We are just 12 days away from the mandatory reporting date for pitchers and catchers, and what usually is a time for optimism for Mets fans has turned into a fingers crossed “hope for the best that the Mets don’t finish into the basement” frame of mind.
Honestly can you blame Mets fans if they don’t come out to see the team this season ? If the last two seasons of fourth place finishes are any indication of where this team stands – especially with a 50 million dollar payroll purge coupled with the rest of the National League East strengthening their roster, then it’s understandable why most fans are leery of this coming season.
But the question remains “will the Mets fans be patient this season ? Will we be patient if Johan Santana either re-injures his arm or if he just has been rendered ineffective after two seasons of dormancy?
Will Mets fans be outraged if David Wright is dealt mid-season if he is playing at a high level ( like Carlos Beltran last season) ?
Will the fans call for the heads of either Sandy Alderson or Terry Collins if the season tanks before June ?
How long will it take before us fans cry for ownership to sell the team – I know I know those calls have already started .
And lastly will the fans come out to Citi Field if a youth movement is in full effect by August ?
What do you think ?
And with that said… HERE COMES THE INFAMY !!!!
Mets alumni celebrating a birthday includes:
Mets third base coach from the ’64-’65 seasons , Don Heffner would have turned 101 today (1911).
Sadly on this date in 2005, Mike Bishop, the reserve catcher from the ’83 team passed away.
The New York Mets signed free agent shortstop, Rey Ordóñez on February 8, 1994 .Ordonez was quite possibly the best fielding shortstop in Mets history. Too bad he couldn’t hit a lick.
The New York Mets signed free agent middle reliever, Rich Rodriguez on February 8, 2000. Rodriguez was one of the most hated players from that ’00 team. He appeared in 32 games as a middle reliever, and finished with a record of 0-1 with an E.R.A of 7.78. There was speculation that the only reason the Mets didn’t release him mid season was because he was the college roommate of then Mets general manager, Steve Phillips.
Mo Vaughn was mistaken as a float at yesterdays New York Giants ticker-tape parade !!!
27 comments
darknova306
2/8/2012-7:03am at 7:03 am (UTC -4)
This team will be at best mediocre, and at worst very very awful. That’s not gonna draw you many fans regardless of which team it is. I think we’ll see some vocal people getting restless if/when the events you list happen, but the bigger trend I expect to see is apathy. This team is now irrelevant. Irrelevant in their own city, irrelevant in their own league, and irrelevant in their own division. Soon they will be irrelevant to a large section of the fanbase, as we saw in the second half of last season when Citi Field was routinely empty.
MetsFan4Decades
2/8/2012-7:18am at 7:18 am (UTC -4)
I’ve been seeing quite a few Met fans declare they’re boycotting all things Mets until the Wilpons sell. Well actually, only a handful have said they won’t watch them at all (as SNY is partly owned by the Wilpons) but many more say they’re boycotting coming out to Citi Field.
Since it appears to me the Wilpons probably will not be selling the team anytime soon, do you think these fans declaring boycotting will really stay away? I’m thinking at best they might make good on that claim for a season or two. What happens if the Mets find themselves in the race a year or two down the road and the Wilpons still own the team? How about if they do the impossible and actually compete this season? You think these same fans who normally go to games will deprive themselves of coming out to the park to be a part of that just because of the owners?
It’s my opinion that it’s going to come down to not who owns the team, but how good the team is. I can see attendance falling off this upcoming season. But if they turn it around sooner rather than later, the fans will come back, for the most part. The only ones who might not will be those affected by this down economy, more so than who owns the team.
Ceetar
2/8/2012-9:21am at 9:21 am (UTC -4)
fans talking about the Mets in the winter are not going to stay away in the summer. It’s the fans you’re not hearing from that are the issue.
But it’s still just a small number. The record of the team will account for 95% of the attendance/interest figures and any boycotts or rallys will at best tweak that number slightly.
