Eddie Corona: Would you rather be a NY Mets Fan or Miami Marlins fan?
This
question seems like a no brainer. Our beloved NY Mets play in the greatest city
of the world, while the Marlins play in south Florida, a place where people go
to retire. We have the most passionate fans, while the Florida market
historically does not support their professional teams.
And yet if
we look more closely, we may wonder if we could choose between both franchises
we may have chosen to be fans of the team in the south.
Let
take a look at the last 20 years. Yes many of the reader have been fans of the
Mets since the Miracle Mets and it’s almost impossible to change allegiances
once they are made but most influential fans going forward are built in the
last 20 years I believe.
Winning:
The Mets
made the World Series in 2000 and 2015. We had a couple of underachieving team
along the way as well. We all thought we were one Adam Wainwright curve ball
away from a team of destiny. However the Marlins won the World Series in
1997 and again in 2003. Yes that seems to be a long time ago, but for many of us
who last remember 1986 as our last championship, I would not have such an
acrimonious feeling about my team in Queens if my championship drought was only
since 2003.
Commitment to winning:
One of the
biggest arguments against the Marlins is their commitment to winning.
They are always trading away their players and never in the free agent
market. The funny thing is that the most frustrating part of being a Mets fan
is their commitment to winning.
Our
ownership is never accepting salary, or bidding for the best available players
via trade or free agency. Our ownership, while spending more than the Marlins,
only bids on middle tier players and unwilling to spend if we as fan show up to
the stadium. Sounds like the same Marlins complaint.
Player Development and Acquisition:
We could
debate who had better teams through the last 20 years. I imagine it would be
fairly close but without major analysis and only going on memory I'd give
the edge to the Mets.
However,
would you still trade that for the Marlins rosters? The fact that the Marlins
have 2 Worlds Series championships in that span gives them an edge but I
believe the edge is greater than that.
Who in the
last 20 years would compare to the career that Miguel Cabrera had? He was an
international free agent in 1999 when the Mets ignored that market. His Hall of
Fame stats are undeniable.
In more recent times they produced Giancarlo Stanton,
who produced in 2017 the best home run year since Henry Aaron (yes I am
dismissing the steroid era). Stanton was a 2nd round,
76th overall selection.
Our Mets forfeited their first round pick in 2007
signing an over the hill and injury prone Moises Alou, then proceeded to draft
Edward Kuntz in the 2nd round, 42nd overall and Nathan Vineyard in the 2nd
round, 47nd overall. There have been tons of articles written about the Mets
futile drafts over the years.
In the past
20 years would there be any Mets players that would approach Cabrera and Stanton? Yes we have Wright and Reyes. And acquisitions would
also count, as in Piazza and Beltran. However, the Marlins would list
Ivan Rodriguez, José Fernández, Hanley Ramírez, Christian Yelich, Josh Beckett
and others to their side of the argument.
Now with
all this said, I bleed Blue and Orange. I cannot abandon my fandom and have
suffered more heart ache than joy over the past 20 years. However, like a
marriage I am committed. They have my heart.
However, looking at other teams,
who one would assume should never approach our success, one wonders how well
our past has been.
More
importantly have we learned from the past so our next 20 years would turn out
to be a different story…
16 comments:
Hope everyone had a great Christmas.
Eddie, it is freezing up here today, so Miami heat helps me vote "Marlins". If I had to pick between the two teams based on the past 20 years, I'd go Marlins. Some great players came along down there.
But their current gut and rebuild makes me (relatively speaking) want to be a Mets fan - the Marlins don't draw fans, and money is the lifeblood of any franchise. We may have the pre-transformed Scrooge running our Mets, but as cheap as we may thus be, the Marlins have to be cheaper to survive...and Jeter's rebuild approach is highly risky. The Mets (if much goes right) could still contend in 2018 - the Marlins can contend for baseball's worst.
Tom I am a firm believer that once you select your team you stick with them through thick and thin... that’s why I respect Jets fans becUse while the Mets have had a hard history I have seen a championship in my lifetime...
This article came to me when thinking of why the Mets didn’t didn’t do everything they could to get Stanton... I know we were not on his no trade list but maybe if we could agree to deal (starting with don smith and Rosario and maybe matz) maybe cespedes and conforto could have convinced him to come... would that big 3 not have been as formidable as Sanchez and judge
If all went right, the Yankees' Big Four (Judge, Stanton, Sanchez, Bird) conceivably could hit 200 homers in 2018, Eddie. Meanwhile, we can watch Brandon Nimmo trying to beat out infield grounders.
Cue up the Kinks song "We're on a LOW budget..."
Morning guys.
First and foremost, I am a NYC boy and you would have to take that out of me to answer this question objectionably.
Big city boys root for big city teams, no matter what their win and loss records are. My granddaughter got me a NY Giants T-shirt for Xmas. They are, what, 2-15? Still, I root.
Morning, Mack - what happened to the boycott? :)
Tom -
You are confused.
Accepting a Giants t-shirt on Christmas put no money in the Wilpon's pocket.
Nor will my rooting for the players currently on the team. They do not deserve any grief because the team they play for is owned by the Wilpons.
My 'boycott' is to stop putting direct collars into the Wilpon's pockets.
My contribution...
I will NEVER attend another Mets game, thus eat a Mets hot dog or park in their parking spaces, and I will not purchase any Mets merchandise either in the Mets stores at the stadium, or online/brick and mortar store.... UNTIL THE TEAM IS SOLD TO NEW OWNERS.
THAT is my boycott.
