Why I Compare My Life to the Mets

When you are a fan of a bastard child of two teams who did not want to be in New York anymore, you start to see what makes up the psyche of a Mets fan. There are many reasons why people choose to root for the NY Mets; I'm just going to share with you my reason and if you can identify yourself in this story then you will completely understand my angle on this.

I am not the strongest, most popular person around. I don't have much money, struggle to earn a living and struggle to maintain a long term relationship. I have my good days but all in all it's a struggle to be at peace with myself. I see others around me that have more success, more girls who want to be with them, more money, better opportunities to take advantage of others miscues, taller, faster, stronger and just better than me. Or am I talking about the New York Mets? If you cannot tell a difference, you are right. There is a group of fans out there that can comfortably compare themselves to what they just read without batting an eye and that's what draws me to being a Mets fan.

Think of a high school, and the Mets are that nerdy kid who has usually an embarrassing day 4 out of the 5 school days during the week. Their older brother, who is taller, better looking, more popular, and all around more successful, makes you feel like a total zero, especially when you think you are in the sunlight, until HE casts his long shadow over you, making you feel invisible. Then you have your next door neighbor. He seems to be as unsuccessful as you, until you go head to head. Compared to you, here is a hero to others and you get pummeled by him every day forcing you to lie about how good you are or go into hiding when he comes around. Then we have the bully on the south side of town. He has been knocking everyone out (except your big brother) but he really enjoys beating the crap out of you. In fact even when he had 2 broken legs and others could get the jump on him, he still had your number and you felt miserable whenever you had to go to his side of town to fight him.

The Mets are the nerd, your big brother is the Yankees, your next door neighbor is the Phillies, and the bully on the south side of the town is the Braves! Is it starting to make sense now? The biggest issue is that I feel I do not deserve to be a Yankees because they are so successful, and I am not. Yeah they are obnoxious, crass, rude, and selfish, but they are winners. They are popular. Everybody wants to see their famous room and play with their cool toys, while the erector set in your room (Shea Stadium) collects dust every day. Hey, you even get a newer better room for others to play in (Citi Field), only to see your big brother also upgrade his room to again be better than yours. I am more comfortable comparing my life to the Mets because of their constant failures, dumb decisions and bad luck. Yeah they had great moments, even a great year, as did I, but in the end we expect to fail while or brother, neighbor, and division bully expect to succeed-especially against us.

I know my dilemma is due to laziness, selfishness, bad decision making and a bad draw of the cards in the height department. But do the Mets share the same fate? Playing in the largest market in the world, why do they have the mindset of a team that should be playing in South Dakota? Now don't get me wrong, the Mets have some famous followers like Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin James, and Linda Cohn of ESPN. But sometimes I feel sorry for them by putting their rep on the line for a team that is doomed to fail, no matter how hard they try (or don't try).

The biggest example of my pain is 1999, 2000, and 2007. We lose to the Braves for the division in '99, get in the playoffs by the skin of our teeth, shock the world by knocking out a team that was vastly superior to us, and then get blasted by the bully of the South, the Braves, in the playoffs. In 2000 we win the pennant, only to get put in our place by our big brother, the Yankees. In 2007 we were 17 games away from finally having continued success when we just collapse. Who is there to take our place? Of course, our next door neighbors the Phillies, who did it 2 times in a row, then became World champs just to rub the salt in the wound a little more. I would compare this pain to the life of Seinfeld's George Castanza, but even he turned his luck around by joining the New York Yankees!

Nobody said it was going to be easy being a Met fan. But could they resemble my life just a little bit less?