If only real life could be as simple as a kickball game or a stickball game, if only the Mets could employ the most basic of all Wiffle ball weapons, then maybe they could poke their heads out from this relentless nightmare of a 2009 season.
If only the Wilpons could stand up and scream: “Do-over!”
But there is no such elixir in the Mets’ medicine cabinet. There is no way to press a rewind button, all the way back to April, and wipe out everything that has befallen them all across a cruel spring and a torturous summer, with a yawning autumn still to come.
It was bad enough that the Mets broke camp as a team composed mostly of strangers, forced by the World Baseball Classic to spend more time apart than together during spring training. It was bad enough that, once the season began, the Mets and basic fundamentals were barely on speaking terms: Bases were missed, fly balls dropped, ground balls flubbed.
Bad enough the team’s disabled list started to get crowded early in the season and never emptied out, the Mets losing every one of their stars to time served on the disabled list, some for as little as two weeks, some for as much as four months and counting.
Bad enough that they’ve spent the summer swallowed by the shadow of the deep-pocketed Yankees, at the same time their own coffers were compromised by Bernie Madoff’s deceit.
All of that, it turns out, is prelude.
Because if there was supposed to be one source of solace for the Mets, no matter what else befell them, it was going to be their ballpark, Citi Field, the bright new beacon by Flushing Bay, the $850 million replacement for outdated, outmoded Shea Stadium, the culmination of all the dreams Fred Wilpon brought to the Mets when he first bought into the team 30 years ago.
Only, from the start, Citi Field has been a lightning rod. Fans were furious that the place was bereft of Mets history. For a brand-new ballpark, there seemed to be an awful lot of seats with obstructed views. People have screamed about parking logistics.
And now comes the news that no homeowner wants to hear: that your brand-new dream house has a leaky basement and a drafty attic. For a brand-new building, there seem to be an awful lot of old-time issues: broken tiles, moldy walls and busted pipes.
“Yankee fans must have built this place,” a source told The Post’s James Fanelli, proof positive that if the 2009 Mets weren’t already in an irrevocable death spiral, the elevator is certainly speeding downward. Assuming they’re using one that works.