Inspired By Infidels

I have to admit...the last couple of weeks, I've had a serious case of writers block on this blog. Part of it has been the Yanks getting knocked out in the way that they did. That took a lot of the wind out of my sails. Some of it has been physical exhaustion. Between work, staying up late to watch the games, going to games live and the typical drinking and debauchery that I engage in...I've had a hard time coming up with good stuff for this blog. I've posted some decent stuff on my other blog, the Imperial Sports Page, but I haven't done right by my first born.

An infidel friend says that my writing is much better when I'm pissed at someone or something. That I'm at my best when I focus my hate on a subject and spew away. It's easy to do this during the season because there's always someone or something that's getting under my craw...that there's often not enough time to write about everything that's pissing me off.

I think I've found my inspiration.

Let me start off by welcoming MetsGuy to the blog universe. Unlike some cowards who don't have the courage to start their own blogs but want to mock others who do have the courage to bear their souls, this transplanted left-coaster had the guts declare his love for his team on the World Wide Web. Bully for him. For this he should be saluted.

Now he must die.

He decides to use his inaugural post to spout the old, silly drivel that I've had to hear from Mets fans for years. Let me give you a couple of tidbits in case you've become from reading his saccarhin account of the Flushing faithful...

Mets fans are the greatest baseball fans in the world.

The greatest baseball fans in the world? Mutt fans deserve hazard pay for traveling to that eyesore of a park in Queens 81 times a year. But how can a team that can't sell out consistently unless they play the Yankees call themselves the greatest baseball fans in the world? Last season and in 2004, when this team was still in the pennant race in July and August, they only drew about 30 to 35 thousand a game. In a park that seats well over 50 thousand. Where were all these great fans? In a metropolitan area of over 17 million people, how can a team with the greatest fans in the world only draw 30 plus thousand a game? In the middle of a pennant race?

We live in a city where we have a team that represents tradition and dominance. We could easily don the navy blue and spend every season watching last year’s crop of overpaid free agents. Yet, given this option, we reject it for the stigma that comes with the blue and orange. We reject one-dimensional, swing for the fences baseball, and we embrace pitching, defense, base running, and all the comforts that Shea’s wide outfield provides.

The reason you don't spend any money on free agents is that when you do...they suddenly forget how to play the game that made them rich in the first place. Bonilla, Vaughn, Alomar, Beltran...the list is almost endless. The Yankees have their fair share of disappointments, but we also have quite a few success stories. Winfield, Jackson, Hunter, Wells, Mussina, Matsui, Sheffield and others. Guys that have earned their paychecks by posting superior numbers. Why? Because we hold our guys accountable for their performances.

New Yorkers are Yankee fans because they support New York. We are Mets fans because we appreciate baseball. To us, this game is not about supporting a team in October, and ignoring them during the season. We do not jump off the bandwagon at the smallest sign of failure. In an odd Buddhist way, we embrace the failures that come with being a Mets fan, because we know it gives us character. It shows that we are better fans than our Yankee brethren, who would sooner not watch than cheer for a team that doesn’t make the postseason.

I love the way losers feel the need to justify why they root for their teams by calling winners bandwagon jumpers. That it shows some strength of character to root for your team even when they stink. I and a lot of Yankee fans remember the bad old days of the 1980's. When New York was a Mets town. When Doc, Daryl and the Kid ruled Gotham City. I remember the empty stands of Yankee Stadium. The full houses at Shea. Growing up in Queens and getting tortured by the Flushing Faithful. Never once did I ever consider donning the blue and orange. Now the tide has turned. Now, NYC is once again the capital of Galactic Baseball Empire. The Yankees are drawing record crowds while the Mets players are looking at empty seats.

You know what that tells me? It tells me that every team has a core group of diehards. Then there are peripheral fans. Fans that follow a team but don't live and die with how they do. Then there are bandwagon jumpers. People who want to be associated with a winner and despite what they say, and have no real allegiance to anyone except whoever's holding up that trophy at the end of the season. You're a loyal fan. True to you school. But this idea that the Mets stink and you deserve a medal because you have the courage to wear a Mets hat makes you a better fan than Yankee fans is silly. Sports runs in cycles. There will be a time in the future where the Mets are better than the Yankees. Not next year like Mike Lupica thinks, but someday. And then Shea will be overrun by all pink Mets hats and David Wright jerseys in the way Yankee Stadium is inundated with pixies with their pink Yankee gear and Jeter shirts. Bandwagon jumpers have no allegiances.

We have no association with the business-like pinstripes of the Yankees, and the tight suits who cheer for them. Our tradition stems from the working class fans of the Dodgers and Giants, gathering with the ghosts of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. Their stadium was built on sluggers whose names we can rattle off until we want to vomit: Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, gag, choke, puke. Take a stroll down Monument Park, and you’ll see the retired numbers of many sluggers, and two pitchers. Is that the best you can do? For all your tradition and storied history, is your baseball team really so entrenched in the philosophy of simply swinging for the fences and beating opponents into submission?

This maybe the dumbest thing that he wrote. Despite the glorification of the big bats, anyone who knows anything about Yankee history knows that this dynasty was built on pitching. Names like Ruffing, Gomez, Ford, Hunter, Reynolds, Larsen, Page, Wells, Pettitte, Clemens, Cone, Rivera and so on. The Yankees have as rich a history of pitching as any club in the history of the game. When the Yankees consistently beat the Dodgers in the forties and fifties. It was with their arms not their biceps. The only perfect game in the Postseason history was thrown by a Yankee. The greatest closer in postseason history is a Yankee. The World Series leader in wins is a Yankee. Chicks dig the long ball and home runs put fannies in the seats. But pitching wins championships. So despite Metsguy's little rant about the Yankees being a one dimensional franchise, despite all this holier than thou National League nonsense, the Yankees actually "outNational League" the National League.

But why am I defending my team to a man that roots for a team that's produced exactly one Hall of Famer(not counting Nolan Ryan) and no Hall of Fame position players? The Padres have two. The Twins have three. Even the Expos have one. Who have the Mets produced? Strawberry? Redeemed as a Yankee. Mitchell? Traded away and became the NL MVP in 1989.

Congrats on the blog, Metsguy. But instead of constantly trying to compare your team to a franchise and legacy that you'll never live up to...worry about whether Reyes is going to break his leg legging out a triple or if Wright will get caught with underage midget triplets in the Poconos. You'll be better than trying to convince the world that going to a sewage plant for fun develops character.

Thanks I needed that....