Posted by coyote522 on 3/19/2020 12:33:00 PM (view original):
If you’re a mets fan, and have been since almost the begining,
and you don’t appreciate
Casey stengel
tom seaver
tommie and cleon
Gil hodges
ralph kiner and bob murphy
1969, every single minute of it
rusty staub
tug mcgraw
September 1973
doc gooden in 85
Darryl strawberry
keith hernandez
1986
the run in 99
the 2000 post season
david Wright and jose reyes
2006
august and september 2015
the 2015 post season
jacob degrom
pete alonso
you’re an effing idiot.
****.
i was there at the polo grounds when choo choo coleman broke up a marichal no hitter
i was there at tom seaver’s first game ever
i was there all through the summer of 69
and at game 4 of the ws with seaver pitching 10 innings and swoboda’s catch
i saw doc gooden in 85
i was at seavers last game as a met
i was at the last night game ever played at shea
i saw degrom shut down the dodgers in the 2015 division series in dodger stadium
i was at citifield a few weeks later to see david wright hit a hr in the first ws game played at citifield.
being a fan of any team means taking the bad with the good.
unless you’re a yankee fan, born on third and thinking you hit a triple.
I became a Yankees fan in the late 1960s, though I followed every minute of the Mets' 1969.
I was born thinking Horace Clarke was on second base. But your main point is absolutely right:
Sparky Lyle will always have a place in my heart because he brought us out of the darkness in 1972. The 1974 team, that was up 2 games over Baltimore in the last weekend of the season but lost three straight to Cuellar, Palmer and McNally remains a cherished memory. These things made the early triumphs that much more special, seeing Willie Randolph as second base on opening day in 1976 (and not poor Horace who was actually pretty good), and somehow knowing the world had changed, Chris Chambliss' home run to win the pennant. The crushing defeat four straight to the Reds in that Series seeming so unfair even if inevitable.
The awful pitching through the whole 1980s and early 1990s that condemned Don Mattingly to near-obscurity as lesser players became myths in Yankee legend a few years later.
So sorry all, I sucked up every minute of 1996-2001, knowing it would not last forever. I also followed most of those Mets moments and the Miracle of 1969, the sort of miracle of 1973 (Ya gotta believe !)), and the sheer joy of their play in 1984-86 (baseball like it oughta be) have no parallels, not even in Yankeedom.