Ya Always Gotta Believe
Fandom is like religion in the sense that it is mostly inherited. It is passed down through your lineage and from a young age you study it, maybe even become obsessed with it. That is exactly the story of my long-term self-semi-abusive relationship with the New York Mets. I became a conscious Met fan around the age of 10.
Sharing the pain with both my father and brother as it is the only sport in which we all are a fan of the same franchise. Rivals during the winter, we all come together every spring to root for the team that inevitably rips our heart out season after season. Only one of us has bared witness to a championship title yet my brother and I welcome each season hoping that this one will be the one. You can imagine with neighbors such as the Yankees it hasn’t been any easy road for us. This however is not an article about how the Mets continuously fail to live up to our expectations (because that would be a novel). This is an article about how the Mets made me fall in love with the sport of baseball and appreciate that when the pieces come together, admittedly few and far between, it’s magic.
Say what you want about the Mets and their seasonal outcomes but one thing remains and that’s the tenacity of the fan base. The phrase “Ya gotta believe” is testament to that statement. Whether it was ya gotta believe David Wright was going to be as talented as promised or that ya gotta believe Pete Alonso would break Aaron Judge’s record for most home runs during a rookie season there is always something to fight for with this team. I learned from a young age that very little would come easy with the Mets. I would witness moments like in Game 7 of the NLCS where Endy Chaves would make the catch of a lifetime and a few innings later Carlos Beltran would get caught looking with two men on and just like that the season would be over (no one to bang on a garbage can I guess). I learned quickly that Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS would be a metaphor for my life as a Mets fan. There will be highs that I will talk about for a lifetime but inevitably there will be lows, like low-lows, that I will be reminded of for a lifetime, most often by a Yankee fan. After that season’s squander and a few therapy sessions I was back in the thick of things believing as any Mets fan would that 2006 would soon be a distant memory. Fast forward 8 years later it was 2015.
At Citi Field, still believin’
2015 started out just like every other year. It was early spring, my family and I were chomping at the bit for a season to remember. Just going off starting pitching alone was enough to lift any Mets fan spirits. Matt Harvey was back from Tommy John. Jacob deGrom was destined for a great season. The infamous Noah (Thor) Syndergaard would make his debut with the Mets as well as Steven Matz, a native Long Islander! We had depth in the batting order as well with names like David Wright, Lucas Duda, and Daniel Murphy to name a few. Shortly after that our spring fever wore off we were all watching an all too familiar movie, the one where the Mets sucked. Plagued by injury and facing a brutal hitting slump the Mets had been barely crawling through the season alive. The height of excitement through July was watching the tears come from the infield in the form of Wilmer Flores after finding out he was a part of a trade deal that of course never came to fruition. I had been all too ready to write the season off as I was having flashbacks from seasons prior when we picked up Yoenis Cespedes.
Yoenis had both offensive and defensive prowess that the Mets surely were missing. After acquiring him in late July, Cespedes came into August and gave the Mets life. Most notably hitting three homers in just one game against the Rockies, only the 11th player in franchise history to do so. Shortly after that our Captain, David Wright made it back into the rotation after a degenerative spinal disease had kept him out of the lineup for a prolonged period of time. In his first at bat since the DL, Wright absolutely launched a homer to the second deck of Citizens Bank Park. Ya gotta believe we were buzzin’! The Mets would go on to clinch the NL in September. I had flashbacks to 2006, it was a magical time to be a fan of the blue and orange.
In the span of 3 short months I had gone from saying “well there’s always the Islanders” to “I think we may win the World Series!!” We would go on to win the first round of the post-season defeating the perpetually competitive LA Dodgers. At this point I was starting to feel weary of the future. Having experienced this same rollercoaster of emotions back in 2006 I was cautious about getting carried away in Mets mania. That all went out the window after sweeping the Cubs. I was all in, we had won the NLCS and all roads were pointing to a ring. Daniel Murphy was hot and had homered seven times, I repeat, SEVEN TIMES in the first two series. Morale was at an all-time high. At this point it would have been smart for me to “check myself” but if your team is rolling you got to be all in right?
Wrong. We all know what happened in 2015 but if I need to remind any new sports fans, the Mets went on to lose the World Series against the Kansas City Royals. After an absolute battle of a Game 1 in which we were defeated I started to get that same feeling as I had back in 2006, impending doom. Game 5 was just that. Harvey had pitched eight shutout innings and looked unstoppable, he had convinced Veteran Manager Terry Collins that he had to pitch the 9th. This was the Dark Knight we all knew and loved. I say this was in the past tense because he then led off the 9th with a walk and let up a double to Hosmer. We went on to lose in the 12th and my dreams were shattered. I was as Frank Sinatra would say, “riding high in September, shot down in October”.
As I sit here writing this during an abysmal last couple of seasons as a Mets fan I can’t say it ever gets easier. All I can say is that the lows are worth the highs. I learned how to be a true fan and to stick with a team despite the anguish that comes along with the franchise fandom. I learned to appreciate the good times and not take them for granted because they don’t come around often. I learned that loyalty makes victories that much sweeter. The Mets are not only a team to me, they are a life lesson. Regardless of the previous season’s outcome I know come springtime I will be back hopes high and soon enough our time will come.