The last few weeks of the baseball season have read like a fantasy checklist for Mets fans:
When the regular season was winding down, things looked pretty bleak. Not only were the Mets irrelevant, but our most hated rivals (aka the Yankees, Phillies and Braves) were all on the fast-track to October. Throw in the Red Sox, who I have grown to hate due to spending my college years with an abundance of insufferable Boston fans and that fact that Boston teams now win everything, and there seemed to be a 50% chance that a team I strongly dislike was going to win the World Series. I was already debating who I would begrudgingly root for in another Yankees-Phillies fall classic.
Two collapses, several A-Rod strikeouts and one crazy squirrel later, and that chance has improbably dropped to 0%. The Braves and Red Sox, the ladder of which was picked by most to win the World Series back in April, both managed to bump the 2007 Mets from the title of "worst collapse in baseball history". The Yankees and Phillies, seemingly on a collision course once the playoffs began, each played only five more games before wilting under the pressure of their understandably mammoth expectations. Oh, and thanks to the Red Sox and KFC-gate, the Mets aren't even the biggest off-the-field punchline in baseball anymore.
The end result is that I can finally watch playoff baseball stress-free. No more trash talk and gloating from Yankees, Phillies, and Red Sox fans (and those twelve or so Braves fans out there). And no more worrying that one of the teams I hate most will win it all. They are all now exactly where the Mets are: on the golf course.
No matter who takes home the trophy this October, Mets fans will be winners too.
Original Story:
http://metskoolaid.blogspot.com/2011/...
- Colossal late-season collapse by a rival (Braves) - Check
- Colossal late-season collapse by another team in a major media market (Red Sox) - Check
- Yankees eliminated - Check
- Phillies eliminated - Check
- October baseball in Flushing - Sorry, now I'm just getting greedy
When the regular season was winding down, things looked pretty bleak. Not only were the Mets irrelevant, but our most hated rivals (aka the Yankees, Phillies and Braves) were all on the fast-track to October. Throw in the Red Sox, who I have grown to hate due to spending my college years with an abundance of insufferable Boston fans and that fact that Boston teams now win everything, and there seemed to be a 50% chance that a team I strongly dislike was going to win the World Series. I was already debating who I would begrudgingly root for in another Yankees-Phillies fall classic. Two collapses, several A-Rod strikeouts and one crazy squirrel later, and that chance has improbably dropped to 0%. The Braves and Red Sox, the ladder of which was picked by most to win the World Series back in April, both managed to bump the 2007 Mets from the title of "worst collapse in baseball history". The Yankees and Phillies, seemingly on a collision course once the playoffs began, each played only five more games before wilting under the pressure of their understandably mammoth expectations. Oh, and thanks to the Red Sox and KFC-gate, the Mets aren't even the biggest off-the-field punchline in baseball anymore.
The end result is that I can finally watch playoff baseball stress-free. No more trash talk and gloating from Yankees, Phillies, and Red Sox fans (and those twelve or so Braves fans out there). And no more worrying that one of the teams I hate most will win it all. They are all now exactly where the Mets are: on the golf course.
No matter who takes home the trophy this October, Mets fans will be winners too.
Original Story:
http://metskoolaid.blogspot.com/2011/...
