The Crossroads

Whether or not Jacob deGrom elects to return after this season, the Mets' future still looks great.

As I watched the New York Mets drop Saturday's contest in Oakland, the more hopeless the game became, the more my mind drifted to other thoughts. Watching Jacob deGrom struggle brought me back to the early years of my baseball fandom. Specifically, I recalled how it felt watching the great Tom Seaver occasionally toss up a stinker. Actually, that was even tougher because I was a kid and truly worshipped Seaver as a hero. There's nothing tougher than a kid witnessing a hero unmasked as a mere mortal. Hell, I still felt some of that seeing deGrom battered around by a bunch of palookas, and I'm in my 60s now. But that's baseball.

Savor the Moment

The Mets earning a playoff berth was special. Make sure you enjoy it.

When the Mets beat the Brewers to clinch a playoff spot last night, it affected me more deeply than I expected. After all, despite their stumble against the Cubs last week, I've known the Mets were playoff-bound for quite some time. But I shouldn't have taken for granted the meaning of just earning a playoff spot when your team has only accomplished that feat 9 times in the previous 60 seasons. Therefore, I will ignore anyone who tries to crash this party and put a damper on the significance of last night's achievement.

A Distant Trumpet

Some Chicken Littles out there endlessly proclaim that the sky is falling, but this has already been a great season for Mets fans.

Some Mets fans are still blaming radio and tv "personality" Sal Licata, who infamously declared the NL East "over" on May 31, for the Mets eventually losing their division lead to the Braves last Friday night. Other, more famous, Mets fans think Timmy Trumpet is the culprit. But neither Licata's silly hubris nor any residual "[b]ad Mojo" from Mr. Trumpet's performance for closer Edwin Díaz has cost the Mets a single game of that precious lead. The Braves managed to sustain a .727 winning percentage over an 87-game stretch. Winning at that pace pretty much cancels out any other mojo, good or bad.

The Party Crasher

Please don't show up at someone else's party just to rain on their parade.

If you'll indulge me for a minute, I'd like to start this post by throwing some numbers at you: 1-6, 2-5, 2-4, 0-7, 3-4, 4-3, 2-4, 1-5, 3-4*. Those numbers represent the New York Mets' regular season record against the Los Angeles Dodgers for every season from 2021, going back to when the Dodgers were sold to their current ownership group early in the 2012 season. (They didn't play at all in the 2020 pandemic season.)