Fans' roots are showing

[420]

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PHILADELPHIA -- Whenever the Mets come to this town, it floods with Mets fans. They pile into their cars, trek down the Turnpike and cram into Citizens Bank Park in numbers large enough to annoy the easily annoyed baseball fans of the City of Brotherly Love.

 

But if you were looking for some real die-hards last night, they were sitting in a pair of field-level seats behind home plate an hour before the game.

 

Steve Agostini and his wife, Nicole Else-Quest, are expatriate Mets fans living in Wisconsin (Steve's originally from Queens), and they flew out just to see the Mets play. They do it all the time. Saw them in Seattle last year, and they make regular pilgrimages to Shea Stadium. They were in New York just last week, proudly wearing their Mets caps around town, and they noticed something.

 

They weren't alone.

 

"I can't remember the last time we saw so many Mets hats," Nicole recalled. "Usually, we're the only ones."

 

Ah, but times are changing in and around New York City. The fresh, exciting, first-place Mets are the hot team in town. The banged-up, perpetually playoff-bound Yankees may still be the bigger draw, but these days, Mets fans are increasingly unashamed to show their faces.

 

"This is a fun team," Steve said. "I mean, even in 2000, they had good players, but they had folks who didn't have the same kind of personality these guys have now. This team has kids and young players and some stars. ... It's a nice team to root for."

 

Yesterday morning's New York City tabloids all trumpeted the news that the Mets were suddenly the best team in town. They were coming off a 6-1 West Coast road trip and rolling into Philly with a 6 1/2-game lead in the division. The talk was of burying the Phillies, right here, this week, in their own ballpark, and beginning to run away with the division the way their last World Series title team did 20 years ago -- and they got started with a 9-7 victory in the series opener last night.

 

The talk had Willie Randolph chuckling.

 

"I think it's comical, funny. It's New York," the Mets manager said before the game. "It makes Mets fans feel good, and it means we're doing a lot of the right things. It means we're being noticed."

 

Randolph said he runs into Mets fans a lot -- around his Bergen County home and especially on his frequent trips into Manhattan for dinners and other charity events. He said he's starting to get a different feeling from them.

 

"You can sense and feel the excitement," he said. "They're just real proud. Old, frustrated Mets fans, everybody, they always have something to say about how exciting the ream is to watch, and they feel like they have an identity now."

 

It is rare for Mets fans to exhibit the kind of confidence they seem to have in this team. Matt Cerrone's well-run fan site, metsblog.com, includes a feature called the "fan confidence rating," which allows visitors to the site to vote, using a scale of 1-to-10, on how confident they are in the team. Last week's average vote was an 8.2. As of game time last night, this week's voting looked as if it would come in around 8.9.

<420: Can we get something like this?>

 

"It's good to have them back," said the Rev. Kevin Carter, who drove down from Jersey City for the game. "You get tired of all the Yankees stuff. With the Mets, I usually pray that they'll just keep me into it until August, when the Giants start. But now, it looks like they'll be playing into October."

 

This is a strange feeling for Mets fans, and they admit as much. But there seems to be something about this particular version that's making the people believe.

 

"There's something special going on here," Carter said. "It does remind you of '86, the way they're finding ways to win games. I wish they had a little more starting pitching like they did in '86, and I'd love to have (Scott) Kazmir back, but that's water under the bridge. Right now, I'm hoping they run away with things so maybe they can rest Pedro (Martinez) and keep him fresh for October."

 

Carter's confidence is strong. Others do seem a little more cautious. Steve and Nicole, the transplants, went to see the Mets in Milwaukee on May 13 and met relief pitcher Duaner Sanchez before the game. That night, Sanchez gave up four runs in the eighth inning and got ejected.

 

"I'm not allowed to talk to him anymore," Nicole said.

 

Of course, the rest of the story is that the Mets came back to win that game in Milwaukee, 9-8.

 

"There's still a lot of those nail-biting Mets moments," Steve said. "I guess it's got to be a little tough, or it wouldn't be the Mets. But they sure are fun to watch."

[Isles]

Great Post

 

 

I am always worried about the after allstar collapse but I do not think it will hapoen this year...

