Requiem for a Season

It wasn't supposed to end like this, with the team celebrating on the field at Shea clad in road grays.

If it's possible, I feel worse right now than I did back in 1999, back when Kenny Rogers and October were like matches and gasoline. '99 was the first time the Mets were in the playoffs when I was old enough to know what was going on, and in the way that only a naive 13-year-old can, I thought that the fact that it was 30 years since the Miracle Mets of 1969 would be the momentum that pushed that set of underdogs over the top. When Andruw Jones took ball 4 to send the Atlanta Braves to what would be their last World Series appearance during their run of consecutive division titles, I felt as though I had just been told that [insert Jewish equivalent of being told that Santa Claus isn't real here]. Yet as much as I hated to admit it, in the end I knew that the Braves had been the better team that year.

7 years later, I'm a bit more jaded, having seen seasons that fell just short, seasons that fell on their faces, and decisions by Steve Phillips that make his current work at ESPN seem brilliant by comparison. Yet from the time I saw a game early in spring training, I had a feeling that this year would be different, that this team would dominate like the one 20 years before it did. This feeling was set in stone the first week of the season, my first of many trips to Shea for the year. A college student in the city, no longer at the mercy of my overprotective parents, I went to more games this season than in any previous one, watched as the Mets generally steamrollered over any opponent they faced. Along the way, I found myself commenting on blogs about the team, eventually starting one of my own to share my thoughts about something that meant so much to me.

I'm in a lot of pain right now, thinking of moments from this series that could have turned out differently, momentum shifts from chances not capitalized on, all of the struggles with putting up a 0 after scoring and putting away Cardinals on 2-strike counts that contributed to the better team being vanquished on its own field. That's what kills me about this series - we had the better team, and that wasn't enough. On some level, nothing is going to take away the pain of knowing that, not the fact that the boys in orange & blue made it further than the 2 teams I hate, not the knowledge that anything can happen in a short series.

Yet amidst the pain, there is hope and pride. As disappointed as I am with the outcome of the game, I cannot and will not let myself forget the huge performance by Oliver Perez, who came in with the worst regular-season record and ERA of any postseason starting pitcher and came out looking like the reason the Xavier Nady deal may go down as one of the biggest heists in recent memory. I don't think anyone who saw what Endy Chavez did in the top of the 6th will ever let what was quite possibly one of the greatest defensive plays in postseason history slip out of their memory. I will remember that even after the crushing blow in the top of the 9th, my team did not go down without a fight in the bottom half, going so far as to load the bases with the potential tying and winning runs.

This year didn't quite turn out the way I hoped it would, but there are still plenty of moments from it to cherish as I look forward to the off-season moves of a general manager who has shown that he knows what he's doing, to pitchers and catchers reporting, to Opening Day. I'm glad I started this blog, and I'm happy to have such a great group of commenters. After years of having to churn out papers for classes, rarely being satisfied with my work, I had almost forgotten that I actually liked to write when I wasn't being graded on it. Keeping this blog has helped me rediscover that joy, and for that I am grateful. I will still be posting throughout the offseason, and I hope that all of you keep reading.

Finally, I'd like to be the first person to congratulate the 2007 World Champion New York Mets.