Metropolitan (soap) opera

 

“I also loved the Mets. They weren’t the Yankees.”

 

When I was a kid, I fell for the stumbling, bumbling Mets because they were the quintessential underdogs — playing in uniforms that looked like pajamas in a stadium that was a dump to everyone except Mets fans. The club was so bereft of talent (Bruce Boisclair? Pepe freakin’ Mangual?) that each win was a gift from the heavens.

I also loved the Mets because they weren’t the Yankees — no George Steinbrenner fighting fans in an elevator; no Billy Martin scrapping with Ed Whitson, Reggie Jackson and even a Minneapolis marshmallow salesman; no Steinbrenner changing managers like players change socks. The Mets had no hoary tradition to shove down fans’ throats, no bloated payroll.

No, the Mets went quietly about their business of losing 95-odd games a year.

Hard as it is for Met fans to admit, the Mets have become the Bronx Zoo-era Yankees Lite.

The Mets have promptly gone from disappointing to embarrassing. While the team’s spate of injuries has quashed lofty hopes of a championship, the Metsies did not truly humiliate the franchise until their front office guys became bigger newsmakers than the players themselves.

Last week, while announcing VP Tony Bernazard’s dismissal for, among other things, allegedly challenging Mets minor leaguers to a fight, GM Omar Minaya suggested the reporter who broke the Bernazard story sought to push Bernazard out to get his job. Classy.

The Yankees still have the preposterous payroll and self-important legacy, but the combustible Reggies and Steinbrenners of yore have been mostly replaced by earnest worker bees and an even-tempered manager with a degree in engineering.

The Mets, on the other hand, are the overpaid underachievers whose front office is grabbing the back page of the tabloids for all the wrong reasons.  

It may be too late for the Mets to make a run at the postseason, but there’s still time to get back to being the scrappy team I thrust my lifelong allegiance behind decades ago. Let’s put that perma-grin back on Mr. Met’s mug.