This is another “sticky” post. Some things I want read more than others, so there will be a few posts that are “stuck” to the top of the blog. Scroll down for new stories at the usual pace.
Thanks for all the kind notes and tweets and emails yesterday. As you can imagine I have like 1000 emails to go through so it may be a while. I also blogged about 12 hours yesterday and hit a wall around 10 so I didn’t get to process all the pics and didn’t even get to the video or seeing what the other bloggers did.
Ironically I missed a day of Mets news since I wasn’t on the internet the way I usually am.
What makes me laugh most is my twitter icon has dropshadow and the actual Mets don’t. I’ll fix that as soon as the custom replicas go on sale.
I’m pretty happy about yesterday. If you like the site – tell someone. Or facebook it. Or follow me on twitter (@metspolice) or Google+ We have a good community over here, and it’s a good positive non-troll site. It would be great if even more could join the movement, so any sharing you can do is much appreciated.
Oh, and the jerseys are for sale. Please support the return to tradition with your wallet. More on that tomorrow.
Double oh, I have more info about the ticket plans that I haven’t had a chance to write. In a nutshell I can get the same seats for every game (within reason). More on that..I dunno today or tomorrow. Lots and lots of content coming.
….
Yesterday was a really good day.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Somehow, in one press conference we got back Banner Day and got the uniforms back to where they belonged. And I somehow got invited.
I’ll leave it to the historians to decide if my dopey blog mattered. Maybe it did. Maybe the smart marketing for a 50th anniversary just happens to coincide with some random words I typed. Maybe a little of both.
What is important is I got MY Mets back.
MY Mets. The ones that had Seaver. Twice.
The ones that sucked beyond belief.
The ones where my childhood hero managed to be the best player on the team while never hitting more than 16 HRs and only hitting .300 once (well maybe twice if you count 1987).
A little roller up along first.
Then I got distracted. I met a girl at the time Fran Healy was calling games featuring Bobby Bonilla on an awful network called Sportschannel. Underline swoosh jerseys and ice cream caps.
When I jumped back in they were wearing some new duds, but it was the turn of the century and who didn’t get caught up in the Subway Series?
I never really loved 2006. My team was gone. It was led by a guy who was one of the pivotal players in Red Sox history but took the money and ran. A Yankee at the helm. (Yogi argument aside, I’m being poetic here.) Traditions like Banner Day gone. The attire. A GM and a marketing plan tried to welcome others made some of us feel left behind.
My Mets were gone. It made me angry.
Then the wheels came off the Franchise.
Collapses. I started a blog between the two of them.
They moved to a new house, but someone forgot to hang up photos of the family. We complained. They fixed it.
Losses. Injuries. Madoff.
This year people would seem bewildered that I was a Mets fan when I wore a Mets jersey in New York City. It was as if I were a random Astros fan.
Then yesterday happened.
Tradition came back.
The Mets once again look like The Mets.
Banner Day came back.
The booths are in good hands even if they are inappropriately borrowed by a boiler company. I can enjoy a game even when I’m not there.
Some day this summer I will walk my children around Citi Field and they will hold signs. They will root for David and Ike and Murph and Santana and RA and Duda and the Mets will look like the Mets. We’ll make some memories. Hopefully 30 years from now my son can do the same with my grandson.
MY Mets are back. November 16, 2011 was a pretty good day.
Shannon, you’re passionate and bold – and that’s great and admirable. But I have to say, if Alderson lets Reyes walk, this style stuff is a mere footnote. He’s this generation’s Seaver, an all-time Met at a crucial position at age 28. Not even banner day can cover up his loss, if the franchise decides to go into hibernation in terms of competing. Talk about history: a big market club losing a core homegrown free agent in his prime. When does that ever happen. I love the new jerseys, but unless they offer a No. 7 this season, it’s not serious, indeed you can view this as something of a marketing and brand attack on the long-suffering fanbase – it cynically argues: “buy our retro stuff to celebrate our business but don’t expect us to invest in the product on the field.”
I mean how pathetic was that video? No Reyes – so obvious, so…..Metlike! Clumsy, forced, lame. And man did David Wright ever stick it to Alderson in the interviews. For Mr. Bland, it was the equivalent of a full-scale verbal take-down.
Love this blog, and dig all the enthusiasm around here – you absolutely did get the drop-shadow dropped – but Popper and Sandomir have this exactly right.
Wow, you’ve managed to put my exact feelings into words….that’s excellent! I feel like I’m 10 years old all over again.
Never ever compare Reyes leaving as a free agent to the loss of Tom Seaver. Maybe now that the Uni’s are back to where they should be, maybe it’s time to teach some Mets history
Krane – I was born the day the first Mets pitchers and catchers ever reported to spring training. I’m a circa ’69 fan. My favorite all-time Met is Cleon Jones. I’ve been there every year – with respect, you have nothing to teach me.
Seaver is obviously the all-time Mets great, and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Reyes cannot compare to his stature. However, his *loss* would be the second most-boneheaded, stubbornly stupid personnel decision in New York Mets history. It’s sad, lame, pathetic history repeating itself, and the business side is desperate to cover it up and sell tickets – it won’t work, alas.
Tom I don’t think you can really compare the two. Seaver was traded as much because of personality clashes with Grant as with his salary. The Mets actively and directly forced him out of the organization.
On the other hand with Reyes it’s ultimately Jose’s choice whether to stay or leave. If the reports are correct and the Mets are making a decent offer to him, if Jose REALLY loved this franchise he’d stay. Certainly other players have taken the “home town discount” to stay with the team they love rather than take the money and run.
Seaver was forced out. Nobody is forcing Jose out here – it’s in his hands.
I couldn’t disagree more – from Fred’s Crawford money remark to Alderson’s refusal to actually make an offer (while doing a doublespeak two-step with fans) there’s a similar malign influence at work on this, made worse of course by the Madoff lawsuits.
Sure, the times and style are different – but let’s not forget, Seaver leaving about Tom Terrific asking for market value for services and was very closely related to the free agent money (Catfish etc) new to the marketplace. The Mets froze him out and ran a vicious media campaign led by Dick Young – the Wilpons aren’t as aggressive, but I’m sure we’ll still get the “greedy Jose” campaign from management-friendly writers and bloggers.
It’s the team’s call whether to be aggressive or not, whether they really want Jose or not. They’re sending out the most cynical and signals, and covering this disaster of an off-season with throwback unis, fan bricks, and blue walls.
Apples and Oranges.
To me, Reyes leaving will be worse. I wasn’t alive for Seaver.
How long before someone makes a mets blog clamoring for them to bring back the black and hybrid and dropshadow?
so glad to see this – now, if we can just get rid of the Wilpons……………..
One of your best posts.
Now if you could only do something about the product on the field!
That would be “Houdini-Like”!!
The fish still rots from the head down. Only when the Wilpons’ control of the Mets is taken away then I’ll be a totally happy Mets fan. But for now … I am for one glad they are back to a more-or-less traditional uniform style: Home pins and road grays. Not a fan of the ice cream uni, and definitely not one of the black. We know the Mets used to be the Avis of this town “we try harder” in comparison to the Hertz-like Yankees. But now the Mets are more like the off-airport brand of rental car [is Rent-A-Wreck still in operation?] so they have to try even harder to retain fans … even if the only regular position player they retain this year is Employee #5 at third.
That post gave me goose bumps…thanks Shannon!
Shannon I couldn’t have said it any better. Your sentiments echo mine precisely. Again Well done!
Thx Dom!