[Plax 4 Prez]

Link

PHILADELPHIA -- Whenever the Mets come to this town, it floods with Mets fans. They pile into their cars, trek down the Turnpike and cram into Citizens Bank Park in numbers large enough to annoy the easily annoyed baseball fans of the City of Brotherly Love.

 

But if you were looking for some real die-hards last night, they were sitting in a pair of field-level seats behind home plate an hour before the game.

 

Steve Agostini and his wife, Nicole Else-Quest, are expatriate Mets fans living in Wisconsin (Steve's originally from Queens), and they flew out just to see the Mets play. They do it all the time. Saw them in Seattle last year, and they make regular pilgrimages to Shea Stadium. They were in New York just last week, proudly wearing their Mets caps around town, and they noticed something.

 

They weren't alone.

 

"I can't remember the last time we saw so many Mets hats," Nicole recalled. "Usually, we're the only ones."

 

Ah, but times are changing in and around New York City. The fresh, exciting, first-place Mets are the hot team in town. The banged-up, perpetually playoff-bound Yankees may still be the bigger draw, but these days, Mets fans are increasingly unashamed to show their faces.

 

"This is a fun team," Steve said. "I mean, even in 2000, they had good players, but they had folks who didn't have the same kind of personality these guys have now. This team has kids and young players and some stars. ... It's a nice team to root for."

 

Yesterday morning's New York City tabloids all trumpeted the news that the Mets were suddenly the best team in town. They were coming off a 6-1 West Coast road trip and rolling into Philly with a 6 1/2-game lead in the division. The talk was of burying the Phillies, right here, this week, in their own ballpark, and beginning to run away with the division the way their last World Series title team did 20 years ago -- and they got started with a 9-7 victory in the series opener last night.

 

The talk had Willie Randolph chuckling.

 

"I think it's comical, funny. It's New York," the Mets manager said before the game. "It makes Mets fans feel good, and it means we're doing a lot of the right things. It means we're being noticed."

 

Randolph said he runs into Mets fans a lot -- around his Bergen County home and especially on his frequent trips into Manhattan for dinners and other charity events. He said he's starting to get a different feeling from them.

 

"You can sense and feel the excitement," he said. "They're just real proud. Old, frustrated Mets fans, everybody, they always have something to say about how exciting the ream is to watch, and they feel like they have an identity now."

 

It is rare for Mets fans to exhibit the kind of confidence they seem to have in this team. Matt Cerrone's well-run fan site, metsblog.com, includes a feature called the "fan confidence rating," which allows visitors to the site to vote, using a scale of 1-to-10, on how confident they are in the team. Last week's average vote was an 8.2. As of game time last night, this week's voting looked as if it would come in around 8.9.

<420: Can we get something like this?>

 

"It's good to have them back," said the Rev. Kevin Carter, who drove down from Jersey City for the game. "You get tired of all the Yankees stuff. With the Mets, I usually pray that they'll just keep me into it until August, when the Giants start. But now, it looks like they'll be playing into October."

 

This is a strange feeling for Mets fans, and they admit as much. But there seems to be something about this particular version that's making the people believe.

 

"There's something special going on here," Carter said. "It does remind you of '86, the way they're finding ways to win games. I wish they had a little more starting pitching like they did in '86, and I'd love to have (Scott) Kazmir back, but that's water under the bridge. Right now, I'm hoping they run away with things so maybe they can rest Pedro (Martinez) and keep him fresh for October."

 

Carter's confidence is strong. Others do seem a little more cautious. Steve and Nicole, the transplants, went to see the Mets in Milwaukee on May 13 and met relief pitcher Duaner Sanchez before the game. That night, Sanchez gave up four runs in the eighth inning and got ejected.

 

"I'm not allowed to talk to him anymore," Nicole said.

 

Of course, the rest of the story is that the Mets came back to win that game in Milwaukee, 9-8.

 

"There's still a lot of those nail-biting Mets moments," Steve said. "I guess it's got to be a little tough, or it wouldn't be the Mets. But they sure are fun to watch."

I'll look into it