Not Over It

So I keep thinking about the Mets...and I just can't get over it...

I had a dream last night of the end of the '99 season, with Kenny Rogers walking in the winning run at Turner Field...I woke up nauseous as I remembered how awful and anti climactic that night had felt.... after going to three playoff games that year...after my sister and I had been at the 15 inning game in the pouring rain that ended in a Robin Ventura walk-off single grand slam and pushed a game six. I remember we didn't care that we were freezing and soaked to the bone and it was nearly midnight. I remember how those row T Upper Deck seats were better than any luxury box I'd ever been in...

I can't believe that was nine years ago...

I can believe the Mets are still just as good at breaking my heart...

I remember going to games in the mid nineties...59 wins in 93 had to be my personal favorite...Frank Tanana and Anthony Young combining for 31 loses...great stuff...but we went to games anyway...watched the Doc lose and lose as his career wound down and drug use caught up with him...what a decade....the decade of wretched and never ending rebuilding and buying of ragtag players that, if they were ever to perform in the majors at all, it wouldn't be in a Met uniform... I'm speaking of the likes of Eddie Murray, Tim Bogar, Vince Coleman, Rico Brogna, Jeff Kent, Joe Orsulak, David Segui, Bobby Bonilla, Todd Hundley, Carlos Baerga, Jason Isringhausen... the never ending horrific runstyle of players...

Those summers were nearly unendurable, but going to a game was always great, because as much as you hated for them to lose, you loved the team and what they stood for...and it was beautiful to see them finally start to make something of themselves by the end of the decade...The days when they were on the cover of Sports illustrated with the best infield in baseball, Olerud, Alfonzo, Ordonez and Ventura...add Bobby Jones and Al Lieter on the mound and John Franco and Turk Wendell in the Bullpen and it felt like an era again...

After all the ups and downs through the years, and remembering the glory of '86 as a child, I just felt it was time...like they couldn't lose..but they did...in '99 and again in 2000, after losing the World series to the Yanks I felt numb, like I wouldn't expect anything much, like the mid-nineties...just enjoy the game for what it is, but don't expect much...

I start to think that maybe I'm just spoiled as I think of all the fans out there that have never had a winning team and I realize that we were blessed with a lot of joy that most fans never see...

But, to quote my brother Chris, "Time will make bitches of us all"..and it has...in the past few years, with Wright and Reyes in the infield and the Carlos' hitting them out of the park...I dared to hope again...I could feel it again...the magic back at Shea...
but they couldn't pull it off...
I watched The White Sox pull off a game last night and as it ended with diving catch and earned them a post season spot...I heard the roar of their fans and imagined that it was David Wright doing that at Shea on this past Sunday and what that would have meant...and it hit me that I would never be in Shea as it shook again...

What makes it so much worse this year, is not just that I won't be there with family and friends to experience the Mets at Shea...but also that this team just doesn't have that kind of heart...and that Shea will no longer be a part of the future successes of the Mets, if there are any to come...

I feel as if they are paving over the heart and soul of what this team has always represented, that underdog ability to drag itself back to the postseason with heart...the soul that spawned the mantra "You Gotta Believe"

Believe in what now? Omar Minaya's ability to build a team? These Mets suddenly finding the ability to grow a pine and not choke? A corporate stadium that a family in Queens can't afford to attend?

I have very little left to believe...

Shea gave the Mets the soul they lacked....it shook on many occasions when I was fortunate to be at postseason games and firework nights....the boos in the 90s resonated in its cavernous and often empty Upper Deck

The problem is...now these players that care more about clocking in than winning and have no heart, won't even have the options of possibly drawing it from the past, not that they ever did, but hte potential is gone.

Shea is no more, The first base line of Mookie's magical miracle dribbler is gone forever....and Citi Field will be just another cookie cutter new park among many, with bright shinny things to stare at...all labeled with the latest sponsor...and very little heart...

and no one cares but the fans...