Flashback Friday

This is a reprint of a 2014 Flashback post.  I was shocked to see the Cubs having lost two in a row at home this week to end their season.  This refers to a time in G-Burg when the Met's were in a good streak and lost unexpectedly.  The tombstone commemorating the event was placed in my front lawn by Judge Harry Bulkeley, a die-hard Cub fan.  1999.  To Cubs fans, sorry.  The hurt will last awhile, no way to make it go away except the passage of time.     

It is September and as good a time as any, I guess, to write the obituary for the 2014 New York Met's season.  For the past 8 years we have been a Triple A team in Major League uni's.  Any semblance to a MLB competitive team is purely coincidental, or more to the point, impossible.  Another meaningless season and another losing one at that. 

The owners were taken in by Bernie Madoff and we Met followers have been taken in by the owners.  If this sounds like gibberish, go read up on Madoff, the Wilpons and the ever decreasing loyalty of the Met's fans.  And now with yesterday's announcement of a lawsuit directed to the Wilpons for labor improprieties toward a pregnant  unmarried staff member, once again we discuss other issuers about the club other than baseball   

We aren't like Cubs fans - we don't blindly follow for centuries waiting for a winner.  We leave Citi Field empty.  Attendance has decreased each year since 2006, the last time we almost made the playoffs.  There are other attractions and entertainment in the Big Apple. 

But I remain a Met fan.  It is tough and I must say, fantasy baseball gives me an outlet to enjoy baseball if not my team.  One of my baseball fantasies is hitching up with another team.  I may end up like my neighbor, Luther,  who said right after the strike in '94 that he wasn't following the baseball or the Cardinals anymore.  But, oddly, he always seemed to know the score and highlights after each game.    

Back in my days on Chambers Street in G-Burg, I lived a couple houses down from a big Cubs fan, Judge Harry Bulkeley.  Each Spring I would send over to him poems explaining how the Mets would rule, and the Cubs wouldn't for the new season.  I have some of them around here someplace but. alas, too many moves, too many boxes.    

Harry would reciprocate; sometimes with a laugh or guffaw in the courthouse hallway, sometimes a conversation in the local watering hole on friday's, sometimes with a bit more creativity.  

I awoke one day in September, 1999, and did my usual check around to see if everything in the neighborhood was where it was supposed to be.  When I looked out the front door I saw a grave of leaves and a headstone in my yard.  Harry had pulled out all the stops on this one.  

RIP

NY Mets

1999

 And on either side he wrote:  

"Too Bad" & "No More Miracles"

We didn't make it in 1999, but we were in the Series the next year and competitive for a few  years after that.  The Cubs?  Well, that's another story.