Why is no one in a bad mood?
I am an enthusiastic person. Sometimes I lose patience with people who make themselves miserable with baseball. Baseball is a happy thing and if it makes us unhappy there is something wrong with us.
Still. Aren’t there perfectly legitimate reasons for Mets fans to be unhappy right now? What could have been more excruciating than the last three weeks of each of the past two seasons? Think once again of the fearful symmetries. A seven-game lead with seventeen games to play. A three-and-a-half game lead with seventeen games to play. Falling one game short each time. Two rotten Sundays following two spectacularly redemptive Saturdays. Think of it. Dwell on it. We wouldn’t have to be jerks or fools to be unhappy.
But we’re not unhappy.
I’m not entirely sure why we’re not. But we’re not. Do you want me to say that it’s because the Mets improved their bullpen in the off-season and that they’re all involved in what we’re being told is Jerry Manuel’s new team-first philosophy? Please don’t expect me to say that it’s because over the past two days we wiped the floor with the Orioles and the Marlins and Luis Castillo has come all the way back.
These aren’t the reasons. The Mets routinely enter the new season with a major off-season improvement. Team-first philosophies are nice, but to me it looks like one of these things they make up so that there is something to report (what philosophy is it replacing?). Clobbering the Orioles and Marlins was nice but it’s all just February fairy dust.
We’re happy because we’re excited. And we’re excited, in part, because we’ve been through hell. We are used to the idea that we can lose what we thought we had. We know what this is like and we know that we can survive it. Now that we have the sense that nothing worse can happen to us than what has already happened, we are amazed to realize that something different could happen.
I am struggling to understand the logic or at least the psychology of my absolute belief that what just happened will not happen again. Is this just me? I don’t think so. I sense (sense!) a relaxed optimism in my fellow Mets fans. The past two years, I think, have helped us to grow up. Like adults, we’re hardened, but also more relaxed. Our hope is not the innocent hope that can’t stand to be thwarted. We know what can happen. We have faith in Jerry Manuel. We have faith in the maturity and discipline of our team. We believe. We are too smart to expect. And although I never thought I’d admit this, I think we also have a new sense of possibility that comes from new surroundings. I still can’t believe Shea is gone. But I am excited and curious about Citifield. You know what some people say about replacing the hardwood floors with the Tuscany tile.
Maybe I’m fooling myself. I’ve fooled myself before and so have you. That’s what this whole game is about: the pleasure of fooling ourselves. But what allows us to fool ourselves is the fact that we know that sometimes it happens. Sometimes you sense it and you’re not wrong. In his lyrical little piece at the start of the ballgame, Gary Cohen expressed it this afternoon. We’re here together again, hoping to have a memorable summer and a magical fall.
Dear Dana, it’s funny, I am not unhappy or angry– and I am NEVER, this time of year. For me, Spring is always the time of happy reunions and unlimited possibilities. Sort of like the beginning of the school year used to be. Hey–DAVID! Whooo! JOSE!!! Love, love, love.
And I find myself again a victim of my enslavement to baseball, of my insatiable hunger for it, because I am getting sucked into the same old vortex. So here I am again, sucked into the blogs and the TV blather, and I find out that everything is not lovely as I thought it was, as I was feeling. The Mets are fools, jerks, and thoroughly irresponsible for not getting Manny. Santana is on the verge of collapse, Manuel is a borderline psychopath, and the WBC is going to ruin everything. Thank God I don’t listen to Francesa.
I used to be a viewer of SNY’s Daily News Live, but I can’t anymore. With Chris Cotter in the driver’s seat, Joe Benigno just seemed like a lovable worrywart. Without Cotter there to leaven him, he seems like a lunatic to me, and I want to smack him. Also, the writers in attendance seem to slip more easily into snideness and a kind of skepticism that I just don’t get this time of year. It’s NOT EVEN MARCH.
Remember those ’80s T shirts that said WHO CARE WHAT FRANKIE SAY? I am thinking of making one up that says WHO CARES WHAT COLE HAMELS SAY. Jesus, people.
I am already seeing the fear-and-anger side of sports fandom, and I don’t get it. Where is the pleasure? Where is the fun? If you can’t relax and enjoy what happens in February and March, people, what is the point?
PS Dana, I know that was quite a lot, but my brain has been working on baseball overtime. I don’t blog often, but I recently blogged about Ken Burns’s Baseball on my blog, since it was too long to post as a comment on somebody else’s blog. Come to think of it, so is this (embarassed)! But I’d be interested to get your response to what I wrote.
SO if you have a minute:
http://www.humanitas.blogspot.com/
Theresa, I think the reason I’m pretty happy is that although I’ve been reading my favorite blogs, I have been staying away from the rest of the Mets media (except for some casual background listening to the two broadcast games). As my blog entry suggests, I’m happy not so much because there’s any concrete reason to be happy but because, as you say, it is spring and a new season, and also because I feel that the worst has happened and if anything good happens this year, it will be such a wonderful bonus. Much as I like Manny, I wouldn’t have wanted the Mets to sign him for $25 million a year when they are already as good as they are. I don’t think Santana is on the verge of collapse, and personally I enjoy Manuel’s eccentricity and am not sure why you are calling him a psychopath. I’ve never been a fan of Joe Benigno. I will visit your blog and set up a link to it. And yes, we should all enjoy this season. Otherwise, what is the point. I already feel like a holy fool getting so much happiness from something that isn’t real. I’d feel like an absolute idiot is something that wasn’t real had the power to make me unhappy.
Dana, quick correction– I am NOT calling Jerry a psychopath– I like him very much. My sentence was an effort to reflect back what I am getting back from the media “He’s batting Reyes 3rd!!! He’s giving Murphy the left field job! OMGWTF!!!”
Sorry, Theresa! I went back and saw that you were quoting disgruntled fans in that litany. I mistook what you were writing there as your expression of your own opinion. And I was puzzled because it didn’t seem to me to be consistent with the other things you were saying. But now I see what you mean. Yes, I agree completely. I need earplugs.
Hi Dana,
As always, you express yourself so well and touch on feelings about spring training and the Mets that no other writers or even broadcasters have done. I am cautiously optomistic about this upcoming season. I am not freaking out about Reyes batting third or Santana’s arm. I enjoy Jerry Manuel’s methods and I actually watched the Sunday game where the Mets blew away the Astros. I loved the power they showed, and the pitching was good too.
I have mixed feelings about the World Baseball games though. I think it disrupts spring training, but it is important for good will throughout the world. What do you think of the games?
That is fabulous you are watching college baseball at Citifield. You should make note of any pitchers you think have potential, write down their names, and see if they become major leaguers like Darling & Viola did.