wah, wah, wah

I'm sick of all the whining about the Mets, about Willie Randolph, about Omar Minaya, from people who call themselves fans. The whining is happening on message boards, on WFAN, on other blogs, and it bugs me.

I don't understand people who only love their team when they're winning, who impugn the
professionalism of the injured guys on the team, who act as though they're entitled to a team that wins all the time. What's going on here? We're Mets fans. We don't see winning as a divine right, and I would hate to see the ethos of the Mets fan sink into the ridiculous idea that a good team ought to lose only very rarely, if at all. There's a name for people like that-- Yankee Fans.

People boo'ed David Wright at the beginning of the season when he wasn't hitting-- and he practically carried the team last month. People suggest that Carlos Beltran was just being a pussy not playing with a strained abdomen-- and he's been on fire since he came back, clearly showing that resting his muscles was the right way to go. It just pisses me off when people who call themselves fans assume that guys are just slacking, not working hard on being the best they can be.

That attitude reminds me of a story about Babe Ruth. He ran into a young fan before a game once, and the kid asked the Babe to hit a home run for him. "Kid, do you have any idea how hard it is to hit a home run?" replied Ruth. Of course he didn't. I feel like fans deserve the same chastisement when they act like it's just easy for Beltran or Delgado or Wright to hit. They clearly have no idea how hard it is to hit, much less a home run.

The team hasn't been playing as well as they did last year. Perhaps this defies credulity, but I find this much more exciting than being out in first by 10 games and having the NL-East pennant race being a foregone conclusion. By this time last year, we were just waiting for the post-season to care about wins and losses again. This year, it still matters, every game.

For me, that's what the love of baseball is about-- the thrill of watching games that matter. This race is exciting. How is that bad for us as fans, bad for the Mets as players, or bad for baseball?

Answer: It's not. It's fun. Anyone who doesn't think so is a dilettante, not a fan.