Unnamed sources report the Mets lost again Friday night. “We were all miserable,” said a fan who made anonymity a condition of speaking frankly regarding the state of the team that is limping to the finish with a 69-91 record following grand expectations for 2017.
“They suck, the whole bunch of them,” the Mets fan revealed, insisting on going unidentified so he or she could more freely share certain critical insights. “The owners suck for letting this happen, the front office sucks for not stopping it, the manager certainly hasn’t done his best managing this year and who the hell are these players?
“Still,” the fan elaborated, “I’m a Mets fan. Once you fall in love with them, they abuse you.”
The sucking is not limited to club personnel, the fan added while refusing to acknowledge whether he or she maintains a name or any distinguishing physical characteristic. “I’m no prize in any of this because I complain plenty, yet I have no surefire answers as how to ameliorate this awful situation,” the fan said. “Wait, does using ‘ameliorate’ in a sentence give away who I am? What about ‘surefire’? Because you said this was going to be anonymous. It has to be anonymous so I can speak frankly as to how awful this situation is. God forbid anybody know that anybody specific knows how much the Mets have sucked this year.”
Under cover of anonymity, the fan returned to his — or her — critique of the Mets’ disastrous season, one that is about to end with the likely dismissals of Terry Collins, Dan Warthen and other staff members. “I have no allies on the team,” the fan said. “They are all against me, I’m pretty sure. If they weren’t, why would they be doing this to me virtually every night for six months?” The fan attributed his/her ultimate isolation to having gotten “too chummy with them,” though he/she wouldn’t confirm who “them” are before implying the alleged chumminess is primarily limited to his/her yelling at the television during the team’s myriad defeats.
“Even when you tell them,” the fan said, “they don’t listen, let alone say ‘hey’ to you when they pass in front of you on the TV. It’s like my name isn’t Cespedes or Harvey or…hey, don’t write that down. If they know my name isn’t Cespedes or Harvey, they’ll figure out it’s something else by process of elimination and I’m to be unnamed, dammit. I wouldn’t be freely sharing certain critical insights if I wanted anybody to know who I am.”
The fan reserved his most detailed eviscerations for Collins, whose contract is not expected to be renewed after seven seasons on the job, the longest managerial tenure in franchise history. “Terry managed the Mets to a World Series and to the playoffs,” the fan explained, “but take that away, and all you have is him not doing that.” Among the fan’s criticisms of the manager were Collins not making all the right moves, not playing all the right players and trying to win games without being uniformly successful.
For years, Collins’s public reputation had been generally positive, one that left the impression the players the baseball lifer managed and the people he answered to thought he was essentially all right. “The hell with that,” the anonymous fan retorted. “It’s important that it gets known ASAP that Terry wasn’t as adequate as was generally believed, at least not when things were at their 2017 worst. This way we can come away with a lower opinion” of the soon to be unemployed 68-year-old skipper.
“I gotta get these shots in now,” the fan concluded, “because once Terry is through the door, there’s no chance it can hit him in the ass on its way out. Whatever my name is, whatever little I have to do with any of this, however much I’m not an ‘insider,’ I am all about the Mets — and I sure as hell know how goodbyes go around here.”
LoloolollollLOL
Kudos to Gary Cohen for going on a pretty good for prime time tirade about the “anonymous sources”.
Keith was curiously silent, offering some tepid explanation of it all. Perhaps, and I wouldn’t be surprised, he had been an “anonymous source” once or twice in his career.
Or, as he often half-jokingly says around this time of year, he’s in Salary Drive mode. Not getting on Alderson’s bad side certainly would a part of that strategy.
Yup, Collins was supposed to be the sacrificial lamb, so desperate for a job that he’d be willing to hang in there until the talent was built up to where the Mets could contend after which he’d be out the door. Then the unexpected happened – the 2015 Mets made the playoffs, and the world series, a year ahead of schedule.
My opinion is that it probably is time for Terry to go. But couldn’t the team have been grateful for his service and allowed him to exit gracefully?
Whatever opinion one may have had about the front office, it certainly is decreased after the unnecessary character assassination of Terry Collins. The front office reminds me of a certain 71 year old native of Queens whose approval rating sinks lower every time he tweets.
Greg, I’m surprised that you didn’t mention that today is the 10th anniversary of the Gl@v!ne game.
Help yourself. Raw version ten years ago today here; comparatively calm and reflective version from a couple of days later here.
Reports say that the captain of Mets fans, despite having been at Citifield only 3 times since 2014 and no visits this year at all, calls this anonymous tirade “cowardly.”
Why do they do this every single time? In a couple of years, it’ll be like:
“David would always order from the children’s menu and then make a bunch of substitutions,” one anonymous Met said. “He would say, ‘I’ll have the grilled cheese with fries, but I will substitute the squid ink paella for the grilled cheese, and instead of fries, the guacamole.’ It was definitely embarrassing. And when the check came? Somehow, he was always in the restroom. Every time.”
“Do you remember what John Rocker said about the 7 train?” one executive asked.
The beleaguered front office man exhaled slowly in resignation. “Look, just try not to get him started about all the Nepalese in Jackson Heights.”
Seems to be the Wilpon way, doesn’t it? Though it isn’t exclusive to them. Are they afraid Mets fans would be in an uproar if he left with his head held high? Do they think we’ll cancel our ticket plans if he leaves without being buried, as if we need an explanation why? We watch. We’ve seen TC. We know he’s not the best. No reason to kick him while he’s down.
Funny how all this came out literally the day after we were discussing how his tenure was mostly drama-free.
At least if you’re going to dump all over him, do it this past Tuesday so fans can look beyond all his questionable decisions and stand up for him at his last home game. Sheesh.
Jeffrey Scott @greenwichmets Fredo Wilpon. He’s all over this. And everyone knows and is embarrassed by it. Everyone except Fredo and his muchachos in the media at the Daily News and at certain Wilpon-controlled blogs and t-shirt licensees.
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It’s been fun becoming a Red Sox fan again. And they were so Mets-like the final week. It’s funny how all Red Sox fans hate the Mets but so many Mets fans like the Sox. Go Jackie Bradley Jr.!