Waiting on the World to Change: The Next Decade of Mets Baseball
Life's not fair. It's a lesson Mets fans know well, and one that each of us has probably learned the hard way a few times in our lives beyond baseball.
Depending to a degree on your definition, tonight marks the end of one decade and the beginning of another. It begs the question: What are my hopes for the next decade of Mets baseball?
There's a very easy answer on one level and a more complicated one on another. The very easy answer is that I hope it's better than the last. And the one before that, for that matter.
Sure, the 90's and the 00's gave us some Mets teams for the ages. Who didn't love the '99 team or the one from '06? Even if they both fell short and broke our hearts, the positive memories are with us forever.
So what to hope for in the decade ahead? Here's a quick list:
1. A championship for god's sake
Is it really so much to ask? The Yankees have won like a million in the past 15 years. Ditto the Red Sox and, FML, the Marlins.
Being good shouldn't be that hard for the Mets, given their resources and the market they play in. (A great example of the "market" incentive is Amar'e Stoudemire, who all of a sudden is getting a clothing line. That shit DOESN'T happen if he stays in Phoenix or signs anywhere else aside from the Lakers.)
2. No more collapses
Honestly, we've had our share. God, are you listening?
3. Stay what you are
I want the Mets to win, but I don't want us to sell our soul to do it. For whatever reason, I'll always have a soft spot for the Red Sox, but with their payroll at/approaching $175mm for 2011, they're now in the same league financially as the Yankees.
I never want the Mets to be in the same league financially as the Yankees (assuming they remain where they've been for the past decade). As absurd as it may sound to fans of the Pirates or who have you, the Mets with their pedestrian $130mm payroll are the "blue collar" team in New York. That's who we are, it's who we've always been, and it's who I hope we always will be.
4. D-Wright and the Glass Man go out as (championship-winning) Mets
These guys should be lifers. As crazy as it sounds, both David Wright and Jose Reyes will probably still be playing baseball in 2020. Of the two, Wright seems a surer bet; we don't call Reyes "Mr. Glass" for nothing, folks.
Now, it's possible (likely?) that Reyes doesn't make it to 2012 as a Met, but let me dream. Reyes and Wright are two of my all-time favorite Mets. They're the faces of the franchise (still), and it'd be nice to see the Nos. 5 and 7 hanging at Citi Field someday, side-by-side on the outfield wall as they were in the infield for all those years.
5. The Yankees go championship-less
Have the Yankees EVER gone a decade without winning a World Series? If only there was some sort of online aggregater of information that we could turn to at a time like this!
Well, if they HAVE had decades where they never won, they're few and far between, that's for sure. How 'bout the '10s join the list? That'd be nice.
* * * * *
The awful thing is that you really can't expect any of the items listed above to happen. But hey, a guy and a fan base can dream, right?
Am I missing anything here? Anything you're hoping for in the decade ahead? Curious as always for your thoughts.
Have a great time tonight, everybody. Here's to 2011, may it be better than 2010.
You're looking at Post #99 of 2010. One more to reach the century mark.
Is this post necessary? Not at all. Consider it a grab bag of the writer's musings.
Let's start with New Year's resolutions. I haven't got any good ones. The best one I ever had was leading into 2006 when I resolved to always try a new restaurant if I had a say in the matter.
I had become stuck in a routine of going to the same five restaurants (I can't even remember which five they were, but the Silk Road Palace was certainly one of them).
I have certain objectives for the year ahead. For instance, the company I work for provides complimentary access to basically all the big museums.
I've taken advantage of this perk about once or twice in the 5.5 years I've worked there. I'm working there for another 6 months or so, and in that time I'm going to make the most of the offer. (Somewhere Sip is passing me the salt for talking about museums on a baseball blog).
There you have it! It just clicked for me: my resolution is to explore the shit out of New York City in the remaining 8 months before I move to Boston. I have to iron out a few of the particulars: beyond the museums, what else can I do to say I made good on the resolution? Restaurants of course, but I need other, more unexpected options.
Maybe the answer is to just keep my eyes open. I have a friend whose fiancee is always inviting big groups of people to play whiffle ball in Prospect Park; I've never done it, principally out of sheer laziness. That changes in the next 8 months.
Am I going for 100? Possibly. But it occurred to me that one of the posts I didn't write this year was my annual Thanksgiving Day post where I enumerate the things I'm thankful for.
