Local Voices
Opinion: This Is Going To Be The Year Of The New York Mets
With only World Series Championships in 1969 and 1986, I predict the Mets will win their third in 2018.
Oh, to be a Mets fan is to know that despair is only a bad inning away. However, I have been a Mets fan since the very first opening day loss in St. Louis in 1962.
I know that there are many factors in being loyal to this baseball club. I went to the Polo Grounds as a kid. I was at the Polo Grounds when Jim Hickman crushed a pinch-hit ninth inning home run against the Cubs in 1963 to snap Mets' starting pitcher Roger Craig's 18 game personal losing streak. It was glorious! Ripped up newspaper flew like confetti from the upper decks down to the field; it was that day I perhaps became a certified member of "the new breed."
I was cheering in the Canyon of Heroes in 1986. And in 2000 I wore my NY Mets World Series hat to work with my suits when Derek Jeter and the Yankees were the "soup du jour." I witnessed Piazza and Clemens with that broken bat on TV at "Vermouth," a swanky Upper West Side martini joint in 2000.
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Okay, the Mets have had good starts before and yes, no one is really hurt just yet. Mets fans know this team has a special skill set on having their star players being on the disabled list indefinitely. Yet I feel something coming together the way it never did last year. I feel some sort of team-like atmosphere and chemistry just like I did at the end of 1969 and the beginning of that amazing year — 1986!
The baseball gods having never been kind to Mets fans. Mets fans have survived winter nights during summer games at Shea Stadium. We know what Jimmy Qualls of the Cubs did to Tom Seaver in the top of the ninth on July 9, 1969. (Truly a Mets moment.) We watched Doc Gooden tumble off Mount Olympus. And we will never forget "Sid" in the 1986 World Series.
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Mets fans have had our hearts broken so many times we expect it. Every playoff win is like a Cinderella event that brings us back to "Mookie's" ground ball through Buckner's legs. With all this in mind I believe this Mets team will win it all in 2018. The starting pitching will complement timely hitting and the "Mickey" in New York sports in October will be one Mickey Callaway. Let us hope I am spot on!
Photos courtesy T.J. Clemente.
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