Old Timers Day at Foley’s, as we celebrate 10 years of blogging for and with Mets fans who like to read. (Photo by the versatile Sharon Chapman.)
In the brightest days of 2006, which is what passes for 1986 in our era (at least until 2015 reveals itself to be the One True Successor…if only we could get some of these Spring Training games to count), Jason and I were each moved to dive into the word “we” as it applied to the Mets and our reflexive self-identification with them. You know, we win, we’re gonna play tomorrow, we just got Roberto Hernandez back from the Pirates, that sort of thing. We came to the same conclusion: no, we are technically not part of the team; hell yes, we are “we” even if we don’t personally go get ’em.
I revisit “we” here because there’s another we on the Met-aphorical diamond to consider. We who are in this together. We who cheer together, care together, commiserate together. We who get together now and then to remind each other how much we like being us.
Saturday afternoon, we gathered at Foley’s, the baseball bar on 33rd Street to commemorate Faith and Fear’s 10th anniversary. We as in Jason and me, but we also as in a marvelous cross-section of Faith and Fear readers, which is to say the Faith and Fear family, which is to say all of us.
It was a very nice time. It was an even nicer feeling, knowing that the first-person plural settles into place so comfortably. We want the Mets to win. We want the season to start. We are going to have another beer now.
It works really well.
Though it was spoken in an entirely different context, I’m reminded of something the President of the United States and White Sox fan-in-chief said a few weeks ago in Selma, Alabama:
“The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone.”
Potent stuff that first-person plural. Without it, you wouldn’t have “Let’s Go Mets,” or its more formal construction “Let Us Go Mets.”
Just don’t too hastily throw a comma in there, because if we were congenitally capable of being let go by the Mets, then this blog wouldn’t be in its eleventh record-breaking season. Also, “Let Us Go, Mets” sounds like something a hostage scribbles on a scrap of paper and slips under a door in desperate hopes that some passerby finds it and rescues us from the clutches of circumstances we can’t hope to control.
Don’t bother. It’s too late to save us from our rooting instincts.
Thanks to all who showed up and expressed such nice thoughts about what we’ve been doing this past decade. Much love, too, to those who couldn’t make it but sent beautifully sincere sentiments. Strong shoutout to Sharon Chapman for organizing the affair. Appreciation to Foley’s for providing such fine space and service. Applause to Jacob deGrom for dominating the Nationals and several TV screens. And happy Agbayanieth birthday to Mets 360’s Charlie Hangley, our very own CharlieH from way back. All of us together…we’ve got the teamwork to make the dream work.
Your blog has lasted 10 years because it is ORIGINAL. You don’t live and die by the page click. You don’t steal from Adam Rubin. You proofread. You write for a living. You have a sense of Mets history. You’re frustrated by the Wilpon Way.
If we ever need a blurb, we’re going to use that. Thank you.
I see I didn’t proofread. A week of reading MetsBlog comments as punishment.
Anniversary gift to you: I fixed your typo.
Yeah, what SkillSets said. There are other Mets blogs I read, but FAFIF has been my go-to since I first found it. Even the name of the site is perfect. Keep it up guys, because I want to see how it reads when we return to the promised land.
“Hey, what the hell is this place?”
As much as I love reading this blog daily throughout the season; I really appreciate it Oct- March. Gets me thru the barren off-season. Great work and congratulations Jason
and Greg.
Thank you Pat. Here’s to less barren days very soon.
Wish I could have arrived earlier and stayed longer, but always nice to get together with Met fans in the cold winter! I was unfortunately a bit distracted by work to really express gratitude and congratulations for your 10 year achievement. Thanks for making me feel welcome after the 2007 collapse made me a regular visitor. I don’t know how you guys do it day in and day out! Especially in the hexed Citi Field era!
You’re the best thing to crawl out of the wreckage of the Collapse. Thanks for staying.
Thank you for the birthday wishes and for allowing my natal anniversary to share space with FAFIF’s. The next 50 for both of us oughta be a doozy.
Thanks again!
I look forward to our respective wondering why the Mets disregard their history so much that they can’t celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 2015 championship. And postmodern medicine making that possible.
Congratulations, and many more!
Thank you for that and thank you for helping us look at Sky King in an entirely different light.
Sorry I couldn’t make it; something always comes up on Saturdays for me. Congratulations Greg and Jason, and all hail the solidarity and strength of “We”!
We may have to revisit our Never On A Sunday policy. Thank you for your good wishes.
[…] website is no competition at all. The occasion was the tenth anniversary of the startup of the blog Faith and Fear In Flushing, founded by great friends of the Three-Six-Oh, Greg Prince and Jason Fry. These two have spent ten […]