Last year the Mets had a slow start, but things improved. They went on to get a wild card slot, won the wild card playoff, then beat the Eastern Division leading Phils and so advanced to the NLCS, where they fell to the Dodgers. This set up a replay of the first World Series in which I'd taken a rooting interest, 1955, Dodgers versus Yankees, when I backed the underdog Dodgers, and they won. This result was reversed in '56, when the Yanks prevailed in a Series that featured Don Larsen's perfect game. That was also the result in 2024, except this time I wanted the Yanks to win.
I used to hate the Yanks. For years it was because, as I first saw them in '55, they were the Big Bad Bullies. I lost interest in the Dodgers when they left Brooklyn in 1957, and for some years I didn't follow baseball closely. As best I remember, for a time I had some liking for the then Milwaukee Braves, although I was living in Florida at the time and had no family connections to Wisconsin. I remember having a dream that a girl I had a crush on in ninth grade was actually Warren Spahn's daughter. In 1960 I got a brief thrill when a traditionally hard luck team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, with whom I could identify because my mother grew up and I was born about one hundred miles east of Steeltown, beat the Yanks in the World Series.
When the Mets arrived as an expansion team in 1962, they quickly became a laughingstock. I remember TV ads featuring their loveable old manager Casey Stengel extolling the efficacy of Rolaids as the Mets' blooper reel played in the background. They were custom made for my proclivity toward the downtrodden, but like many of my fellow Floridians I was more interested in football than in baseball. I was happy to see the Mets rise from the ashes - an apt metaphor as their home, Shea Stadium, stood on what had been the "valley of ashes" described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - and win the 1969 Series, but I was more thrilled by the 1970 Super Bowl victory by another upstart team, the New York Jets. I was in law school at the time, and about ten of us crowded Mike Vaccaro's dorm room, he having the only TV on our floor, to watch the game. The moment the final buzzer sounded Mike jumped up and turned the TV off. Asked why, he said, "I couldn't stand to hear Howard Cosell say, 'Broadway Joe Namath, the New York Jets, AND the American Football League, all came of age today.'"
I finally got to attend an MLB game after I moved to New York in 1970. My roommate, Mario Diaz-Cruz, was an associate at the law firm White & Case, which had a box of seats at Yankee Stadium. That summer I saw the Yanks lose to the Orioles largely by virtue of Boog Powell's bat. Powell went on to be the American League MVP, and the Orioles to win the World Series. For a while, thanks to Mario and to other friends, I became a Yankees fan and attended a fair number of games. I saw them, on TV, win the Series in '77 and in '78, beating the Dodgers twice. By the early '80s, though, I was losing my enthusiasm for the Bronx Bombers. In '81 they did something they hadn't done since '55, losing the World Series to the Dodgers. After that they had several disappointing seasons. I also developed a distate for their owner, George Steinbrenner. My father had instilled in me an aversion to people with "overinflated egos," and Steinbrenner's was up to near bursting point.
Sometime during the late summer of 1985 I was in my favorite Greenwich Village pub, the Lion's Head, sitting next to Pat Carroll, a Brooklyn native who had moved to London and was back for a visit. Pat said he had two tickets to a Mets game but his mother couldn't go, so would I be interested? "Sure," I said. The Mets won, beating the Cardinals thanks to a two run homer off what was then called the "unlikely bat" of Howard Johnson. During the game Pat said, "What you have to know is that the Mets are really the Brooklyn Dodgers continued by other means." This was an "Aha!" moment for me; I could return to my first baseball love. (I have some friends, like Dermot McEvoy, who consider the Mets to be the New York Giants continued by other means. I'm glad for their fellow fandom.)
1985 was a propitious year to become a Mets fan. Gary Carter, whom the Mets had acquired by trade from the Expos the previous winter, led the Mets in home runs and RBI and provided solid defense behind the plate. Dwight Gooden won 24 games, with an ERA of 1.03 and 268 strikeouts. Darryl Strawberry was out with an injury from May 11 to June 28, but still managed 29 homers and 79 RBI, along with sparkling defense in right field. The Mets finished three games behind the Cards in the NL East.
My reward for Mets fandom came the following year. The 1986 Mets were a juggernaut. Deftly managed by Davey Johnson, they won 108 games; twice as many as the 54 they lost. They finished 21 and a half games ahead of the Phillies in the NL East, then beat the Astros for the league championship. The World Series though, against the Red Sox, proved to be a seven game struggle. The Sox had a three games to two lead going into game six, which I was watching on TV at home. Boston had a 5-4 lead going into the bottom of the tenth and I felt convinced they would go on to win the game and the Series, so I decided to go to a local bar where I knew my friend Bill, a Springfield, Massachusetts native and Red Sox fan, would be, and congratulate him. On the way I heard cheering coming from an apartment window. When I got to the bar I could see lots of people smiling and clapping, and Bill looking dejected. I asked him what had happened and he gestured at the TV, which showed a replay of Mookie Wilson's grounder skittering past Bill Buckner's glove and between his legs. Earlier in Mookie's at bat, a wild pitch by Bob Stanley had allowed the tying run to score, which probably occasioned the cheering I'd heard on the way. Buckner's error allowed the winning run and a walk-off victory for the Mets, who went on to win game seven and their second MLB championship. Buckner, who otherwise had a long and distinguished baseball career, and Wilson became friends, and appeared together at fan events.
