Author: Shannon Shark @metspolice

Not sure what I would wear this with.  Maybe Venus Fly Trap could pull this one off.

It is 4:10pm.  There is a Mets game.

I was once like you.  There would be a Mets game and I would stop doing whatever I was doing to watch it.  After all Mets games are a precious commodity and we miss them in the winter.

Until I stopped.

I realized that I was stopping doing the things I WANTED to be doing (working on other creative projects – which I am about to do now, or watching movies or listening to podcasts or basically anything else).  I realized that as I watched the Mets game I kind of couldn’t wait for the Mets game to be over.

Over the years I picked away at this. First I had my “Saturday Night” rule – I stopped watching Saturday night games.  Then there was the 10pm rule where no matter what I turned the game off at 10 – three hours was enough.

Then, earlier this season, MLB freed me!  They scheduled the Mets with a ton of weekday day games (something I used to work around, meaning I would do actual Work at other times so I could be there for the Mets, although I couldn’t wait for it to end) – and they played a lot of West Coast games early.

And I broke the habit!

I’m here to tell you it’s great!  Hey, if you want to watch the Mets right now – you do you.  I’m sitting out on the deck on a beautiful day and I am going to do Creative Stuff Other Projects.   It’s so freeing.  Last night I watched Independence Day (although that too I couldn’t wait for it to be over lol).

Try NOT watching.  You might just like it!

Yuck!  From Culture Kings.  More like City Clusterfudge.

Did “the Mets” – all of it, the team, the fan experience, the community, the game…did it peak in 2012?  I think it did.

Now calm down….part of a peak is there is still a lot of elevation on the way down.   So you can still say All Star Game and RA Dickey and Matt Harvey and 2015 and deGrom and whatever else were fun, and be right, but I think we’re on the downside.

2012 was the 50th Anniversary.

You got your no-hitter t-shirt

Citi Field still had that new Stadium smell.

I remember fondly walking around the field when Banner Day came back…the Beach Boys were on the stadium speakers and all seemed perfect.

I have written about that season before and many have agreed with me that it was one of those great fun seasons (like 1984) where maybe the Mets didn’t win but we had a great time.

The Mets had fixed the uniforms!

Blogs were a thing, the twitter hang was active, and baseball hadn’t yet quite turned into the slog it is now.

Here a decade later, I’ve stopped watching games due to lack of interest – and that’s WITH a first place team.  This collection of Mets, with their vulgar ways, neo-black uniforms, a SS that boos fans, a rich guy that might give you $1,800,000,000 if you ask nicely (THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A SECOND, WILL YOU?)  and the long boring games….it’s not interesting and it’s not attractive.

The new stadium smell is gone.  Citi Field is just another 21s century ballpark that really isn’ that remarkable even if a very vocal 600 like to wear matching t-shirts.

I used to preach to the Mets about “brand” – I don’t know what their brand is now, or who they are going for – people who like being booed by the SS?  People who take selfies hanging off the Seaver statue?

David Wright is gone.  Tom Seaver is dead.

A friend asked if I am going to Old Timers’ Day.  I am not.  The Mets waited too long and I lost interest.  They waited too long to do a Seaver statue and Tom missed it.

It’s all these dribs and drabs that add up.  The poor radio broadcasts during the WOR era (and the MLB App loud commercials).   SNY thinking the team is a little better than it is (swapping Gelbs for KB is a major minus).  The Gary and Ron games with no chemistry.

It all adds up.

Ten years ago “the Mets” were a good time.  Somehow they have managed to turn 47-29 into something less interesting than seeing what’s on HBO Max.

Interestingly, the Mets have a lower average attendance than the 33-43 Rockies.

I don’t expect this article to go over well.  That’s OK.  We’ve done this before and usually what happens is you guys come around like two years later.  Someone will throw out the word “negative” – which would at least suggest an emotional response to this team.   The 2022 Mets?  I just don’t care about them.

“The Mets” peaked in 2012.

 

ESPN has a fun profile of Commissioner Manfred..

Leaguewide attendance totals are down considerably this season (as compared with pre-pandemic totals), on pace to be the lowest since 1996. Among all American fans who watch sports on television, baseball fans are the oldest: the median age is 57, up from 52 a generation ago.

I appreciate that the commissioner is admitting the game is slooooooow and boring.  I have stopped watching, and that’s WITH a first place Mens team.  I realized that when I did watch I was either bored and super-tweeting to stay interested, or I couldn’t wait for it to be over.  So thanks to some lousy scheduling by MLB (Weekday day games and a poorly timed for me West Coast trip, I broke the habit of watching SNY and I haven’t missed it at all.   I peek at the score when I remember and then I go back to doing something that’s actually fun.

A pitch clock would give a pitcher 14 seconds between pitches with no runners on base; 18 or 19 seconds with runners on. There’s now an average of 23.8 seconds between pitches. With the help of testing and refining the pitch timer in its minor leagues laboratory, MLB projects a pitch timer would shave an average of 30 minutes off game times, getting close to fans’ “ideal” of 2 hours, 30 minutes. Manfred says the pitch clock represents one of the best ways for baseball to better compete in a world of countless entertainment options and ever-shrinking attention spans.

Good.  I vote the pitch clock by 7 seconds and we find another 30 minutes.

The average time for video-replay reviews of umpire calls this season is 1 minute, 37 seconds, up 21 seconds from last year. In 2024, Manfred says, the automated ball-strike zone system, or as it’s commonly called, “robot umpires,” will likely be introduced.

My idea here is we place a referee near each base.  That ref makes an immediate and binding non-reviewable call.  That shaves the time down to effectively zero.

One idea I don’t hear anyone discuss is my idea for rebalancing the TV commercial load.  Under my system, and I am serious, they should EXTEND early inning breaks by 30 seconds.  The early innings aren’t the problem (unless there are openers, which should be banned) – it’s the back end.  So when the game is new and fresh, you can handle a 2:30 break.  Later, when it’s a slog, lets shorten to 90 seconds.   If you watch games, including in NYC where teams are in first, a lot of the inventory is unsold anyway so what’s the point.

As for Openers – that’s a simple fix.  If you start the game as the pitcher you are ineligible to pitch in the next 4 games.  Done.  Having a middle reliever opener start a game is bad for marketing.

But hey baseball, the damage is done.  You’re going to need someone chasing 56 games or something amazing to happen to draw me in the way the NFL has with fun storylines (Brady Anything).  You’re 15 years away from someone chasing Ripken, and Pete Alonso hitting 75 home runs isn’t going to do it – you played that card and broke the game.

I’ve stopped watching.

…

Here are some thoughts on this from 2018.