Why the Mets Are Always Almost There (And Why I Keep Showing Up Anyway)

Forty years of this team and I still can't explain it to my brother-in-law, who roots for the Yankees and has the nerve to feel sorry for me.

They Get You Every Single Time

Used to be, a bad team was just bad. You knew it going in. You made peace with it. The '62 Mets lost a hundred and twenty games and people loved them anyway because at least everybody understood the situation. Nobody was walking around in October thinking this is the year.

But that's not the Mets. The Mets are not bad. They're not good either. They exist in this particular hell where they are always, always close. That's why the Mets are always almost there — not because they're cursed, not because the ownership is cheap (well), but because they are genuinely built, every single spring, to make you believe.

April comes and you think: okay, the rotation looks solid. May comes and someone goes down but the bullpen holds. June, you're four games back and you're doing the math. You're doing the math in June like an idiot. I've been doing this since 1986 and that was the last time the math worked out.

My buddy Richie — big Mets guy, works at the post office — he said to me last summer, "Lou, I don't even get nervous anymore. I just wait for the thing to happen." And I said, "Richie, that's not peace. That's damage."

The Almost Is the Whole Thing

Here's what I've figured out, and I figured it out late, so don't feel bad if you're just getting here: the reason why the Mets are always almost there is because almost is what they're selling. Whether they know it or not.

The Yankees sell winning. The Cubs sold losing for a hundred years and then they sold a miracle. The Mets sell the feeling you get in August when you're still in it. That's the product. That tightness in your chest on a Tuesday night in September when they're down one in the seventh and the bases are loaded and you're standing in your kitchen because you can't sit down. That's what they're giving you.

Is that worth anything? I don't know. I keep paying for it.

I had a can of something from Herb & Lou's the other night, sitting on my stoop watching the game on my phone like a person with no dignity, and I thought: this is fine. This is actually fine. Not the Mets. The Mets were blowing a three-run lead in the eighth. But the night was fine.

Maybe that's the move. You can't control what they do. You can control the stoop.

Forty Years and I'm Still Here, So What Does That Tell You

My father took me to Shea in 1984. We took the 7 train. He bought me a hot dog and a program and I remember thinking this place is the whole world. It was not a good year. It was never not an experience.

That's the thing about why the Mets are always almost there that nobody wants to say out loud: it keeps you coming back in a way winning might not. A dynasty is fine. A dynasty is comfortable. But almost? Almost will ruin your sleep in the best possible way.

I've been selling pipe for thirty years. You know what I tell a customer who's not sure? I say, "You're gonna think about this either way. Might as well think about it with the right one." The Mets are the pipe you already bought. You're stuck with them. Might as well make peace.

So if you're new to this, welcome. It doesn't get easier but it gets familiar. Find a good stoop. Find something cold to drink. Get comfortable with almost. The Mets have been almost there my whole life and they'll probably be almost there when I'm gone, and I'll be rooting from wherever I end up.

Grab something from Herb & Lou's, pull up the game, and just let it happen to you. That's all any of us are doing anyway.