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ABOUT US
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans.
Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here.
Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here.
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We'd Make Lousy Spoilers, Too
by Greg Prince on 26 September 2007 6:27 am Gotta love the way spoilers are capable of playing in September. You can see they have no chance themselves, but they keep battling and keep driving the better teams crazy. Tuesday night the seemingly overmatched Mets proved they can play with anybody. Even though you watch them and you know you're looking at a team that's way out of contention, it makes you proud to see them driving so hard this late in the season, so late in a ballgame.
Sure, they couldn't pitch and made loads of mistakes and eventually came up short versus the Nationals, but the Nats, no matter how many runs they score off our Metsies, aren't going to take them lightly any time soon.
And who knows? If there were enough games left, I'd bet we'd have an excellent shot at clinching fourth place.
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I just kind of enjoyed Chipper making the Phillies feel our eternal pain for a change. There may have been only a thousand of us there, but we sure got a heck of a chop-n-chant going. And a LAR-RY! or two as well.
As for the Mets… not a lot left to say. Once again, Yankee fans are getting to enjoy many a schadenchuckle at our expense. That's the most galling aspect of this whole mess.
I hate to say this, but if the Phillies end up taking the division, my cap is off to them. They deserve it. They've played like a team that truly wants it… like you're supposed to play in September. I love my Mets and I'll be wearing orange and blue in my coffin, but this is not how champions play. Tonight's 9th inning excepted.
Two sets of numbers to consider:
87-70: Our first-place record.
88-69: Our Wild Card-leading record at this juncture of dreaded 1998 before the infamous five-game losing streak. We were nowhere near first place then, yet we were statistically slightly better than this…which seems impossible.
303: Tom Glavine's career wins.
0: Tom Glavine's wins in the two regular-season starts in five years when we've really and truly needed him to post winning performances.
If we end up with another 88-74 season, I'm going to fling myself off the Upper Deck on Sunday.
Ugh. This whole thing is decidedly distasteful.
Still in first…Philly lost..One at a time folks..Hang in there!!!
Just got back from Europe, fell asleep when it was 10-6.
I am so glad I fell asleep.
Interesting comment. I was watching SNY at the time, but I'm listening now to the 9th inning on MLB.com to hear how Howie painted the picture. Here's his exact quote after the Alou double: “And every single hearty fan who stayed in this ballpark is being rewarded, however it ends. The same people that were here in the late 70's and the early 90's – through the bad years – are the ones who you know are gonna hang in through an entire game like this.” Now Howie usually has a better understanding of the fan base than most, but I think “I'm glad I fell asleep” is a more realistic view than “I'm glad I stayed to see those six runs.” Granted, I wasn't there, so I can't appreciate what it must have been like to have witnessed it (I was too bitter to return one night after my first premature exit of the season). That said, while we can debate if there's any positive effects for the players with an inning like that (and reading the papers and blogs this morning, it seems the clubhouse itself is divided on that issue), I really don't see any positive effects for us. L means L.
By the way, I don't have great video editing skills, but I'm betting there's enough material for a 4-5 minute 2007 highlight video that consists solely of incredible Mets moments that came in losses. That says too much about this season.
I'd have no trouble believing that but I think that the Mets and SNY are quickly dissolving our good karma by showing those damned “Your PostSeason has Come” commercials.
You know, I'm really tired of reading about METS fans just constantly bitching about the state of things. Christ, 3/4 of the league's fans would kill to be in our miserable position right now. All we can say is 'I'm glad I didn't watch' or blah blah blah. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but it's been a good 20 or so years since we won the whole thing. Christ, you all sound like Yankees fans or Red Sox fans. Makes me sick.
Howie was 100% correct. We were all even saying that. It felt like the early-mid-90s last night after the front-running boobirds mercifully went home. A couple of thousand of us at best, but you knew every person still there was there because they were a diehard fan… so even with the loss, it was exciting and fun.
In many ways, I miss those days… when Met fans didn't “expect” wins every night, so they weren't hostile and bitter when we lost. We were just there to enjoy baseball for being baseball, and we loved our team, win or lose. We didn't feel they “owed” us a win every night just because we paid our money, and we didn't angrily berate them every time they put a foot wrong.
Yes, last night made me very nostalgic indeed. All that was missing was a Chris Jones bomb to send us home!! LOL Well spotted, Howie. That's why we love ya.
No, we don't want to finish at 88-74 after all this. Not after the horrible way the Yankees played, and they roared back to bypass us and make the playoffs before us. That's just humiliating.
