Screw The Wilpons

By Mike McGann
Posted Wednesday, January 2, 2008

In this winter of discontent, Mets’ fans need to come to one conclusion to preserve their sanity: screw the Wilpons.

Look, here’s the truth, and actions speak louder than any official team press release: they don’t care about you. Not in the slightest. Raise ticket prices 20 percent after the worst collapse in New York baseball history and you send one message and only one message to the fans: drop dead. Oh, and make sure we’re in your will.

And that’s okay.

Because at the end of the day, the Mets’ are still not their team. Yeah, yeah, I know Sterling Enterprises technically owns the The New York Metropolitan Baseball Club. On paper. And they get the money from the ballpark, the TV, the radio and every time you buy a David Wright jersey. And they get to do all the silly things Wilpons do, from talking about skill sets to messing up the farm system by stocking up Brooklyn and treating their minor league affiliates like crap. But they really don’t own the team — Mets’ fans own the team and have always, no matter what the letterhead says at any given moment.

Other than continually pointing it out and hoping that they get the message at some point, Mets’ fans can choose to be miserable and accept that ownership lacks the class and sophistication to run the team properly (think of the Wilpons as the anti-Maras, arrivistes who show up at the country club trying to prove how classy they are, only to continually show how crass they are) or accept the road to sanity and say “screw the Wilpons.”

What do you really want to get worked up about, the Wilpons and their corporate stooges making like the Borgias or watching Jose Reyes leg out a triple on a perfect spring day? If you’re smart, you got a beer and a good cigar going, watching the ball game and could care less about the latest Wilpon move to screw you, the fan, over. But did you see Jose fly?

And if you have to do something — just because, hey this is New York — do the small stuff. Watch to see who advertises on SNY, at Shea and during broadcasts — and buy someone else’s stuff. C’mon, you shouldn’t be drinking swill like Bud Light, get a case of Guinness instead. If Toyota is the official car of the Mets, buy a Honda, they’re more fun to drive anyway. Hey, we understand, and as the year goes on, we’ll come up with a list of Mets advertisers, if you feel inclined to send a very special love message back to the Wilpons about their greed and lack of class.

But don’t let your justified anger ruin your ability to enjoy the game, enjoy this team. Don’t let these bastards take that away from you, too. Take your kid to see the Mets — don’t miss the sparkle in his or her eyes the first time they see the green of the outfield or their first time they see the ballet of the perfectly turned double play. Hey, I’m biased, so if you can take them to Philly or the reportedly gorgeous new ballpark in D.C. (and see our old buddy Lastings, a 2008 NL All-Star), well, all the better. But even if you have to go to Shea (with its entertaining body cavity searches before entry) go and enjoy yourself.

Ignore the petty myriad of things the Wilpons do to insult their fans during each and every home game. Try not to notice the insult of seeing your team in Dodger uniforms — or worse crappy 90s black jerseys that cannot be merely defined by the word “suck” — and focus on the field. The field where fans have seen triumph and heartbreak, sometimes moments apart, and where they first fell in love.

Shake off the heartbreak of 2007, hope rises eternal with the new year. Sure, the bullpen stinks, they need another starter and starting lineup has too many old bats, but a new year means new possibilities. The other teams in the NL East aren’t exactly powerhouses, either, so even this flawed, an Amazin’ October could still be in the cards.

But you have to hope. Don’t let the Wilpons stomp that out of you. It’s not their team, hell, they’re Dodger fans. It’s your team as long as you decide it is.

And if the owners are classless twits, imagine how much better it will feel when the Mets finally win it all.

Pitchers and catchers report in about six weeks and the front office, neutered like a stray cocker spaniel, will probably do something senseless like signing Kyle Lohse four years for $48 million (a signing that will make Kevin Appier’s look brilliant in comparison). But it just doesn’t matter.

The grass will be green, the hot dogs will have just the right amount of mustard and relish and the games will be just as fun to watch as they were when Bruce Boisclair roamed the Mets’ outfield.

And that’s something the Wilpons can never take away from you. So screw them.