Category: mets

Next up for the Five Questions is Mike, another man of few words.

1. When did I start following the Mets?
  1977 (7 yrs old)

2. Favorite Mets memory?
    1986 World Series

3. Worst Mets memory?
Losing to the Yanks in the 2000 World Series   

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I’ve been thinking a bit more about the 15 game plans the Mets have in place for next season. First off, I will admit that this past season I had two 15 game plans – the “Sunday Plan” and the “Weekday Plan.”

Like many (including Shannon) the only reason I purchased the Weekday Plan was to get an Opening Day….er…Opening Night ticket. My seat was horrible and the schedule (and team) really didn’t thrill me. I ended up never using any tickets from that plan.

On the other hand, I used more than half the tickets from the Sunday Plan – going to maybe 10 games in total. Still, that was 5 games wasted.

So last year I paid for 30 games and went to 10. Yeah, call me a sucker.

This year I already knew I wasn’t going to get the Weekday Plan. Fool me once…..
The Sunday-PLUS Plan though I was trying to keep an open mind about. But realistically, I know I am not going to go to most, if not all of the weekday games in the plan. And I will probably miss at least 1 of the Sunday games. Looking at the real cost then of these plans – and using the tiered ticket pricing that the Wilpons love – here is what it looks like

he fact that the Mets don’t offer any incentive to purchase in bulk (like just about EVERY other sports team in the world does) makes this even more ridiculous.

Obviously I won’t be renewing. The math just doesn’t add up.

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I probably shouldn’t snap photos of strangers in the subway…I like the blog and all but not worth being attacked….but I’m a fool and I was excited.  Sorry for the blur, as you can see I’m hiding behind the stairs and taking it quickly.  

This jacket didn’t seem 23 years old…do they sell these now?

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Taking a closer look at Dan’s article about ticket plans…

The Weekday plan.  No thanks.  15 games, 4 in April, 3 in September.

The big carrot in that plan is Opening Day which right now is $138 on Stubhub.  That’s a lot, but instead of playing $143 for the other 14 games you could break that $143 ($281-$138) and use it on games you actually want (say ten $11 games or one titanium game).   I made the “I have to go to opening day” mistake last year and bought a 15 game plan.  Thank heavens I sold my extra ticket to the opener  for a $250+ profit which took the sting out of one of the seats.    Oh, why didn’t I bring Junior you ask?  Because we opened our new stadium with a night game because the Padres are whinier than this blog.

As for the Friday-Plus etc plans…I like that they renamed the plans.  Last year I killed them for having “Saturday” plans that included Wednesday.  This year it’s the same but at least they threw the word plus in there.

Note that the “Almost Every Saturday But Not These Plan” does not include the game on June 26th against Minny.  Maybe they don’t want you to see the Twins new uniforms.  You instead get to see Detroit on Thursday night.

The promotions haven’t been announced yet, how much you wanna bet that June 26th is a good giveaway day.  It would be a nice day for an Old-Timer’s Day by the way.

You also don’t get August 14th against Philly because that’s a rivalry game and they can sell that out without rewarding you the loyal customer who paid for 15 games.  You can buy a 16th game if you want to see the Phillies.  Instead enjoy the game on 8/11 against the Rockies.  On Wednesday night.

9/18 vs Atlanta?  Nope you don’t get that one either.  Right now I’ll guess that buy September 18th 2010 you won’t be looking to go to a game anyway.  They may be doing you a favor.  However enjoy that 9/15 Wednesday night against the Pirates.

I imagine the Friday/Sunday/Weekend plus plans have similar annoyances.  I’m too lazy to go through.  I was a Saturday guy.   This year I’m out.  I’ll spend my $138 on Stubhub and pocket that other $454 and use it on desperate sellers on Stubhub.

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Next up for the 5 Questions is John who has a great story which proves that rooting for the Mets can score you success with the ladies…


Here you go. Thought-provoking questions; I enjoyed answering them.

1. When did you start following the Mets?

1975 (age 6)

2. What is your favorite Mets memory?

Games Six & Seven, 1986. It’s my first year in college (in Virginia), and I’m feeling homesick for not being in NY now that the Mets were good after the team had been so bad for my entire youth. I was sure the Mets would win the World Series, and was getting some heat as an arrogant NY’er / insufferable Mets fan. When the Sox went up in the 10th, I left the large group (mostly non-fans, or anti-NY’ers) I was with and went to watch the end by myself and drown in my tears.

I am convinced that my moving rooms was the whole reason for the turnaround in the bottom of the tenth.

Someone wandered into the room I was in; he was from Norfolk, so he was nominally a Mets fan as that’s where our AAA club was at the time. Once the ball got by Buckner, we both started shouting and throwing empty beer cans around the room (all that we had available).

After we won Game Seven, on October 27th, I went downstairs in the dorm to give my (polite) condolendces to a girl I had met who was a Red Sox fan. While doing so, I met her room-mate for the first time; that room-mate is now my wife, and has been for nineteen years.

For me, that is what makes sports so special in all of our lives – the 1986 World Series represents a watermark in my life – although I didn’t know it at the time, I look on it now as closing one chapter of my life – before it I was NY-centric, naive, and everything that being a teenager is all about; mere minutes after they won I met my future wife who took me away from NY and beyond my youth. While none of that was a consequence of the Mets winning the World Series, it represents all that for me.

3. What is your worst Mets memory or experience?

Beltran looking at that curveball. After Endy made The Catch, I was sure they would win. It was destiny. Any time a catch like that is made, it leads to the team winning. Right?

Close second and third would be Kenny Rogers walking in the winning run against the Braves, and Armando Benitez giving up a critical HR in the last inning to the Braves in 2001.

4. If you could change one off-field thing about the franchise what would it be?

More appreciation of the rich history of the franchise. I feel the fans have an identity – underdog, more avid baseball aficionados than the fans of our neighbors in the Bronx, never say die attitude – but I don’t feel that is fully understood by management. Embracing the history of the franchise – the amazing-ness of 1969, the ‘you gotta believe’ feeling of 1973, the winner-take-all-attitude of the 1986 team, as well as charactersitics of lots of other players who were on non-winning teams (Rusty Staub, Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack, John Franco, Mike Piazza, etc.) – would go a long way to reinforcing that identity.

5. If you owned the team starting tomorrow, what is the first thing you would change?

There’s a lot – some of it above in #4 – but rather than a laundry list of player additions, or a managerial change, the very first thing I would do is adopt a policy to not adhere to the slotting requirements for the first year players’ draft. We need to build an exceptionally strong farm team, and I see that as the one single thing we can do to jumpstart that.

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