These lists are a bit of a hodgepodge. The Mets are the driving force, but there's a mix of personal, professional, and musical stuff in there as well. What would such a list look like this year? Here's a quick crash course.
1. Saturdays at Citi Field
As disappointing as the 2010 season ultimately was, some of my fondest memories of going out to the ballpark come from 2010.
I probably went to 12-15 games this year, not a mind blowing total by any means, but a good number of those were Saturday games with large groups (there were a few Friday night games mixed in as well).
Group outings to Citi Field might be my favorite thing in the world. You get a group of people together who like to eat, drink, watch baseball (or not), and be merry, and you've got a killer combination in my mind.
For all the grief it takes from fans, it's Citi Field that makes these wonderful days possible. I loved Shea Stadium, but it wasn't the kind of place that a non-baseball lover would enjoy. Citi Field is.
When I think of the baseball season ahead, no small measure of my excitement is wrapped up in the vision of those sun-soaked days at the ballpark in the company of friends, food, drink, and the Mets.
2. Mike Pelfrey's Few Shining Months
I mean, obviously Pelfrey's early season dominance didn't last, but while it was going it was glorious. Go back to that game against San Diego in May or June when he tossed 9 innings of 1-run ball, and how awesome it was when he came out for the 9th.
It came crashing down pretty fast for the Pelf Man in the second half of the season, when he went 5-8 (finishing the year 15-9), but for the flashes of brilliance he showed in the early and late parts of the season, and the glimmer of hope it provides, I'm thankful.
3. HBS
I devoted an entire post to this recently, so I won't belabor the point. Suffice it to say that I couldn't be more thrilled with how the business school process concluded.
I devoted significant parts of two years to applying to b-school, and for better or worse I had to come to a point where none of the other schools were nearly as attractive to me as Harvard.
That's not because of the name or the ranking or any of the other superficial factors, that's because when I got there it just felt right, everything from the classroom environment to the surrounding campus. The feeling was a lot like when I first stepped foot in Williamstown some 10 years ago and I just knew that was the place for me.
4. The Giants and Rangers
Another one I won't belabor. All that needs to be said is THANK GOD we didn't have a redux of the Bad Meets Evil World Series (though it sure looks like "Bad" is on its way to another Fall Classic in 2011).
Also, though I'm sure the joke was done to death on the West Coast, the few times I saw "The Machine" I laughed pretty hysterically, so thank you, Brian Wilson, for that.
5. Sundays at Sidebar
Talk about a life-changer. Ever since we made the move from the Village Pourhouse to Sidebar for football, Sundays have become possibly my favorite day of the offseason.
Sidebar's this sports bar on 15th and Irving where the screens are too small but the atmosphere is just right. They always draw a big crowd but we have a table reserved each week so it's no problem from that perspective.
Perhaps the best part is the opportunity it provides to reconnect with Sip and this group of 22-23 year old bros (a friend's younger brother and his group of friends).
These days out at Sidebar, pricey as they are, are the winter equivalent of Saturdays at Citi Field. Good times, good people, good music and football. It's almost enough to make you not care that the Giants suck.
6. New Knicks!
Sure they've lost five of their last seven games after their torrid winning streak, but most of those losses have come against very good teams in games that were mostly competitive.
They lost to the Celtics at the buzzer and played the Heat and Magic relatively close (granted, the first game against Miami turned into a blowout, but it was a great game through the first half). It's a far cry from seasons past where the Knicks didn't even belong on the same court as the NBA's elite.
They seem a lock for a playoff spot, which will be fun to see for the first time in years. Beyond that, they're just such a likeable team. Amar'e Stoudemire, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari (aka Birdman), @thereallandryfields, Wilson Chandler -- just a great group. Sometimes I love Ronny Turiaf so much it hurts.
Anyway, it's good to have 'em back. The city just has a different energy when the Knicks are good, and it's exciting to have that again.
7. "Phrazes for the Young" by Julian Casablancas; "Contra" by Vampire Weekend; "Life of Leisure" by Washed Out
The three albums that I rocked the shit out of this year, the first two of which are hardly a surprise. As longtime readers are aware, I sweat The Strokes pretty hard, so when their lead singer released his first solo album late last year, I was all over it.
Only 8 songs long, the album is short and sweet, but of those 8 songs, four are terrific, two ("11th Dimension", "Tourist") are very good, and two ("Ludlow Street" and "Four Chords of the Apocalypse") I go back and forth on.
