The Magic is Back

Mets fans never have it easy, but it feels like times are changing...

Image credit: Chris Simon

Only a percentage of Mets fans have experienced the joy of a world championship. Unless you were alive and able to form memories by 1986, you’re still waiting for your taste of glory.

I’m with you. Born in October 1983, I have no recollection of those days. I wore out my father’s VHS tapes of the NLCS against Houston and the triumph over Boston in the World Series, but that’s all I had to grasp onto until I was well into my formative years.

My formal introduction to the Metropolitans was the erosion of what should have been a dynasty. My die-hard fandom was christened by the worst team money could buy. Generation K taught me the all-important lesson of don’t count your chickens before they hatch very early. I basically earned my indoctrination into this fandom via failure. Over and over and over again.

John Franco, Eddie Murray, Bobby Bonilla, Todd Hundley, Bret Saberhagen, Jeff Kent, Bernard Gilkey, Bobby Jones, Carl Everett, Rico Brogna, Pete Harnisch, Ryan Thompson, Butch Huskey, Lance Johnson, among many, many others bridged the gap to better days. It wasn’t always pretty, but it made the journey that much more enjoyable.

The energy shift once things began to turn around was palpable. The only downside was the budding reign of dominance in The Bronx. But to a 14-year-old kid surrounded by Yankees fans at every turn, simply keeping up with those deep-pocketed titans was exciting enough. It was uncharted territory and it set my imagination on fire. An orange-and-blue resurgence to ward off the pinstriped invasion didn’t seem far-fetched to me.

Eighty-eight wins apiece in 1997 and 1998 under the, um, uniquely effective guidance of Bobby Valentine instilled an even stronger sense of pride among the fan base. Something special was happening. We couldn’t be convinced otherwise. At least I couldn’t. I’m sure if social media was around at the time, there were folks who could have been. Not me, though.

What transpired in 1999 — the middling, the momentum, the maligned dream, the miracle to squeak in, that magical postseason — only galvanized those visions, and off we went. By 2000, the roster was built and properly reinforced, the confidence throughout the clubhouse was indistinguishable, and fan support was at its peak. These must have been the glory days I’d heard so much about. Well, almost.

Losing the Subway Series to the Yanks in 2000 still feels like a missed opportunity (just a few more breaks, man…). But in reflection, that October run was one of the most fulfilling sequences of my fandom. It is what it is. Just another stop on the trip.

But that’s where we stop the stroll down memory lane and bring it back to the future (boom).

The circumstances surrounding the current tide-change in Flushing Bay are unlike anything else we’ve seen. The transparency of the former ownership group’s perennial plan — do just enough to keep things competitive but come up just short on actual gear-shifting moves, seemingly to keep up appearances — eventually grew stale enough that it fell on the ears of someone who could actually make a change: current owner and CEO Steve Cohen, who purchased the team in November 2020.

Change didn’t arrive overnight, as evidenced by last season’s follies. And we won’t know if this winter’s top-shelf overhaul takes root for a while, still. But the level of excitement that’s running its way through the fan base these days — even amid a lockout — is right on par with the rush I experienced as a teenager taking my love affair with this team to the next level.

Today, just like they were in the mid-2000s, things just feel different. Wonderful, in fact. In the most literal sense of the word.

See a Mets hat in the supermarket? You absolutely know I’m giving them the nod. Waiting for a sandwich in the deli and a fellow patron remarks on the crisp, orange-button fitted cap on my head? You know we’re passing the time by sharing our sky-high hopes for the future.

Onward and upward, family. LFGM.

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