LET'S GO METS! (For the good of baseball)

Original post date: Wednesday, October 18, 2006

LET’S GO METS!
That’s right, I am rooting for the Mets big time to please... please... PLEASE! In the name of Ed Kranepool, Randy Neimann and Tim Bogar... PLEASE win game 7 against the St. Louis Cardinals tomorrow.

20 years ago, I was as anti-Mets a guy as you could imagine.
The Red Sox won game 1 of the World Series on October 18, 1986. Jim Rice scored on Tim Teufel’s error and Bruce Hurst got the 1-0 win.

And you know what happened after that. (Or do you? If you said “Bill Buckner blew the World Series for the Red Sox” then you clearly don’t remember... but that’s a subject for another entry.)

I hated the Mets more than any team in the aftermath of the 1986 World Series. That INCLUDED the Yankees. I hated Gary Carter more than any of them. He just seemed too happy winning the World Series.

Fast forward two decades... now I am rooting for the Mets for the sake of the game.

The main reason has little to do with a love for the Mets and everything to do with a disdain for Tony LaRussa.

I can’t explain it, but I can’t stand LaRussa. And it has deeper roots than his A’s beating the Red Sox in the 1988 AND 1990 playoffs. There is a smugness, a know it all quality that he has that I can’t stand.

And there is NOTHING fun about him. Bobby Valentine was a know it all, but at least he was funny. What other manager put on a disguise after being ejected so he can sit in the dugout?

Ever watch a LaRussa managed 2-0 game? He’ll use 5 or 6 pitchers! He’ll go lefty-righty matchups in a blow out. It drives me crazy!

If St. Louis plays Detroit in the World Series, it would get lower ratings than reruns of “Benson.” And the only thing that Fox would be happy about is that it would only last 3 games.

You read that right.

3! It would be so boring after the first three 5-0 wins by Detroit that FOX will demand the fourth game be cancelled and replaced by a home run hitting contest.

Or a football game.

The Cardinals have lousy pitching and lousy hitting, no closer, a humorless lawyer manager and they are going to be playing a team that shut down the Yankees and forced Joe Torre to bat A-Rod 8th!

Yeah, they’ll be scared of Scott Speizio and that weird thing dangling from his chin!

Now Mets vs. Tigers... that could be an interesting story.

You get to keep the New York market.
You get Glavine and Wagner.
You get Delgado and Beltran and Reyes and Wright... who are so more likable than the Yankees mashers, aren’t they?

And it might actually have a series that isn’t a sweep.
(The National League haven’t won a single GAME in the World Series since Josh Beckett shut out the Yankees for the Marlins in 2003.)

The Mets have enough swagger to win a few games and make it at least an interesting World Series.

So please! For the sake of a good World Series!
For the sake of NOT having this be the most boring post season in baseball history... LET’S GO METS!

Seriously, other than the Yankees flop, what is memorable moment of this post season?

The two Dodgers getting thrown out at home was cool but no post season highlight can come in the second inning of game 1 of a division series game

Ordonez’s series ending homer wasn’t exactly Aaron Boone. It finished a sweep and Huston Street was laboring without anyone warming up in the Oakland pen. (Grady Little must have given Ken Macha some tips.)

We NEED a memorable World Series to redeem this post season.

And that’s not happening with a Tigers-Cardinals World Series.

So I’ll say it again, even if it would break the heart of Paul Sullivan, circa 1986...

LET’S GO METS!

PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!