The four standouts are "Left and Right in the Dark", "River of Brakelights", "Glass", and "Out of the Blue". Check it out.
Next up was Vampire Weekend's sophomore album, Contra. More dynamic and consistent than their (also excellent) debut, Contra is a pleasure virtually start to finish.
Aside from, of all things, the lead single ("Cousins"), this album delivers at all points -- "Giving Up the Gun", "Taxi Cab", "California English", "White Sky", and the terrific album close "I Think Ur a Contra" are my personal favorites, but virtually any song could take the cake on a given day.
The final album on the list above is the only truly "new" addition to my musical palette. Somewhere along the way I realized that any song that was broadly evocative of hot and hazy summer days was right up my alley.
Enter the Chillwave movement, of which Washed Out is my favorite act. "Life of Leisure" is an EP of only six songs, but put it on in the background of a warm summer day and try not to love life. Highlight tracks are "New Theory" and "Feel It All Around". Download them. I promise you you'll be glad you did.
(Other Chillwave songs to check out are "Hammocks" by Millionyoung, "Sunburn" by Pearl Harbor, and "Stilyagi" by Puro Instinct. The band names are weird, alright? Just go with it.)
8. Readers Like You
It's the same coda every year. Readers like you are a big part of the reason we're I'm still at this. Thanks for your continued support, and here's to another great year of following the Mets and life in 2011.
Ever since Sip retired and I went solo, I've set a goal at the outset of each calendar year of writing at least 100 posts in the 12 months ahead.
Last year I cleared that margin comfortably. I want to say I wrote something in the neighborhood of 105-110 posts in 2009.
In 2010 it looks like I'm going to fall just short of my goal. What you're reading now is the 97th post of 2010. It's occurred to me that I could sort of fudge my way to 100 posts, and I may end up doing so.
I'll at least write one more, a retrospective on the year that's passed, but don't be surprised if you see a conveniently timed flurry of activity in the 15 hours ahead.
No matter whether I reach the semi-arbitrary milestone, the goal will remain unchanged in 2011, which figures to be a VERY interesting year, blogging-wise. I've got the Great American Road Trip planned for the summer, and then in the fall I'm off to Harvard Business School, both of which will eat into my available blog-hours. As I've noted, graduate school claimed the blogging lives of both Sip and Cheddar Ben before him.
For now I'm hoping to avoid the same fate. I've set my goal for 2011, but before we get there, let's see what I can do about my goal for 2010.
For about half of my life I've had a very close relationship with music.
I know I wasn't always like this. Growing up I was really into Tom Petty, and I remember countless trips I took with my family to go skiing in Vermont where we'd listen to "Ten" by Pearl Jam alongside Led Zepplin and Eric Clapton.
So music's always been a part of my life, but until I was 12 or 13 it was always in the background. I remember being crestfallen when I'd want to watch television only to discover my brother planted on the living room couch watching MTV or The Box (holler!). I didn't just not care about music, I didn't even get the appeal.
The closest thing I can recall as a watershed moment in my relationship with music was Kurt Cobain's suicide. When that happened I remember that all of a sudden I got REALLY into Nirvana. Me and everyone else I guess.
But Nirvana proved to be a gateway. Over the years I got into any number of bands, and I began to associate individual songs with certain moments or memories, some positive, others not so positive.
* * * * *
Recently I added another song to the pantheon of songs that conjure up really happy memories. The song is "Magdalena" by Brandon Flowers, the lead singer of The Killers. He's got a solo album out called Flamingo.
The album's a bit hit or miss. There are 10 songs in total. Three of them are fantastic, three of them are good, and the rest don't really do anything for me.
The highlight is Magdalena, an upbeat number featuring Flowers' voice at its most soaring. You can check out a live version of it in the video here.
If you're interested, the other two essential songs from the album are "Crossfire" and "Hard Enough".
* * * * *
As regular readers are aware, the Glass Man has been up to his ears in business school applications the past several months. I applied to four schools: Harvard, Wharton, Columbia, and Kellogg. For any number of reasons Harvard Business School was always my top choice.
The first step to getting in is being asked to interview, which I was. I spent the next two weeks cramming as much information into my brain as possible on questions I thought my interviewer might ask me, I had several mock interviews, we even used a video camera. I believe in preparation as a general matter, but especially on something I want badly, and I wanted very badly to get into HBS.