(P.S. - I asked my readers on Twitter should I open a Go Fund Me acount and raise the funds needed to buy a billboard and fly a plane above the stadium with a 'sell this team' banner, on a nationally televised game... and only 12 voted yes. Guess they just like to bitch and moan while still attending the games).
Well.... I guess if I was a Marlin fan, it would be much easier to switch over and start rooting for the Yankees
That blue & orange highlight looks an awful like the Marlin's (aqua) blue & orange, Eddie. Just sayin'
Why do we root for a team anyway? For me it was locality (early years a few blocks from Ebbets Field) and family loyalties. Sat. mornings my Dad took me to “workouts” where we stood by the railing near the dugout. Players would say “Hi” and Billy Cox even knew my name & became my all time favorite. I would watch my older cousins play volleyball in the back of their yard in Mt. Vernon with Ralph Branca & (Yankee fan) Bob Creamer. The Yankees were our nemesis but we certainly did not covert their players: Pee Wee was BETTER than Scooter, ditto Campy/Berra, Gil/Moose etc. I learned early that tragedies were at least as exciting as comedy (still prefer Hamlet over The Merry Wives of Windsor).
When the Bums deserted I was lost. Didn't follow them to the other coast – they were the enemy, but I had no loyalty to replace. I was ready for that Continental League when the miracle of NL rebirth in NY was announced. A Met fan since before day 1, I rooted through horrible seasons, looking each dawn for a breakout streak by Jim Hickman. A Goosen & a Gonder on the same team? Precious. And then '69—better than '86 because it was so... miraculous.
I understand that for many, winning is the ransom to be paid for loyalty. It is the signature of Yankee fans and, say, those NY Dallas Cowboy & Chicago Bull fans of yore. Yankee penis envy seems alive & well on this site and it's sad that one's self-esteem requires the failure/miscalculation of others who can be criticized with 20/20 hindsight impunity. Want a sure-fire winner? Root for the IRS.
I hear you, Mack. I may well do the same.
I will let the season come towards me before deciding whether to attend games. I hate cold weather games, so I would be very unlikely to go to a game before May.
If they happen to somehow be 19-13 at the time, I may decide to go to a Mets game. If they are 13-19, however, and the Yanks are 23-9, I may decide to buy a ticket for one of the Yankee games (if, of course, any tickets are left - I'd guess that it is possible they may sell out all games in advance this season).
How is this for a protest? You (a general "you") attend a Yankee game, then write the Mets front office stating that you would have attended a Mets game, except you're fed up running the team, so even though you are a lifelong Mets fan, you decided instead to attend the most exciting show in town, run by the best owners in town, instead. Send a photocopy of the Yankee ticket. Write that this ticket is the first of many Yankee ticket purchases, until there are new Mets owners committed to truly winning.
Hobie, I hear you, but back in the 1960's, it was easier to weather poor seasons because you figured with no such thing yet as free agency, your team's time would come, as it did in 1969, which was not as miraculous as it seems because the team's pitching was so darned good, and because Agee had recovered from his 1968 lost beaning season.
Now, you need to be both savvy and aggressive, since free agency lives. The Yankees for the past 25 years get an A+, with every expectation that they could keep it going for another few decades. The Mets get a C- at best, and it would be surprising if the gap between the 2 teams does not extend past 2030. There is a reason the Yanks were on Stanton's trade list and the Mets were not.
Eddie, the problem with the Mets is still the same. They are not committed to winning and it shows. The owners are perfectly confortable being the irrelevant baseball team in NY because they still make money and that's the bottom line for them. They simply do not give a rat's behind about the fans.
There have been many times when the Mets could have taken over as the number one team in New York but each of those times, the Mets have chosen to downgrade instead of improve the team.
How scr**up are the Mets as an organization? well..ask yourselves this question: What are the Mets good at in terms of baseball?
I had such a great laugh whe I read how Freddy Coupon was livid that Stanton was traded to the Yankees.....really Fred? you give us 20M to spend for the off-season and the Yankees add 275M in one player. And while the Coupons were busy picking up their collective jaws from the floor, we start reading how the Yankees are trying to bring in Machado and trade for Cole. The Mets? well...Bartolo is available and Reyes.
Yes, I would still pick the Mets over the Marlins but there is no denying that they have a better future. Jeter was part of a winning organization and he will do what's needed to make the Marlins one as well. The Mets? well...we have the Wilpons and I am sure that Cashman will be livid when the "Genius" brings Bartolo back on a minor league deal.
We root for laundry. As soon as Player X leaves New York he becomes the enemy and as soon as loathed player Y enters NY you root for him. You've made a commitment to root for that laundry regardless of who's wearing it.
Tom -
You will never catch me alive in Yankee Stadium under any conditions.
"You will never catch me alive in Yankee Stadium under any conditions."
Hey Mack, you wouldn't even go to Yankee Stadium to watch the Yankees vs Mets game?
Viper -
That would still put playoff money in the Wilpn checking account, right?:
Mack-
If I were a season ticket holder, I would definitely consider canceling. But I'm far from that, attending 4-6G/yr. In my heyday it attended maybe a dozen or more.
I will continue to that. It has nothing to do with approving Wilpons' budget (he has the right to set one--I wish it were higher) or Anderson's trades (I, unlike evidently most on the internet, am not privy to his phone calls). I'll take my grandchildren or meet some old-timer buddies for an afternoon (if possible) or evening out of entertainment & conversation. Saw 4 last year: 2 were entertaining contests with outcome in doubt until last out, albeit 1 a loss; 2 were not, though one was a win, but served as comfortable back-drop to time with those I care about...I think pastime the word for it.
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