Mike's Mets - Steve Cohen Keeps Daring Us to Dream Bigger

 

You think I'm done?
Hand me my checkbook

By Mike Steffanos

Steve Cohen is giving Mets fans a lesson in what is truly possible with the right owner.

I wrote a piece earlier this week that I liked a lot. I thought I did a good job capturing the euphoria of a lifelong Mets fan (me) responding to Steve Cohen's relentless drive to field a great team. And this was based on all of the signings and what, at the time, was an unsuccessful pursuit of Carlos Correa. As I was finishing up the piece, I saw the information come across that the San Francisco Giants had postponed their press conference to welcome their new star. For a moment, I let myself consider the possibility of Correa becoming available again for Steve Cohen to sign, and then chuckled. This offseason has been a fine antidote to all of us who long suffered under the Wilpons' stewardship of the club, but there had to be a limit — didn't there?

I was walking my two dogs that afternoon after publishing the piece. As always, I had a lot of time to think during that exercise. While, at times, I can inspire my pooches into periods of fast-paced hiking, there are other times when the need to stop and explore the scent of every other rock and fallen leaf will drag our pace down to a virtual crawl. I implore my dog Nutmeg, a Treeing Walker Coonhound mix, to pick up the pace. She just gives me a look with those profoundly sorrowful hound dog eyes, full of pity for me — a creature incapable of comprehending the fascinating world of scents under my feet waiting to be explored — and continues to do pretty much exactly what she wants. And I retreat into my thoughts until she is ready to walk at a faster pace again.

That Tuesday afternoon, I found myself dreaming again about how sweet it would be for the Mets to add Carlos Correa to an already colossal payroll, then chortled at my unbridled avarice. Steve Cohen's aggressiveness is spoiling Mets fans like me, who spent years watching all of the big moves take place outside of Flushing, Queens.

The press conferences to introduce newly added Mets to the fanbase had been coming so fast and furious this winter that I actually got bored with them. Not that this isn't always the case. You can essentially predict what people will say and the questions they will be asked in advance after you've watched a few of them. The Mets generally sign so few big-name players that there isn't a chance to be bored with them. But this year is different. Press conference overload is a real problem. God bless Billy Eppler for continuing to appear excited about the latest signings when he's probably just wishing he could get back to the day's Wordle.

So anyway, while Nutmeg was exploring the world of olfactory wonder, I thought about the Mets teams of my youth. With a few notable exceptions, they were unremarkable. Good years featured numbing mediocrity, while in bad years, the club was barely watchable when Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, or Jon Matlack were pitching. All too often, the Mets' pathetic offense offered them no support. During those years, I first became a huge fan of Strat-O-Matic baseball — still, by far, the best choice for nerdy baseball fans who are convinced they could do a better job managing their favorite ball club. I spent many hours playing the game, usually by myself. I know, pathetic. It's still amazing to me that I ever lost my virginity.

A big problem for young me was that the Mets were so bad that managing them was dull. So I came up with the solution of "enhancing" my Mets ballclubs. At first, this involved a sprinkling of my favorite non-Mets superstars on the roster. Eventually, it became a wholesale replacement of every .200-hitting position player and relievers who couldn't get anyone out. By the late 70s, with Seaver, Koosman, and Matlack long gone, my final roster contained few actual New York Mets. The teams I created were virtual juggernauts in my own personal baseball league play. But I always knew what I was doing was merely an exercise in wishful thinking.

I haven't thought much about those endless S-O-M games in a long time. But when I awoke Wednesday morning to the news of Correa signing with the Mets, it occurred to me that Steve Cohen was doing in real life what I had done back then  — creating a tangible version of my decades-old fantasy. Rooting for the Mets for most of my life meant understanding that you had to settle for what was left over after the big spenders were done picking through the best free agents. Man, it's a whole new world these days.

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