And no, Mets fans will not be patient. they’re never patient. Over/under on when fans are begging for Nieuwenhuis is March 20th.
MetsFan4Decades
2/8/2012-9:51am at 9:51 am (UTC -4)
LOL -’Over/under on when fans are begging for Nieuwenhuis is March 20th.’
And the over/under on when fans are yelling for Harvey to come up.
NJstuckinTX
2/8/2012-9:23am at 9:23 am (UTC -4)
The majority of voices for those that speak out on mediums like this (blogs in general) are usually squeaky wheels, who need to vent. So in general, it’s so much doom and gloom. It really can deflating. That said, hope will spring eternal. I’m looking forward for Spring training. Who knows what the season may bring!
kranepool
2/8/2012-9:31am at 9:31 am (UTC -4)
I agree with Ceetar if your a Mets fan who has been discussing the team all off season then you will still come out to Citi Field in the summer. The fans who have laid dormant this off season could be swayed to go to the ball park with the first whiff of warm summer air
This team won’t be 1962 bad and it won’t be 1986 great either. I’s settle for a 1984 team young promising and exciting
rustyjr
2/8/2012-9:34am at 9:34 am (UTC -4)
I agree Steve
rustyjr
2/8/2012-9:35am at 9:35 am (UTC -4)
I agree Steve 100%
kingman 26
2/8/2012-9:35am at 9:35 am (UTC -4)
They won 90 games in 1984…
I think EVERY Met fan would settle for that!
MetsFan4Decades
2/8/2012-9:52am at 9:52 am (UTC -4)
Here’s hoping.
I’m thinking that at worst, the 2012 season might be a bit worse than last year – as in W/L total. But so much more to look forward to.
kingman 26
2/8/2012-9:34am at 9:34 am (UTC -4)
Well, for me, I will be patient, as long as the kids hustle.
Yeah, they are going to stink most likely, but it is not Collins’ fault and it is not the players’ faults.
It’s like the leader of my band in Seattle used to say if a show was underattended—don’t blame the people who ARE here for the people who AREN’T here!
And as long as they hustle, there’s no reason to blame the 2012 Mets for the fact that the Wilpons have destroyed this team with the able assistance of the Minaya Reign of Error.
It’s not Duda or Murph or Ike or Thole’s fault that Reyes and Beltran and KRod are gone and not replaced, and it is not Sandy’s fault that the Wilpons decided that their next record would be largest 1-year payroll cut.
So, I will watch, and as long as I see hustle, I will be patient, and just as I remember following Tidewater and Jackson in the early 1980s, my eyes will also be on the minors this year.
Of course, the complete idiots led by the Four Horsemen of the Idiot Apocalypse at MMO have already begun THEIR whining, and the folks at Metsblog and the Ledger will whine each other into a frenzy, but for me, I know that as long as I don’t see slacker nonsense that we saw under the Manuel era I will be watching and hoping for a better future.
MetsFan4Decades
2/8/2012-9:54am at 9:54 am (UTC -4)
Can’t wait for ST to start….
TRS86
2/8/2012-10:54am at 10:54 am (UTC -4)
Honestly I can’t say that I am not ready to see some new faces and a changing of the guard. I think that Reyes, Beltran and Krod carried so much of what was right AND wrong with the Mets. Hard work and hustle followed by pouting and running away from the situation… Again, I loved all 3 but I am ready to move on to guys like Davis, Duda and Murphy.
kingman 26
2/8/2012-11:38am at 11:38 am (UTC -4)
Geez dude, first George Jones, then MMO, now this.
We DO agree on a lot….
TRS86
2/8/2012-12:16pm at 12:16 pm (UTC -4)
Yeah, lol… by the way I ran across some recordings of Red Foley the other day. Man I have been missing a lot. He is like a combination of Hank Sr., Frank Sinatra and that Cajun cook from PBS when I was a kid… LOL. If you have not heard much of him you have to check him out. He was Hank before Hank.
kingman 26
2/8/2012-12:33pm at 12:33 pm (UTC -4)
I know the name, but really don’t know much about Red Foley, but holy s**t, a combo of Frank Sinatra and Hank Sr sounds pretty damn good! Will definitely get a CD of his soon.
