I still remember the day back in 1968 when my parents finally relented and got cable at our house and we could now watch more than 20 channels. One of those channels was WWOR in New York City, which broadcast New York Mets games.<\/p>\n
The Mets were a newer team with a great young pitcher named Tom Seaver. I found him exciting to watch. For better or for worse, I became a Mets fan for life.<\/p>\n
I was rewarded quickly in 1969 as the \u201cMiracle Mets\u201d came from 10 games behind on Aug. 14 to win the World Series. The Mets made the World Series again in 1973 despite barely having a .500 record. Then, in 1986, they were the undisputed best team in baseball, winning a classic World Series against the Red Sox.<\/p>\n
That was the last time the Mets would win a World Series.<\/p>\n
They lost the World Series in 2000 and in 2015. They have never made the playoffs three years in a row. Last year was magical \u2014 the Mets made the playoffs on the last day of the season. They were a gritty team and had a magical run. They lost to the eventual-champion Dodgers in the NL championship series.<\/p>\n
This year, the Mets started off magically again, but on Sunday, they lost 4-0 to the Miami Marlins and were knocked out of playoff contention for good.<\/p>\n
The Mets had a chance to be in the game when, in the fourth inning, they loaded the bases. Slugger Pete Alonso hit the hardest ball of the year at 115 mph. Sadly, it was caught on an excellent play by a Marlins player.<\/p>\n
The Mets just didn\u2019t have it, especially for the last two months of the season when they were just hard to watch. We\u2019ve seen this before, as the Mets have a history of missing the playoffs on the last day of the season.<\/p>\n
All this got me thinking, why do I do this?<\/p>\n
Well, first off, a fan has to be a fan, win or lose. Part of being a fan is staying by your team through the ups and downs, no matter how many downs there might be. And, with the Mets there are always a lot of downs. Yet even in a difficult season like this one there were some nice highlights.<\/p>\n
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor had a strong year, hitting 30 home runs and stealing 30 bases. Mets newcomer and superstar Juan Soto had an amazing year, exceeding 40 home runs, 35 stolen bases, 100 runs scored, 100 walks, and 100 RBIs. Yes, he gets paid a lot, but he earned it.<\/p>\n
First baseman Alonso broke the Mets all-time team home run record. Hopefully, he\u2019ll be back next year \u2026 we will see. They also debuted three promising young pitchers, so the future should be bright. The Mets organization will make some changes, and changes are good.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve mentioned before, sports are the ultimate reality show. They aren\u2019t scripted at all, which is what makes them so entertaining. They combine peak human performance, emotion, and random bounces of balls or pucks or whatever a sport might use. You never know what\u2019s going to happen \u2014 well, unless you\u2019re a Mets fan. Then, you can be fairly certain the Mets will find a way to do something to knock themselves out of the playoffs. Yet still we fans love them.<\/p>\n
Life is funny, and fandom is part of life. But like I also say, don\u2019t worry about things you can\u2019t control. Fifty-plus years of fandom has taught me the Mets, Bills, Sabres, and Knicks are all something we fans can\u2019t control, but we can still savor the good moments.<\/p>\n
And so, it\u2019s on to football: Let\u2019s go, Bills!<\/p>\n
John Zakour lives in Geneva. He is a freelance humor writer with a bachelor\u2019s in computer science from SUNY Potsdam and a master\u2019s in human behavior. He is a chief happiness practitioner. He writes his own syndicated comic, \u201cWorking Daze,\u201d which has anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 daily readers. Contact him at johnzakour@gmail.com<\/a>, or check out his blog at workingdaze.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I still remember the day back in 1968 when my parents finally relented and got cable at our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357050,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2323,2314,2317,2313,2325,227,2335,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,61,2307,74,185,2339,2324,2560,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-357049","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-events","13":"tag-baseball-finals","14":"tag-baseball-games","15":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","16":"tag-baseball-teams","17":"tag-francisco-lindor","18":"tag-home-run","19":"tag-major-league-baseball","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","24":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","25":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","26":"tag-mlb","27":"tag-mlb-playoffs","28":"tag-mlb-postseason","29":"tag-new-york-mets","30":"tag-outdoor-sports","31":"tag-pete-alonso","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-sports-competitions","34":"tag-sports-events","35":"tag-stolen-base","36":"tag-team-sports","37":"tag-turf-sports","38":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}