Needless to say, when the day of the interview came around I was nervous. It was an Indian Summer kind of late October day in Cambridge. My interview was at 4pm; I arrived at the admissions office an hour early, my mind reminding me every five seconds seemingly that I'd better not screw this up.
It wasn't a productive chain of thought. Nervously I opened the welcome folder provided by the admissions office. Inside there was a letter from the Dean of Admissions, which I read hurriedly; when I got to the bottom of there was this advice:
"You really can't prepare... although I know you will try! Try not to spend your time memorizing your written application or preparing a script for anticipated questions. If you've brought your iPod, listen to your music, take a walk..."
It was instantly some of the best advice I'd ever got. I told myself that all I could do was give it my best shot, and I knew that wouldn't be possible if I was a mess of nerves.
I walked out of the admissions office and into the brilliant mid-fall afternoon. I set my iPod to "Magdalena" and turned it up loud. I probably listened to it four or five times straight when all of a sudden it was time for my interview. I walked in confidently, feeling upbeat thanks in no small part to the music.
* * * * *
A week ago today I learned I'd been admitted to Harvard Business School, where I'll be a member of the Class of 2013. I couldn't be more thrilled about it.
I got a song for the pantheon out of it, too. Every time I hear Magdalena now I think of that antsy afternoon in Cambridge, my hoped-for future so close and yet so far, and of how good it felt in the minutes before my interview to let go of my nerves and revel in the excitement of the moment.
It seems it was meant to be, too. Re-reading my first post-practice GMAT post from January 2009, I'm delighted to recall that that evening me and my girlfriend went to a concert at Madison Square Garden.
Who'd we see? None other than Brandon Flowers' main act, The Killers.
Yesterday was a brutal reminder of why, my entire life, I've basically kept every team other than the Mets at arm's length.
More often than not, rooting for the Mets is an exercise in soul crushing disappointment. The last time something worked out for the team I was 3 going on 4. I'll be 28 next week.
Damn.
Anyway, you follow a team the way I follow the Mets across an entire calendar year -- waiting with bated breath for Spring Training, living and dying with them across 162 games each year, writing posts like this in the offseason -- and it's hard to muster that same level of enthusiasm for another team.
A big part of it is self-preservation. Living and dying with a team can take a lot out of you, especially, again, when that team so routinely disappoints. I've already got one consistent loser in my life, the thinking goes, what do I need with another one?
(A terrible side effect of this syndrome of mine is that I'm drawn to "sure things" in other sports. As much as I hate the Yankees, I tend to like their equivalents in football (the Patriots), basketball (the Lakers and Celtics) and tennis (Roger Federer, Pete Sampras). Just to be clear, I'd never root for those teams over the Giants, Jets, or Knicks, but if the home teams are out of the running, I tend to latch on to the nearest winner. Bad quality.)
Anyway, things have changed a bit this offseason. I've gotten really into both the Giants and the Knicks, and to a lesser extent, the Jets.
We had an all star crew out at Side Bar for the games yesterday, but we didn't exactly get all star results. The Giants' loss to the Phillies Eagles was like a one-game version of the Mets' collapse in 2007, albeit without the finality. Losing yesterday was so improbable that even now it still seems impossible that it actually happened.
But sure enough it did, and when it was over I found myself overcome by that familiar feeling of sick-to-your-stomach disappointment. It's the kind of feeling only the Mets have ever really inspired, and not just because they wrote the book on clutching defeat from the jaws of victory. It's more a function of never caring enough about any of the other teams.
And now all of a sudden I do, and all I have to show for it is the kind of loss that punches you right in the gut.
Quick one for you all tonight. I just read on Metsblog that the Yankees believe Cliff Lee will agree to terms with the Phillies, giving them basically the best rotation of all time.
Ordinarily that would be kind of a tongue in cheek type of statement, but in this case it's not. Halladay-Lee-Oswalt-Hamels. Pretty darn impressive.
We all knew that the Mets were not going to contend for the NL East title in 2011, but some of us, myself included, held out legitimate hope of making a run at it as early as 2012, with 2013 being somewhat more realistic.
If Lee signs with the Phillies he dramatically shifts that calculus. Barring injury (which, I grant, is a pretty major caveat here) or some miraculous series of moves, the Mets no longer have a credible path to the NL East title for about the next 5 years. What does that mean for how we orient ourselves today?