By the way, maybe you know that Frank once called George Jones “The second best white male singer in America.”
TRS86
2/8/2012-12:48pm at 12:48 pm (UTC -4)
LOL that’s great. I had never really heard Foley until recently. Come to find out he was a great friend of the Williams family and actually died at a concert with Hank JR on the card with Hank by his side. You can youtube some of his songs, I have not had time to see if some of my barely legal download sites have him on there or not.
SaltyGary
2/8/2012-1:07pm at 1:07 pm (UTC -4)
Doesn’t that picture of Metsie just paint the whole picture?
TRS86
2/8/2012-1:13pm at 1:13 pm (UTC -4)
Which one? O”LEARY?
SaltyGary
2/8/2012-1:28pm at 1:28 pm (UTC -4)
Yea! It’s totally him. He’s listed in Vegas and he always goes to work 12pm EST. He’s also made many comments that he is a expert in the entertainment field.
kingman 26
2/8/2012-3:15pm at 3:15 pm (UTC -4)
He and all four of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse of Ignorance ARE experts in entertaining others with some of the most intolerant, closed-minded, fact-free, ignorance spewed ANYWHERE on the internet.
Bayonne, Metsie, Pomes, and Alex.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse of Ignorance.
SaltyGary
2/8/2012-3:19pm at 3:19 pm (UTC -4)
Kong he posted a website where he said he is on the board. There is a pic of a guy on it that is stuck in the ’80′s. I will always have this 80′s rocker image whenever I read one of his comments, which makes it 100 times better.
And not that there is anything wrong with that seeing it sounds like you are stuck in the next decade
kingman 26
2/8/2012-9:43pm at 9:43 pm (UTC -4)
I am not sure that is fair!
Yeah, I love the 1990s Seattle Music—and most of the best rap is from the 1990s—but why am I stuck in the 1990s?
Oh, that’s not fair.
Would I cut off my left arm with a rusty hack saw to re-live the years of about 1990–1998?
Maybe.
SaltyGary
2/8/2012-9:57pm at 9:57 pm (UTC -4)
Just teasing ya. Me I’m “stuck” in the house with two kids
And dude as much as I like Phish or Pearl Jam put on GZA’s “Liquid Swords”s and I can be convinced to have a third kid. 90′s were the last best era of music. Maybe I’m getting old but even a lot of the newer indie rock sounds like it comes from a bunch of hipster sissies.
Mets
2/9/2012-10:58pm at 10:58 pm (UTC -4)
I’m confused by the KRod and Beltran points- yeah they were good, handsome, and expensive, but did anyone on the face of the Earth expect Beltran to be back (I didn’t think he would be good at all in 2011), and did anyone want K-Rod back?
Frank Francisco would at least outmatch KRod’s 2009 season in which he was paid copious amounts of money to do fuck all, considering he’ll be out of the AL East and the Canadian atmosphere of Toronto, Canada. I loved Carlos, but when you look back at what he’s done the past three years, we knew it was over.
I’ll talk about Reyes when I’m ready (and I won’t be).
Stickguy
2/8/2012-6:12pm at 6:12 pm (UTC -4)
the team isn’t that bad. And the situation does get colored due to playing in a tough (on paper) division.
But, the Mets are not a complete train wreck that is devoid of talent. The pen hopefully is OK, and they should score plenty of runs.
Yes, the SP on paper is a crap shoot, but if they can at least be serviceable, then the team can hang around respectability at least (that +/- .500 range).
And I am not willing to anoint the Nats of Marlins WS threats quite yet, just based on the roster shuffling from this off season.
MetsFan4Decades
2/8/2012-8:54pm at 8:54 pm (UTC -4)
Those 1979/1980 teams…now they were devoid almost completely of any kind of talent.