Today’s average Mets fan is JMP who comments here on the site somewhat regularly.
When did you become a Mets fan?
1. I really started getting into the Mets in the summer of 1985, during the NL East race with the Cardinals. I remember being at one of the late season losses to the Cards, leaving with a sinking feeling I’ve known all too well in the years since.
Favorite memory?
2. Do I have to pick just one?
I remember getting a call from a friend who had season tickets the afternoon of September 17, 1986, asking if I wanted to go to the game that night — and coming home with a piece of sod.
I remember staying up late for what seemed like endless games against the Astros in the 1986 NLCS, followed by the despair of the top of the 10th of game 6 of the World Series before the euphoria of the bottom of the 10th.
I remember sitting in the back of the upper deck for game 5 of the 1999 NLCS, barely leaving the edge of my seat throughout extra innings until Ventura hit his grand slam single.
Then again, there are those sentimental moments in the down years when I can understand what my parents and grandparents went through as Brooklyn Dodger fans. The Wilpons may not be aiming for it, but the Mets have become the living embodiment of the old Dodger mantra of “wait ’til next year.”
Worst memory?
3. As good as it is to understand how my parents and grandparents felt as Dodger fans, any time I really end up feeling as they perpetually did is a bad moment. Watching the Mets blow leads at the ends of the 2007 and 2008 seasons ranks right up there.
If you could change one off-field item?
4. I’d get rid of Jeff Wilpon, Omar, and the entire conditioning staff. Between them, they are responsible for almost all of the team’s recent ills, and I do mean ills.
If you owned the team…
5. I wouldn’t be afraid to admit that every so often there will need to be a rebuilding period. It seems that every time the Mets go into decline, it’s marked by major free agent signings and trades, each of which is touted as the way to bring the team back to contention. It never works, but usually drains the farm system enough to further delay real success. Everything flows from having a coherent long term strategy…
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