Well, it can mean different things depending on how you view it. Think back to the 1999-2000 seasons; the Mets had to settle for the Wild Card both years, but they advanced to the NLCS in the former and to the World Series in the latter. There's no shame in that.
At the same time, the rest of the division projects to be much more competitive in the next five years (a somewhat arbitrary number I keep referring to... just go with it) than it was at the end of the last decade, with the Braves and Nationals ascendant, and the Marlins a constant bother.
Is the Wild Card a reasonable hope? Well, we'll have a much better idea as next offseason comes into focus. If you can sign an Albert Pujols, that's a game changer.
If there are no difference makers to be had, however, I think the Phillies' projected move has to impact how the team views guys like Jose Reyes and David Wright. It pains me tremendously to say it, but if those guys aren't going to be part of a championship team in the next five years, their optimal value to this franchise is going to come from us trading them elsewhere.
If you can trade away a superstar, centerpiece type player to net a few guys you can build the next era around, there's no shame in that either.
I'm not saying you blow this team up right away; I mean, this Lee-to-the-Phillies thing is just a rumor as I write this. But if this rumor becomes reality, the Mets will need to respond to that new reality. Does it necessarily mean you have to trade Wright or Reyes? No, but that option has to be considered in an altogether new light.
This offseason was supposed to be the easy part for Sandy Alderson and co. Turns out that a roster move made away from our club may provide the defining moment of his tenure.
For the first time in maybe 4 years, last night I watched a Knicks game basically start to finish. And I loved it.
It turned out to be a great game. The Knicks were down double digits early before they stormed back to take a narrow lead at the half.
The game went into the fourth quarter tied when Amar'e Stoudemire the King took over, popping off for something like 18 points and leading the Knicks to a 113-110 win over the Raptors. As great as Amar'e was in the fourth quarter, the victory came courtesy of an improbable 3-pointer from Raymond Felton that danced on the rim for 3-5 seconds before it finally went down.
The Garden crowd was on its feet for the Knicks' final possession, and it erupted when Felton's shot went through the knitting.
It was a really incredible sight. For now at least, basketball is back in New York City. I don't know enough about the game or the league to say whether the Knicks are for real, but they've certainly proven that they can beat bad teams, even on the road.
Think about all the games the Mets have lost to the Nationals or Marlins or whoever else in recent years -- after some early difficulties, to this point in the season, the Knicks haven't been doing that.
For far too long the Knicks weren't just bad, they were organizationally despicable. They've parted ways with a lot of those players (perhaps all of them?), Isiah, mercifully, is gone, and in Stoudemire they have a very good, very likable centerpiece.
So start spreadin' the news: the Knicks are back. Will they win a championship this season? No. But if nothing else, they should offer some hope to Mets fans watching their new management group take the fiscal discipline approach in the short-term. If we can net our equivalent of Amar'e Stoudemire, it will all be worth it in the end.
Anatomy of a Terrible Commercial: FinallyFast.com (AKA, the Greatest Post Never Written)
(Dear readers: What follows is a post that I began writing on March 17, 2010. For one reason or another I never got around to completing it. What's unfortunate about the delay is that FinallyFast has debuted newer commercials, so this is kind of a time capsule. The new commercials are equally terrible, although I haven't noticed any of the subliminal messaging that I describe below. Anyway, enjoy.)
I wrote recently about Citi Jimi, a guy who's got nothing to do with baseball but is nevertheless a part of the Mets fan experience.
Today I write about another inescapable part of the Mets experience that has nothing to do with baseball: the commercials for FinallyFast.com.
If you've watched SNY in the past year or two, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The ridiculously low budget ad campaign with the campy actors complaining about their internet speed before FinallyFast.com saves the day? That's the one I'm talking about.
We all know the message, but do you know the minutia? I took a moment yesterday to study the inner workings of this commercial. Some of my findings may surprise you. Let's go screen by screen.
Screen 1: The Opener
Not a lot to say about this one, but note the coif. Combed down. Parted down the middle. BOR-ING! He WOULD have a slow computer.
Screen 2: "My Stories"
Let's call this character Lara. She's just like you and me, only her phone is REALLY antiquated. More importantly, her computer's acting up...
