Mets fans of a certain vintage are used to these blackouts, these stretches of soul-sucking baseball that connect the all-too-brief stretches of prosperity in the team’s history. Five years and counting, the Mets have gone without coming anywhere close to contention. And if general manager Sandy Alderson is dreaming of 90 wins, Las Vegas is betting on 15 fewer than that.
And Vegas’ track record on these things is better.
The Mets rarely just dabble in failure, after all. They are not a roller coaster. When things go south, they don’t just stop in Virginia or the Carolinas, they proceed all the way to the Florida Keys. You could look it up:
Blackout I: 1962-68, 394-737, 7 years, average 41 ½ games out of first — The most understandable one, because this was a baseball team created out of nothing, and it lived up to that egregious billing. The Mets lost 120 games that first year and just kept on losing, 100 losses in five of the first six years, 10th-place finishes in five and ninth place in two. But they were “loveable losers,” or so history tells us, and so there was some humor and some whimsy to soften the blow. And, of course, in 1969, it all seemed completely worth it.
Blackout II: 1977-83, 434-641, 7 years, average 21 ½ games out of first — In retrospect, this was inexcusable. The Mets had a wealth of young talent, pitching everywhere, and they were the richest team in existence — dwarfing even the Yankees in the early ’70s. But management was cheap and stubborn (does that sound familiar), was too shortsighted to promote Whitey Herzog, and would be dealt a crippling blow when Gil Hodges — who likely would have been able to muffle and mitigate M. Donald Grant — died on Easter Sunday 1972. Bad as Blackout I was, this was the franchise’s great depression, bottoming out with an attendance of 788,905 in 1978.
Blackout III: 1991-96, 403-501, 6 years, average 21 games out of first — Actually, this was the most inexcusable run. In 1986 the Mets won 116 games and the World Series, and were one of the youngest teams in baseball. They were set up to dominate the sport for years to come … and yet just seven years later lost 103 games. Maybe the saddest time for Mets fans, who had to simultaneously watch the rebirth of the Yankees while their own players were squirting bleach and lobbing firecrackers.
Blackout IV: 2002-05, 295-351, 4 years, average 23 games out of first — In truth, if not for Nelson Doubleday pressuring the Wilpons into trading for and signing Mike Piazza, and if not for a few years of Bobby Valentine performing baseball wizardry with a less-than-loaded roster, this might just have been an extra-long extension of Blackout III. But even as the losses piled up, there were kids on the horizon and a refreshing willingness to spend their way out of the abyss — which they were able to do, thanks to cash reserves helpfully provided by Bernie Madoff.
Blackout V: 2009-?, 374-436, 5 years, average 22 ½ games out of first — And we are Here, in Year Six, which is right around the time the light has appeared at the end of the previous four tunnels of despair. Do you believe that? Starting tomorrow, we’ll see just how close the Mets are to lifting their latest blackout. Maybe not the catchiest slogan of all time.
Whack Back at Vac
Andy Romanic: Mike, if you find yourself at the Texas Rangers’ stadium, will you try the bacon on a stick with or without the maple glaze?
Vac: Come on, Andy. The maple glaze puts it over the top, don’t you think?
Sal Bifulco: In regard to Steve Masiello, what I can’t understand is why so many celebrity figures fake their credentials in the first place. And, having been found out, why don’t they admit their mistake? Set an example for once. He knew damn well he never got the degree.
Vac: I just don’t get how in a post-George O’Leary world anyone could still fudge a resume. Masiello was a working coach when that happened. Didn’t he watch the news?
@BrianFaughan: I want to see “Noah,” but I feel like I should read the book first.
@MikeVacc: Just read Crash Davis’ review: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”
James Devine: As the 2,457th reader to correctly identify Dave Magarity (from the photo in your Sunday column) as Mike Francesa’s separated-at-birth twin, do I get Opening Day tickets to Citi Field (as Francesa certainly won’t be using his)?
Vac: That’s enormous. Just enormous.
Vac’s Whacks
So the first two songs playing when I clicked on Sirius’ new Billy Joel Channel 4 on day one were “Stop in Nevada” and “Stiletto,” deep-cut gems I don’t think I ever heard on a radio before. So I wonder if it’s possible to take a slow, leisurely drive to, say, Australia to take full advantage of this splendid invention.
Jeff Pearlman is as good a storyteller as we have in the business of sports writing, so if he’s going to write a book about the Showtime Lakers, I’m going to read every syllable about the Showtime Lakers. You should, too.
Trust me.
Watching the Knicks would test the patience of Gandhi, so you would expect they will do their best to tinker with Phil Jackson’s Zen before long, too.
Jose Valverde and the eighth inning? That ought to come with a warning label, no?