After 1986 came a long period of frustration for Mets fans. The remainder of the 80's, through 1990, were an "often a bridesmaid" period in which the Mets regularly finished second in their division. In '88 they finished first but lost to the Dodgers in a league chamopionship series from which I have memories of Davey Lopes rounding the bases with his right thumb pointed upward. The early 1990s were dismal, with the Mets often finishing at the bottom of their division. It was in 1991 that I got married, to a Red Sox fan, and in 1993 I became a father. This cut into the time I spent at the Lion's Head, which is where I watched Mets games. I did attend several games with Charlie McCrann, an executive at Marsh & McLennan, which had a private box at Shea. Despite this, Charlie was a Yankees fan. He was also a Republican. Despite our being on opposite sides of both baseball and politics, our friendship was strong, and lasted until the morning of September 11, 2001 when Charlie was in his office at One World Trade Center, an event memorialized here.
In 2000 the Mets won the NL title, which set up a longed for "subway series" against the Yankees. Unfortunately, it would not satisfy the longings of Mets fans, as the Bombers prevailed in five games. It's a Series best (or worst) remembered for when, in game two, Mike Piazza broke his bat fouling off a pitch from Roger Clemens. A piece of the bat flew toward the mound. Clemens grabbed it and threw it to his left, where it almost hit Piazza, who was trotting toward first. This incited a bench clearing brawl. Clemens denied having intended to hit Piazza.
The Mets returned to the World Series in 2015, and the result was no better than in 2000. The Kansas City Royals, as had the Yanks, won in five. The following year the Mets made the playoffs, but were eliminated by the Giants. In 2019 they had an 86-76 record, but failed to make the playoffs. I characterized that season here. The 2020 season was shortened by COVID and the Mets had a sickly 26-34 record, finishing fourth. Before the 2021 season Steve Cohen became the Mets' principal owner (the Wilpon family retained a five percent stake).
Cohen's first significant move was acquiring shortstop Francisco Lindor, who continues to be a vital part of the team. The Mets started the 2021 season hot, then collapsed, finishing third in the division. In 2022 they had a 101-61 record, their best other than 1986's, and tied with the Braves for the division lead. Since the Braves had a winning season against the Mets, they were awarded the division championship, and the Mets had a wild card playoff against the Padres, which they lost 3-0. 2023 saw the Mets reverting to losing ways, finishing fourth in the East. 2024; well, we've covered that.
Now it's 2025 and the Mets are off to a blazing start. A day short of one month into the season they have a 19-8 record, the best in the majors. In their division they have a five game lead over the Phils. Turning to intracity rivalry, the Yankees' record is 15-11. MLB's Anthony DiComo thinks part of the Mets' early success stems from Tylor Megill's (photo at top) improvement of his "stuff." According to DiComo, "[t]he zip on a fastball, the snap on a slider, the tumble on a changeup -- these are all examples of stuff." It's done Megill well so far; despite a 3-2 win-loss record, he has a 1.09 ERA and thirty strikeouts. The starter in today's win over the Nationals, former Yankee Clay Holmes, showed some good stuff, allowing four hits and no runs over five innings, with two strikeouts. He could have gone seven innings but for his time on the mound having been interrupted by a rain delay.
On the offensive side much optimism was engendered by the signing, for $765 million, the largest contract in baseball history, of the former Yankee star Juan Soto. It seemed worth it when he hit a home run in his first at bat of the season. Since then he has added only two more, and his average is a pallid .235 with twelve RBI. He also missed a catch in Friday's game that set the scene for the Nationals' ninth inning walk off victory. Mike Lupica, on MLB.com, writes of Pete Alonso, who was a free agent last year but stayed with the Mets with a lucrative two year contract, "[n]o one in the league has been more valuable so far than the Polar Bear [Alonso's nickname]." As of now he has a .333 average, with six homers and 26 RBI.
Can the Mets sustain this success? Is it 1986 again? Or will it be another 2021 in which they start flaming hot, then go freezing cold? Or perhaps another 2022, when a splendid regular season is followed by a playoff collapse? There are reasons, I believe, for optimism. Apart from Soto the core of the team has been together for a while, and the chemistry seems good. The unknown factor is how injuries may affect the team. I once speculated about why the Mets seem to suffer from this so much. Nevertheless, my hopes now are high.
I made "a fan's notes" part of the title of this post as an homage to Frederick Exley, whose first novel had that title, and with whom I once had a close encounter at the Lion's Head.
Photo: D. Benjamin Miller, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons