Culture Change

By Mike "The Voice" Silva
Posted Saturday, April 21, 2007

Shea Stadium will be torn to the ground in a little over a year. With that, a new era of Mets baseball and memories will begin.

Often, Mets' fans have been accused of rooting for a team without a history or tradition. After looking back at my own twenty years of being a Mets fan, I beg to differ. The Yankees may have Babe Ruth, monuments, and 26 World Series trophies, but they can’t touch the unique dynamics that Mets history offers. I can’t provide readers perspective on the miracle of the sixties, doom and gloom of the seventies, or the excitement leading up to ’86, but what I can do is give a perspective of an unfulfilled dynasty, insignificant early nineties, Bobby V’s Mets, and Omar.

What’s more, after visiting Shea last weekend, it made me reflect on the long journey I have had as a Mets fan that brought me to today. It also made me hope that I continue to see the fan base embrace their history and create a culture unique to the team; one that will hopefully grow into a new era of Mets baseball and excellence.

For me, sports started to take on an historical perspective over the last five years. I began to realize that Mets baseball has been with me over many of my life's watershed moments. The memories that the team had provided me were not all positive, but were etched into the fabric of who I was. My first nostalgic purchases were authentic jerseys of Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter. Seeing any type of “throwback” at Shea was a rare occurrence at that time. I remember being stopped by a fan during a Mets - Braves rain delay in 2002 asking me how I found these jerseys. Think about that, isn’t that a sad state of the fan base? Two of our greatest players were a rare sighting on a fan jersey at the stadium.

To boot, you could get a Mo Vaughn authentic in the team shop that night.

Most nights, with the exception of 1999-2000, the stadium lacked energy. Fans seemed disconnected with the team. I even wondered if there were more diehards like myself. This weekend the scene was complete opposite. Right as I stepped off the Long Island Railroad there was a guy with a Darryl Strawberry throwback. Minutes later near Gate E I saw a Turk Wendell authentic jersey. To boot, the atmosphere around the stadium was one of confidence and pride. Both these characteristics have not been strengths of the fan base at any point in my short “career” as a fan. I could tell the fans now expect to win. They demand excellence rather then hope for it. This is a clear change in culture, and brought me to thinking about what a long journey this has been for me personally and fans of the team in general.

Any fan whose first two years of rooting for a team results in living through the Terry Pendleton and Mike Scioscia heart-breaking homers has to wonder if they are jinxed. Soon after, Doc and Darryl are gone and the “worst team money can buy” is ushered in. The Knicks made 1993 to 1997 bearable, as visits to Shea were time killers to training camp. Somehow watching Hundley break the home run record for catchers, John Franco walk the ninth inning tight rope, and Carlos Baerga disintegrate before our eyes didn’t evoke those competitive fan juices.

The cherry on the top was the Yankees return to dominance with their 1996 World Series championship. A Mets fan could not feel anymore insignificant as they did during the winter of 1996 into the spring of 1997. Things did get better during the Bobby V and Mike Piazza era. I call it the "close but no cigar" run. We had our chance to take back the city in 2000, but Timo Perez and Armando Benitez blew Game 1 of the World Series and that was it. Steve Phillips fumbled to patch the leak over the next couple of years only to hand it over to Jim Duquette. He not only dropped the ball, but smashed it into a million pieces by trading Scott Kazmir.

One paragraph does not summarize eighteen years of drama, broken dreams, and mismanagement. You wanted a column not a novel right? Fortunately Omar and Willie have taken over and we know the ride they have taken us on the last couple of years. The question is, would I have it any other way? Sure I would like to be wearing a 1988, 1999, and 2000 World Series champions shirts, but it was not meant to be. Ironically these last twenty years will breed the leaders of the next generation of Mets fans. We won’t have the privilege of being there at the beginning, or surviving M. Donald Grant, but the scars are just as visible and perhaps even deeper.

The old saying goes its better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all. That, in my opinion, doesn’t apply to baseball success. A season like 1993, although embarrassing, doesn’t conjure up the same level of disappointment that 2000 created. Many times, during the last two decades, I felt greatness was right at my fingertips. Being so hungry for that championship and seeing it pulled away at the last moment hurts badly and sometimes makes you wish you were never that close at all. Deep down you know better.

In the end it’s made us fans stronger, more appreciative, and clearly more passionate then our cross town counterparts.

I am off to Shea for the second straight weekend. Hopefully the passion and culture that I saw last week was not an anomaly. For a fan base to thrive and grow it needs to appreciate where the team has come from. For many like me, it’s an era defined by moments many would like to forget. The next generation of fans will usher in more memories of the team. My message: continue to embrace the past while you live for the future. Remember, you can’t appreciate the good times if you have no perspective of how hard it is to get there.

Please check out my weekly Sunday radio show recapping NY Baseball from 10pm to 11pm at www.am1240wgbb.com . Questions? Comments? Concerns? Please email me at chinmusicnybo@aol.com