Making the playoffs, to me, is not a requirement. It's only happened a scant handful of times in my 35 years of Met fandom anyway, so it's the exception–pretty much gravy to me if we make it. If we don't, oh well. It's not like this is the last baseball season ever.
Win or lose, I've always been there and always will be. And I'd cut out my own tongue before I'd boo one of my own. So please don't malign my fandom. It's as solid as it gets. I may be disappointed at times, and they might drive me batty, but I'm always behind this team. I would NEVER stay away or leave just because they're losing. A win doesn't come with the price of your ticket. I wish all fans would remember that.
First of all, Yankees fans don't ever admit that things are going wrong except in occasional excuse-making, and Red Sox have watched their team blow huge leads no matter how far in front they appear to be, so they have some right to be paranoid.
But this complaining is a form of catharsis and we would do it at about the same rate if the Mets were, in fact, playing spoiler instead of clinging to first. It's not serious. At least not entirely. But it is how we vent. What do you expect on a blog anyway?
on both accounts you both are right.
clearly I'm just frustrated with the team as well. It's just that it's gotten to the point where it's painful for me to even open the sports page after one of these nights. I think I just have a masochistic way of dealing with the whole situation in which I don't want to acknowledge that it's really going on, and naively, ignorantly, blithely come back the following night at 710 and expect to see the team we know and love(d?).
let's cling to the bright spots. Jose looks like he's got his swing back. No one can stop Alou from hitting the ball. Beltran…well, Beltran is at least still standing. Delgado hasn't been injured for like 3 days!! I think reading everyones cathartic comments just boils up a rage inside of me that I don't want to admit to, that I prefer to think doesn't exist.
So sorry for taking it out on you guys, I know you are all real fans, but for whatever my own reasons are, it just rubs me the wrong way when I read about people expressing frustration about the team.
-Ben
Don't sweat it, Ben. Personally I'd rather people take out their rage and frustration here than on the players at Shea… but then, I'm FAFIF's resident Pollyanna!! :-)
I agree. Even though the outcome wasn't ideal, it was at least nice to see them playing as if they meant it in the 9th inning.
Hopefully that energy will carry over into the remaining games of the season (and, G-d willing, the postseason).
Wasn't too happy when the additional Big Shot Box Seats were installed either.
Ben, I think we all find ourselves straddling the line between You Gotta Believe! and I Can't Believe What I'm Seeing. No doubt the Pirates and the Reds and the Giants fans would love to have our problems. But they are problems. Mo' Wins, Mo' Problems…or different ones anyway. A 4-8 stretch at a very inopportune time is one of them.
Agony and ecstasy and all that. We traffic in both around here.
Thanks for weighing in. Stay a while, why don'tcha?
I think the 800 lb. gorilla in the room that no one wants to acknowledge is the fact that this all went completely to shit when Jason went to fuckin' Europe.
Clearly, he must limit similar future trips off-continent to the off season. Or years in which the Mets are just plain crappy and out of contention anyway.
Fuckin' Jason.
Oh, um, and welcome back, dude.
Is that the real fundamental difference between Mets fans and Yankees fans, other than the bandwagon borderliners who probably don't know whether to shit or go blind right now? The fact that Mets fans blame the team when things are going wrong, and Yankees fans blame everyone and everything else for their team's problems since their team is “supposed” to win and any deviation from that is fundamental disobedience of G-d?
Nice try, but I do believe orange and blue fecal matter abounded before Jace left these shores. HA.
So is this a bad time to mention that I'm going to Utah on Thursday night, and returning Saturday around the sixth inning?
It is?
Ummmm….
Stateside travel is probably not going to pose a problem. At some point the players have to do their part, as well.
Does Utah have the internet?
It better.
Yes, it does.
Now, whether Heather will let you use it or not is up to her.
True, and I've been going to Shea since 1972, and one of the things I ALWAYS used to say was “I just want a contending team every year. I want Sept to matter” Not anymore. This is plain bullshit and I'm sure we all got texts and phone calls and emails (I hardly did any work today) from a bunch of friends..die hard Met fans, that are just so done with this team and its manager.
After tonight, I can honestly say I have no desire to go to Shea for game 2 of the NLDS, and yes I took the Citi Field tour before it was open to the public, and yes they took my $2400 for 1/4 playoff tickets and they can shove it up their ass as far as I'm concerned.
But you know (I cant believe Im typing this), the whole “lovable losers” thing, which is so 1960's, is also bullshit. There is something to the team I loathe up in the Bronx. Their goal every year is to win it all. They dont get there every year, but that's the goal. I want my team to win the World Series!! Is that so terrible? Does that make me a bad person??