THE Mets can make the summer matter in Flushing starting to night. That’s the sacred opportunity that awaits them across the next two weeks. It’s there for them, all of it, it’s there for their fans, and so what we have at Shea Stadium tonight might well be the start of wonderful journey.
Assuming it isn’t the end of a teasing mirage.
This is what the Mets play for these next 12 games. They play to keep their foot jammed in the door of this noisy baseball summer. They get seven games with the Marlins and five with the Phillies, and if there’s going to be a baseball season worth talking about at Shea Stadium, they need to win at least seven of these games. Maybe eight. That keeps them in the conversation a little longer.
The varsity portion of the Mets’ schedule arrives not a moment too soon for the truest believers of Flushing. Mets fans have been forced to eat a lot of garbage around here the last few years, from snickering Yankees fans, from their own ownership, from the dreadful baseball that has too often polluted their eyes.
Now, they get two weeks’ worth of meaningful games. Maybe they aren’t yet the meaningful September games Fred Wilpon promised, but when you’ve been trapped in a maze of “Groundhog Day” futility for three years, as the Mets have, you first have to make it out of May intact. It’s a good place to start.
“They’re fun to watch again,” said John Cerilli, a Mets fan from Rockaway Township, N.J., “and it’s been a long time since I’ve said that.”
Cerilli represents a million muted Mets fans, forced to stand idly by and watch the past three baseball seasons zoom past them like an express train blowing by a local platform. Sometimes, you look around the city, you look at all the young Yankees fans, you wonder if Mets fans aren’t more endangered than the spotted owl.
But they’re out there. They’ve been out there. They endure so many assaults on their loyalty, and still they remain steadfast in their devotion, most of them like Cerilli, who says, “I was born in 1967 and I honestly don’t remember a day I didn’t root for the Mets.” It sure isn’t the easiest path for a New York baseball fan to take.
Maybe it’s too much to ask Shea to feel tonight the way it will feel in August and September if these past two weeks prove to be something more than a flirt. Maybe you aren’t going to get full houses these next two days, because Mets fans need more than three wins against the woeful Rockies to start swarming the rockpile off Grand Central Parkway. But the Mets can do something about that. They can demand to be relevant.
They can start with a win tonight. They can start by taking seven of the next 12. Is that asking a lot? Why should it be? Why should reaching .500 be greeted like some kind of defining achievement? Why not want more?
On May 21, 1969, Tom Seaver pitched a three-hit shutout in Atlanta to pull the Mets’ record even at 18-18. It was the first time the Mets had been at .500 that late in the season. Reporters expected a mad celebration in the Mets’ clubhouse. They were greeted by something else.
“What’s so good about .500?” Seaver, all of 24 years old at the time, asked soberly. “That’s only mediocre. We didn’t come into the season to play .500 ball. We’re out here to win.”
Those Mets promptly lost five straight, but after that they went on to do some wonderful things. Maybe these Mets can’t go as far as those Mets did, but they sure should be able to dream as big. Lord knows their fans will do as much.
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Dozen Get Much Bigger
The Mets (22-22) reached .500 on Sunday, and now embark on a key 12-game stretch against the Phillies and Marlins, the two teams ahead of them in the NL East.
The stretch figures to be either a launching pad to contention – or a cliff to fall off.
Here’s a look at the upcoming schedule – and how the Mets fared in 2003 after 44 games, 56 games and season’s end.
May
Today 5/25 vs. Pha.
Tom. 5/26 vs. Pha.
Thu. 5/27 Off
Fri. 5/28 @ Fla.
Sat. 5/29 @ Fla.
Sun 5/30 @ Fla.
Mon 5/31 @ Pha.
June
Tue. 6/1 @ Pha.
Wed. 6/2 @ Pha.
Thu. 6/3 vs. Fla.
Fri. 6/4 vs. Fla.
Sat. 6/5 vs. Fla.
Sun 6/6 vs. Fla.
After 44 games – After 56 games – Finish
2003 19-25 – 26-30 – 66-95
2004 22-22 – ??-?? – ??-??