I am a NY Mets fan. Saw their first ever World Series home game. Gary Gentry and Nolan Ryan pitched. A great catch in the outfield. When the Mets were bad, I’d read every NY daily newspaper after a win and only one after a loss. When a 20 something in NYC without any dough, I’d listen to the games on the radio and keep a score card in lined yellow legal pads I’d borrowed from work.
The Mets are going to win the pennant this year, and people will look back and call me prescient. But this year they are the poor, poor Mets. Messrs. Wilpon and Saul Katz have developed a case of stinky which has attached to their suites and pressed shirt and it’s now passed on to the franchise. The Mets have allowed the mainstream press to load up on the clubs financial troubles and it now defines them. Wait till 60 Minutes and Morley Safer gets after it.
New Yorkers are a very resilient group. We love what’s ours. Don’t read on us. I don’t begin to know the intricacies of their business dealings with Madoff, but the Wilpons need to play some ball. They’ve got to stop being tofu in this media maelstrom. Their strategy has to be “play to the kids and adults will follow.” They should cancel the last few games of pre-season, come back to New York and barnstorm. Get the players to sign balls at malls, tweet their butts off, visit little league fields. Don’t just show up at Cohen’s Children’s hospital for a photo op. Take some grounders in Massapequa Park. Be heroic. Remind us that they are just kids playing a kids game. People are tired of money woes, it’s so last year. Let’s play some baseball. (The $10 tickets, by the way, was a good start.) Peace.