IF THERE was any consolation at all plucked out of an other wise inconsolable day, it was this: The Mets died quickly at Shea Stadium yesterday.
They didn’t bleed any more heartache out of a weary fan base, didn’t torture them any more than they’d already been tormented, didn’t tease even one of the 54,453 people who filled every seat yesterday or the 3,853,955 of them who stuffed the dying yard all year.
They didn’t blow a three-run lead, something they’d done four different times in the season’s final two weeks. Nobody struck out in the bottom of the ninth inning with the bases loaded, the ice-pick-in-the-eye moment that ended last year’s dream ride of a season.
There was none of that. Instead, there was a parade of Florida Marlins galloping across home plate in the first inning, seven of them in all, all of them drawing the shades down a little further on the season as they rounded third and headed home.
There were a couple of empty early rallies for the home team and then a lot of pop-ups, fly balls, harmless grounders. Even the out-of-town scoreboard sneered: The Phillies took a comfortable lead on the Nationals in Philadelphia, added to it and quietly dashed off into the distance.
And at last there was one last feeble swing at one last pitch, Luis Castillo waving at strike three, and at precisely 4:31 on the last day of September, the Mets finally expired. The final score was 8-1. The crowd booed. History will be even less kind.
“We are a team,” Pedro Martinez said. “And we [bleeped] this up as a team.”
Yes. Yes, they did. There is little reason to soft-pedal any longer, little reason to pour sugar over the stench. The Mets choked. Say it again: They choked. They were seven games up with 17 to play. They were 2 1/2 up this time last week – three ahead in the loss column – and had seven home games against a third-place team, a fourth-place team and a fifth-place team.
They went 1-6 in those games.
That is inexcusable. It is indefensible. This was the richest team in the National League and also the most talented. For all the spasms of halfhearted play that infuriated Met fans across the first 5 1/2 months of the season, they were still a sure thing to be opening the playoffs in three days at Shea.
“I still think we have the best collection of players in the league,” said David Wright, the third baseman. “But we were horrible down the stretch. We did this to ourselves.”
That’s only half true, because they did this to their fans, too, fans who will now have to silently endure the NL playoff games that would have included the Mets with one more victory, fans who will have to endure another October in which the Yankees will dominate the town.
Asked what he would tell that wounded clientele, manager Willie Randolph said, “We’re devastated, too. Real Met fans know we gave everything we had.”
Actually, most real Met fans have eyes. They know better than that.