The Fair Weather in Queens
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I’ve always prided myself on not being a fair weather fan. The rewards for sticking with your team are the feeling of superiority for your authenticity and the camaraderie with your fellow fans. But let’s be honest, those rewards are crap because holy shit does it feel good to win.

The Mets just won ten games in a row. Ten! At the time of this writing we are less that two hours away from the eleventh game and perhaps I’m jinxing this but i just wanted to mark the occasion.

There are a few levels of fandom. The first rung is merely following a team, knowing their record and such. The second rung is knowing and having strong opinions about individual player each player. Perhaps you refer to that player by his first name, even though you’ve never met. The third is knowing the history of the team. Deeper still is having lived through the history of your team. The deepest and most annoying rung, however, is when you start to follow the workings of the office of your team. You have honest, firmly held opinions about the owners and general manager.

I am teetering between the last two rungs. I have history with the Mets. I have experienced the pain of Mets fandom. I watched them get swept by the Phillies in a four game homestand in a historic slide out of the playoffs. I watched Luis Castillo drop a pop fly at second to allow Mark Texeira to turn a win against the Yankees into a loss. I defended Oliver Perez.

You ask me if I have scars. Yes, I have my scars. (And these are just off the top of my head.)

And then Sandy Alderson traded away R.A. Dickey, a Cy Young Award winner and the most exciting part of watching the Mets. He traded away Ike Davis and he hit a grand slam for the Pirates a week later.

What the hell was Alderson doing? I guess he had a plan? You gotta believe?

But Travis D’Arnaud, who we received in the R.A. Dickey trade, has become a good player. He started off slow and has started to fulfill his promise. Read that again: he started off bad, now he is becoming good. That is very un-Mets. He fractured his hand but his replacement Kevin Plawecki, who was drafted by Sandy Alderson, is a serviceable replacement. Maybe we have a decent farm system now? Read that again: we may be able to bring up homegrown players. Un-Mets!

When our starters put in a solid effort, the bullpen doesn’t ruin it. Various players are making the highlight reel after each game. Hell, a long double by Ruben Tejada was the catalyst for a high scoring inning a few games ago. Read that again: Ruben Tejada.

And believing in Lucas Duda over Ike Davis is looking like a genius move.

I didn’t pay attention for the last half of last season because it just seemed like a wash. I couldn’t get interested. But now that they’re winning, I’m all bout this team. So, I suppose I’m a fair weather fan but I don’t care. Come from behind victories? A killer starting rotation? It’s just fun to watch. I believe!

Also, this could all unravel in a week or two because this is the Mets.

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