... which is a problem when you're using works such as "Little Red Riding Hood," "Alice in Wonderland," and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," as the launchpad for bizarre creative writing assignments, as Lara seems to be doing. Some sample prose:
There was her next adventure, right in front of her eyes. At the end of the path were 2 men wearing masks that covered their nose and mouth. They stood at a tail gate. Alice approached the men. "Hello," said Alice. "Sorry, kid," said the taller man, "you can't leave Wonderland. This area is quarantined with Sars."
Or how about this gem from her take on Hunchback?
Although a loner, one day [Quasimodo] decided to come down and visit the town of Notre Dame. Unfortunately, once again, because of his not-so-charming appearance, people screamed in fright. A shot was fired and hit Quasimodo square in the chest. When he regained consciousness, he was in a hospital. "Doctor," Quasimodo started, "did the bullet do any damage?" "The gunshot appears to have only caused a minor flesh wound. It's that huge hump on your back that worries me. Sir, it's malignant..."
Scene 3: AIM 4EVR!!!
Easily the most fascinating screen in the bunch, this one rewards the curious observer. The first thing you need to know is that whoever is responsible for this commercial REALLY digs Barack Obama, REALLY dislikes Republicans, and (why not?) digs "The Thong Song."
To wit, the three conversations the user's engaged in read as follows:
Obamanator08: haha I beat you Hilldawg420: ya ya, rub it in why don'tcha (Unfortunately the rest of the text of this conversation is cut off by the error message, which is really a shame. I'm pretty sure Obamanator's next question is "so how's Bill?" to which Hildawg responds "dunno, hav..."; next IM: "said he wa..."; next IM: Obamanator: "...right..."; next IM: Hildawg: "you don't th..."; next IM: Obamanator: "probly". Knowing the characters involved, you can imagine that conversation going in any number of directions. Something about Monica Lewinsky? Definite possibility.)
Instant message convo No. 2! A shorter one, this time with a friend whose screen name is a bit imperceptible. Something "Builder", like "BuddhaBuilder" or "BubbaBuilder," something like that.
BuddhaBuilder: Can we fix it? Obamanator08: Yes we can! (To the uninitiated, "Yes we can!" was Barack Obama's campaign slogan in 2008. It tapped into a feeling that with new, non-George Bush leadership, the country would surely overcome financial disaster, two wars, and generalized decline. It made sense at the time.)
The third conversation is my favorite. You can't see the screen name of the person the user's chatting with, but the text is there in all its glory, and I assure you it's profound.
Obamantor08: I, personally, love the Thong Song
[Unknown screen name]: Sisqo's the best
He sure is.
The conversations are interesting, but the really fascinating part of this scene is the user's buddy list. The list is broken out into three categories: "Friends", "Aholes" and "Pals". Friends and Aholes are the most interesting.
Friends:
Hildawg420
BidenVP08
GoreBot
MileyCyrusFan
PimpB4XPrez
CondeeCane (A bit unexpected to see Condi on the list, but I'll go with it.)
The best though is the list of Aholes:
PrezDubya
McCainandAbel
PalinAlaskaHo
That's right... PalinAlaskaHo. Right there plain as day in a commercial that gets broadcast all the time. Consider the options. They could have had those screen names and conversations say anything, the most inane chatter about the weather or whatever.
Instead they go with "PalinAlaskaHo". To use a Palinism, it takes cajones.
Scene 4: Bringing it all home
I'm back! With a faster computer and better hair cut!
Again, consider the options when putting this commercial together. You're the director and you decide to have one of your handful of principal characters show up twice in 45 seconds, only with completely different hairdos each time. Nothing wrong with it, it's just an interesting choice.
Scene 5: Another happy customer
Yes sir.
* * * * *
It really is a fascinating commercial. Like an onion, there's just layer after layer, and the more you peel it, the more it stinks.
Mets Extra is an independent sports website that is not affiliated with any other news outlet. Mets Extra (including its predecessor, Yankees 2000: Promote the Curse) is not affiliated in any way with the New York Mets, the New York Yankees, WFAN Sports Radio 66 ("The FAN"), Major League Baseball, the National League, the American League, or any other professional sports franchise or entity.
Mets Extra is an independent sports website that is not affiliated with any other news outlet. Mets Extra (including its predecessor, Yankees 2000: Promote the Curse) is not affiliated in any way with the New York Mets, the New York Yankees, WFAN Sports Radio 66 ("The FAN"), Major League Baseball, the National League, the American League, or any other professional sports franchise or entity.
