Attention All Band Wagon Jumpers...

By Tom "Mr Star" Starita
Posted Thursday, September 6, 2007

Attention all band wagon jumpers

Due to your hysterics and absence of faith please turn in your Mets jerseys and hats at Shea Stadium Gate A. Sadly, it only took four games at the end of August to show your true colors. Perhaps you would be better suited to root for the team in the Bronx. They are used to band wagon fans and are more than willing to let you and your obnoxiousness jump on their ship.

Good luck in life and stuff.

Management

This week’s column is a retort, mainly directed at the segment of the fan base which jumped ship somewhere between Thursday afternoon and Friday night. In listening to the FAN and reading the message boards I became disgusted with the doom and gloom.

Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t have been upset. Hell I flipped over my couch and broke off a leg! Those four losses were brutal to deal with. So the anger I can understand. But to give up faith, while still in first place and an entire month to go blew me away! Some people received tremendous satisfaction in saying, “I told you so”. All year they have been waiting for the hammer to fall and now it was all over. The Phillies had swept the Mets and would soon be like the barbarians invading Rome. There was nothing we could do to stop it except complain and panic.

Why couldn’t we stop it?

Because we were going into Atlanta. The city where seasons go to die AND we were facing Hudson and Smoltz. The one game we COULD get in theory was the game Mike Pelfrey (the guy some people want to get rid of because he sucks after fifteen big league starts) was starting. The most likely result would be about seven home runs from Chipper, a walk off by Chris Woodward and come Monday the Mets would be in second place.

Thank God the boys in blue and orange thought differently.

Baseball is a great game, in my opinion the best out of the four major sports. There is no other sport or athletic competition that can provide the drama, the white knuckle intensity or the opportunity for redemption like baseball. Football is simply sixteen mini seasons wrapped up into one big season. But with parity, four divisions in each league AND two wild cards all a team has to do is play a little over 500 to get in the playoffs. In basketball it doesn’t matter if you suffer a bad loss in March because half the league makes the playoffs. I would throw hockey in the discussion but based on tv ratings no one cares anymore. Then there’s baseball…

In baseball the best team always wins out. The regular season is designed to weed out the pretenders and rewards the team that plays the best over the entire 162 game schedule. This is why the Phillies never make the playoffs. Every year they start off slow, and then get really hot in July and August and the “experts” point to how they’ve had the best record since such and such date. Except the season didn’t start in July, it started back in April.

What’s your point?

My point is baseball is the only sport where you can get swept by the team chasing you and a week later somehow gain three games in the standings. Baseball is the sport where you should NEVER give up when your team is still in contention because anything can happen tomorrow.

Like going into Atlanta for the second year in a row and providing the death blow.

Last year was sweet because it was years in the making. We were rolling through the league and had a ten game lead over the Braves going into the series. Of course the Braves figured they would sweep us, cut the lead to seven and win their fifteenth division title in a row. When we swept them it was exorcising the ghosts of Michael Tucker, Armando Benitez and Kenny Rogers.

Ok maybe not Kenny Rogers, NOTHING will ever exercise ball four.

But you get my point. Last year’s sweep was the crowning achievement of a dominant regular season.

This year was a different story. First off the games were in September. Second, we came in a flat team with no momentum. The Braves, their fans and the Georgia media were completely convinced they would take the series, most likely sweep us and reassert themselves as the class of the National League East.

Instead the Mets showed you, me, Scott Clark, Joel Sherman, Joe Beningo and anyone else who was watching that they ARE the class of the National League East. For the second year in a row Willie Randolph’s team went into Georgia and came home with scalps.

The bottom line is this. If you want to get angry when we lose, get angry. If you want to scream how this team drives you crazy do so, I’ll be right behind you. But NEVER quit on this team. These aren’t Art Howe’s Mets. Vince Coleman isn’t leading off for this squad. Craig Swann isn’t our staff ace.

Remember this is a dramatic franchise. Dramatic isn’t the word, if we were a television channel we would be the WB of Major League Baseball. When we lose we set records – like in 1962. When we win we are miraculous – like the 69 Mets. This franchise invented, “Ya Gotta Believe” in 1973. We are the same team that was down to our final strike thirteen different times only to make Vince Scully scream “BEHIND THE BAG”. We witnessed one of only eight series ending walk off home runs when Steve Finley forgot how to jump and Todd Pratt became an instant legend. The Mets invented a new kind of hit, the “Grand Slam single” and even saw Paul Lo Duca tag two guys out at home on the same play.

And you wanted to give up because we lost four games in AUGUST?

Tom doesn’t know much but he is convinced of a couple of things. This October will be one big emotional roller coaster and not only will his hair turn completely white, but he will get an ulcer in the process. But if it ends with champagne stinging his eyes it will all be worth it. You can’t have the sweet without the sour, just like you can’t write a column and not provide a forum to talk. MrStarita@yahoo.com or the forums – knock yourself out!