The Mets once endured seven straight years of awful, unwatchable and entirely contemptible baseball. There was an explanation for this: They were an expansion team, the rosters populated by geezers and crowd pleasers and kids not ready for the show. From 1962-68, they were a loveable laughingstock, but in 1969 those kids blossomed into one of the best baseball stories ever told.
The Mets once endured six straight years of wretched, mind-numbing, entirely galling baseball. There was an explanation for this: They were hobbled by awful ownership and terrible management, they were too slow to embrace free agency, and then too cheap to. From 1977-83 they were a detestable disgrace but in 1984 began a resurrection that led them back to the sky.
The Mets once endured six straight years of joyless, hapless, entirely hopeless baseball. There was an explanation for this: Blinded by hubris, arrogant brass decided the arrogant players who had won for them had to go. From 1991-96 they were the worst team money could buy, but in 1997 began to embrace their large-market chops, and began a turnaround that led them back to the World Series.
The Mets are about to conclude a fifth straight year of excruciating, exasperating and entirely infuriating baseball. There is an explanation for this: Mets ownership lost, first, the bankroll and, later, the will to compete. From 2009-13 they have managed to fritter away half the paid fans who attended their games in 2008, have alienated the ones who stayed away, have asked for an endless supply of patience while providing a bottomless slate of empty, awful results.
There is no “but” to add here. Not yet.
The Mets want you to believe the “but” is coming, that by this time next year you will see the ancient corporate credo of “meaningful September baseball” visit Citi Field, that you will be transported to those halcyon years of 1969 and 1986 and 2000 soon enough. They are, in fact, banking on that, banking on you to believe them, and this is the most compelling evidence they can provide:
Because we said so. Trust us.
And that’s tremendous, really, because if there has ever been a trustworthy bunch, it’s the men who own and operate the Mets. Trust us, they say, even as attendance declines and ratings diminish, even as they’ve been forced to take their top farm club to Nevada because they were chased out of Buffalo by an affiliate that grew to abhor them.
Even as they’ve been abandoned by WFAN, a move that has hit a lot of Mets fans like an anvil to the skull even if it’s shocking the station lasted this long with them.
Trust us, they say, even as it appears they’re about to grant Terry Collins another mulligan for another September when the Mets aren’t even remotely competitive, three straight years now, the wrong kind of pattern. Trust us, they say, as they apparently choose to ignore the fact that Wally Backman made the playoffs at Triple-A with an ever-transient roster and that so many of their fans want, at the least, to see Backman in a major league role next year.
Trust us, they say, we’ll spend money this year, even as there remains a lot of doubt just how much money the Mets have to spend. Trust us, they say, we know the kind of roster we want to build — even if nobody has yet sufficiently explained how the most valuable commodity the Mets had in building that roster — Matt Harvey’s right arm — was kept out of an MRI tube while they knowingly allowed him to pitch with soreness building.
Trust us, they say, even as an army of fans insists they will stay away until the Wilpons sell. And though that would be a positive step, it does not guaranteed prosperity (Many Mets fans are Jets fans who pined for the day Leon Hess would sell. How’s that worked out so far under Woody Johnson?).
Trust us, they say, as they plead patience even as the Yankees, decimated most of the year, stayed competitive with castoffs and spare parts playing much of the first four months — even as they see how a trustworthy baseball brain trust operates.
Trust us, they say.
Do you? Will you? Can you?