Burned Out Mets Fandom

I don't want to speak for all (or even most) Mets fans, but by the last couple months of this year, I've been feeling more burnt out as Mets fan than I can remember feeling in years. I've only watched occasional games over the last month, and even when watching I'll turn away early in the game, or pay half attention. I can't remember the last year I've attended as few games as I did this year (3). Part of this is certainly due to the general quality of product on the field - it's rough to watch a bad team for one (though the Mets aren't a truly awful team - 4 games under .500 with a Pythagorean winning percentage of .500 - just an awfully underachieving team) and it's even less inspiring when you're being forced to watch a lineup full of not-really-prospects like Lucas Duda, Quad-Aers like Jesus Feliciano, and way-too-young-all-field-no-hit players like Ruben Tejada.

It all starts with 17 games left in 2007, when the now fabled collapse began - the Mets blew a 7 game lead, a lead which they had had for four months, culminated by losing on the last day of the season in blowout fashion to the Marlins, in a game started by one time arch-rival Tom Glavine, his last as a Met, which was over before it even began - he allowed seven runs in the first while only managing to get one out. Of course, like a financial down or up cycle, we could only know for sure when tides changed in hindsight - at the time, it was bad, absolutely brutal, certainly - perhaps worse than the seven game loss to the Cardinals in the NLCS the year before - but there was hope all the same - the Mets were just removed from their fantastic 2006, and it was a serious of freak bad luck in the bullpen that had caused some of those losses, and with solid performances from 2006 acquisitions Oliver Perez and John Maine, it seemed like 2008 would be closer to 2006 than 2007.

It turned out to be wrong of course - 2008 ended up being a poor man's 2007 - the lead was never quite as big, and the team never quite seemed as good (though it finished with one more win than the year before) - and while it was just as tough to swallow, the eventual collapse was more expected if nothing else - it's as if we were back at home with the feeling that mets fans need to expect everything to go wrong, and that for some reason that was just on a strange hiatus for 2006. I was at the last game at Shea Stadium, where the Mets played a meaningful last game of the season for the second straight year, losing again to end any playoff hopes. Compared to the year before of course, 2009 was simply an unmitigated disaster - every important player not named David Wright was injured for a significant part of the season, and Wright had a power outage leading to no Met having more than 12 home runs, and that being by the mostly-no-hit, no-field Daniel Murphy. 2010 was a much more successful year record-wise than 2009, but it was still below .500, and it came at a point where I honestly didn't expect anything more than a third place finish from the Mets.

Now, it didn't help at all that while the Mets were going from blowing leads to never having them in the first place, the Mets biggest rivals were succeeding, well, about as much as baseball teams can succeed - the Phillies have made the playoffs every year from 2007 to 2010, won the World Series in 2008 and won the pennant in 2009, while the Yankees won the World Series in 2009. It's serious insult added to terrible performances by the Mets.

By the end, no, middle, no, mostly beginning at the latest of this year, Mets fans had lost confidence in their manager and general manager to put together a team capable of winning anything, not to mention the ownership, which sadly isn't going anywhere. It became a matter of riding out the year to wait for changes after the year. And by the end of the year, watching the Mets was no longer an act of enjoyment - it was a reminder of failure.

I just want to make it known that I do not blame the players, and particularly am not one of those people who thinks that not making the playoffs is on the shoulders of David Wright and Jose Reyes and we should trade them - they - for the most part - have done their part - it's been the pieces around them that have been insufficient.

My friend Rich made a point which I think resonates a lot - Mets fans are back in a mode in which anyone in charge of the Mets should be considered guilty until proven innocent. I desperately want to give new management a chance, but I have absolutely no faith in the current ownership group to pick new management I would support.

I hope, I really do, that next year begins with a management team that is capable to making the Mets a team that can compete for the playoffs every year, but I can't get back that excited feeling until I see something in action.