I am writing this book about being a Mets fan, and this is not for the average baseball lover but mostly for the true Mets fan: the real, honest to goodness bleeding orange and blue fan. I have been one of them all my life, and there are many of us out there. The book touches upon the big years of 1969, 1973, and 1986, but they are really years that are only part of the bigger picture. For the most part, being a Met and being a fan of the Mets is about losing, and the happiness that went along with just rooting for the home team and loving them, no matter what the final score and how bad the team looked in the standings.
I know there are other fans in other cities who understand this kind of thing: Cubs fans in Chicago and Red Sox fans in Boston (at least before the Sox turned it all around in recent years). Losing and continually losing becomes part of the fan psyche, and the idea is that you wear the colors proudly, almost defiantly, in order to honor the team and your own emotional investment in it, despite the fact that the basement becomes an almost permanent living arrangement.
The great New York Daily News sports cartoonist Bill Gallo created a character to honor the Metsies: Basement Bertha. Good old Bertha is as ugly as Ernie Borgnine and has teeth like an old pirate, but she also captured the spirit of the good old orange and blue in such a way that she was, and still is, an endearing character. No such character could be created for the Yankees and their fans because they didn’t need a rough and tumble mascot like the Mets did.
I can remember wearing my Mets hat as a kid and having people say things about them to me. “They’re a bunch of bums,” was a usual one. “They’re meatballs,” said the old fat Italian guy with a Yankees cap who always sat on his stool across from the corner deli when I was going to get my Mom a quart of milk. I just would wave at him and say, “Have a nice day,” tipping the old blue cap with the bent orange NY emblem on it.
When I told my father about these things, he said I shouldn’t let it bother me. Though Dad had grown up a Yankee fan, he switched allegiance for me as a kid, which is about the nicest thing a Dad could ever do. I can tell you one thing, if my son ever grows up and becomes a Yankee fan, I don’t think I would have the same benevolence. The truth is though that being a Met fan means having gone through more twists and turns than Mr. Pretzel, and in the end you just can’t shed that orange and blue like it didn’t mean the world to you, because it did and always will.
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Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Hmm. Embracing a bad team. Not getting caught up in having to win a championship. A novel concept.
With these Mets, you really have no other choice.
2 - Victor Lana
Yes, there is no choice. It's also about love of team instead of anything else.