness, successfully navigating a tricky 162 game season and finally three quick-shot short playoff series before the end and it can certainly seem daunting.