The Nine-Nine-Nine

One night back in college, I went out to dinner with a bunch of friends at a local place. Decent food, regular bar, a very easy type of restaurant. We went there all the time. On this evening, we were all fairly drunk when we showed up to eat, but one of my buddies was truly wasted. Sloppy. Exxon Valdez sloppy.

Sitting next to our table of eight loud drunkards was an old couple who were celebrating their sixtieth anniversary. Just the two of them, an evening out together, and they had to put up with our nonsense. It was truly unfortunate. My drunk buddy kept leaning over to their table, asking what they were eating and making drunken nonsensical conversation. They were appropriately horrified.

Then, the waitress shows up to take our order. She hurried around the table, clearly looking to get away from us as quickly as possible. But when she got to the sloppy guy, he looked her dead in the eye, and said, "I'd like a thousand fajitas." We completely lost it. I don't think I've ever seen a waitress taken so aback. The order was, of course, repeated. He also mispronounced "fajitas" so that it rhymed with "vaginas," which only added to the booziness of the whole incident. Excellent times. He only got one order in the end, but they were delicious.

I bring up this story only because "a thousand fajitas," intentionally mispronounced, has become a go-to phrase whenever one of our friends wants to signal that he, or someone else, is out of control. It's a code word; a red flag; an air-raid siren. Duck and cover, and get out of the way of whatever's coming. And I kind of feel like that about the impending thousandth post here at Y2K.

It is, quite simply, not a good time for the Mets. I feel drunk just talking about it.

Now, none of that necessarily has anything with Y2K, whose impending thousand-post milestone deserves some kind of commemoration. Whatever the current situation, the blog has followed the team through a bizarre range of highs and lows.

One one side, the Mets have been a contending club for most of the site's tenure, which is certainly more than you can say for the Amazins at many points throughout their history. The team has boasted a bevy of young talent, big and not-entirely disastrous free agent signings, and easy-to-root-for types. There have been playoff runs. There's a brand spanking new stadium. In the scheme of things, Mets fans have had plenty to cheer about since 2005.

Of course, as chronicled herein, there have been some setbacks. Some, ahem ... "less-than" moments. For all the potential in the various iterations run out by the club, there remains a profound and lingering sense of underachievement. I don't want to get too deep into it here, mostly because I'll end up bloodying my knuckles against the photo of Yadier Molina tacked onto my wall. And I need my knuckles.

But none of that is necessarily bad for the site. No news is only good news if you're not interested in writing about the news. I think Edward R. Murrow said that once. When he was high. And whatever else you want to say about the Mets over the past four-odd seasons, they have certainly been newsworthy, often in a train-wreck kind of way.

Plus, scandal and intrigue make for interesting copy, despair even more so. The blog had a great year covering the 2007, for all the heartache that followed. I know I've personally had some fun with the misadventures of, say, Paul LoDuca. And over the years, Alex Rodriguez has provided an embarrassment of riches for anyone who despises the Yankees. Someone should write a book about that guy.

What I'm saying is that we -- A.F.O.M.G., Young Sip, me, the site's readers -- need to look beyond all the storm clouds on the horizon. We need to get past the fact that the team is currently sub-.500. We need to accept the fact that the Buffalo Bisons are now known as the worst team in baseball. Especially me.

We need to ignore all the REALLY disturbing omens, like Nails going bankrupt (with up to $50 million in liabilities, no less). I mean, if Lenny's still fighting, we can keep the faith too, right?

We need to get past nonsense like this allegedly complete 2003 MLB drug testing list. I've never seen such a load of hogwash in my life. A quick comparison of that list with, say, the 2003 Mets roster is fairly instructive there. And really, six years later, aren't we all ready to move on?

We need to remember that, for Y2K's purposes, no news is bad news. We're here to write about sports and cheer everyone up as best we can, and the disappointment and frustration and annoyance is a big part of all of it. I root for the Mets, and I want them to play great baseball and make the playoffs and enjoy all the success in the world. But seeing as how that's never going to happen, I have to be ready to find the humor in the tragedy.

You live longer that way, and you have a smile on your face in the process. So when I say I'd like another thousand posts, I may or may not be trying to signal that the Mets are wildly out of control, and you should all get out of the way.

You'll just have to keep reading to find out.