Metstradamus - Will There Be Earplugs?

 By metstradamus | August 30, 2021 7:04 am

It just might be because I’m getting old, but I can’t remember the last time I booed a Mets player.

I mean sure, I marched down to the Mets dugout in Washington and fired Jerry Manuel, but honestly, who hasn’t?

But, and I’m only speaking for myself, I’ve thought for a long time now that booing your own players should be limited to an obvious lack of effort, and embarrassing yourself and the franchise with an egregious act of stupidity off the field. That said, booing as an act of frustration at the end of ballgames after long losing streaks, for example? Hey, it happens. I’ve always thought that a lot of booing is just that. Frustration. I know a lot of booing that happened in seasons like 2020 were more directed at the Wilpon family and Brodie Van Wagenen. Heck, if people like that were made available to boo at, maybe while they’re sitting in a dunk tank, it would deflect a lot of booing from the players. If I could sit a Mets player past, present or future down and warn him of this, I would. Don’t take it personally.

But Javy Báez took it personally.

Uh oh.

I don’t expect Javy to understand the frustration of the Mets fan. He’s been here for a month while we’re here forever. We were here before him, and we’ll be here long after he leaves. I also don’t expect him to understand the New York fan base after playing his entire career in the city of Chicago. Chicago is a great sports town, but there’s a lot of “midwest polite” in Chicago. It’s not New York. New York is tough, sometimes unfairly so. But they’re honest. That’s why there was such frustration about Pete Alonso’s positivity after the Phillies series. While I thought Pete was coming from a genuine place with those comments, a lot of fans took it as Pete peeing on their leg and telling them it’s raining. I understand that completely.

Mets fans will love you forever if you produce. They’ll love you forever if you understand them. And they’ll love you forever if you’re a husky pitcher who hits a home run because you have too much pride to keep striking out while your helmet flies off. But Mets fans will also be honest with you. Maybe all Báez was doing was giving the fans a little honesty of his own. Was he right? Maybe. Are fans who think it is never acceptable to boo a player for striking out right? Probably. But it’s not about what I think or what you think or what Javy thinks things should be. It’s about the way it is. The way it is is that if you come across as being against the fans, then the fans are going to be against you ten times as hard. Javy should have realized that, and now he’s going to hear about it on Tuesday.

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