Mets Fans Have Waited A Life Time For Days Like These
Indulging in my fandom to reflect on what has truly been a magical week to root for the New York Mets…
I’ll ask for your forgiveness now because this post is going to be very, very, very self indulgent.
Oh, and I’m going to gloat a lot too. A hell of a lot.
It has been a few days since we got news that Juan Soto opted to take his considerable talents to Queens, signing a historic, record-breaking deal with the Mets. And, despite the lapsed time, it still doesn’t feel real.
I don’t think it has truly sunk in that Juan Soto is a New York Met.
I can’t begin to tell you how giddy I am right now to be a Mets fan. And, let me tell you, it isn’t often I’ve been able to say that over the last decade or so.
Although my Mets fandom is still fairly new compared to most fans, I bleed orange and blue and my love and passion for this team runs incredibly deep. I, like all of you, have been dreaming of days like these for what has seemed like eons.
I remember when the Mets first caught my eye. It was 2013, and as a Brit who had become obsessed with the NFL a couple of years prior, I was developing a taste for all things American sports and wanted to get into baseball. I’m not sure what it was, but I was just drawn to the Amazins’. Those beautiful uniforms certainly played a role and, despite not being a born and raised New Yorker, I soon found that I was rooting for the Mets as passionately as if I were born a block away from Shea Stadium.
I quickly developed a daily habit of consuming as many Mets highlights as I could, falling in love with how hard David Wright played the game and Matt Harvey’s majestic excellence on the mound.
The love affair was instant, and it was sealed when I went to my first live Mets game at Citi Field in the summer of 2017. With my brother with me, we watched as the Mets lost 12-7 to the Pirates on a hot Friday night. Despite the garbage baseball on show, I knew right there and then that the Mets would have my heart forever. Even witnessing the Mets get blown out 11-1 in the series finale a couple of days later couldn’t dispel my passion.
Of course, even with baseball becoming an increasingly bigger part of my life, I knew at this point that the Mets were not a good baseball team. There were moments, of course. Like the magical run to the World Series in 2015. But, for the most part, the Mets excelled at being a dysfunctional dumpster fire more than they did at actually winning baseball games.
And god forbid the organization show any kind of ambition under the tight-fisted rule of the Wilpons, who seemed more than happy to linger in the shadow of the Yankees. Forget annoying little brother. The Mets were more like the forgotten cousin in the eyes of their cross town rivals, who continued being the Evil Empire without so much as giving their poor, irrelevant relative a second thought.
My brother often joked that I made a mistake booking our New York trip for when the Yankees were on the road, because I may have fallen into rooting for a better baseball team had we gone when they were playing at home, given my policy of adopting the first NY team I watched live in each sport. And, having been subjected to an endless stream of mediocre (at best) to (at its absolute worst) garbage baseball over the years, I have often thought he may have been right and wondered what if.
But no more.
Because today marks the start of a wonderful, beautiful new era for the New York Mets. We are no longer the poor sisters of the incredibly rich. We are no longer the forgotten cousin or the annoying little brother.
No, as of right now, the Mets are a formidable force in the baseball world and they are ready to take the next giant leap to join the rest of the game’s elite at the top table. This is an organization that has morphed overnight from one that was an absolute house of horrors and would never swim in the marquee free agent waters, to a franchise that is now demanding respect from within the game and one that is leading the way on many fronts.
Furthermore, when I first fell in love with the Mets, it was simply unfathomable to think that this organization would one day be in a position to ever outbid the Yankees for a true box office superstar. It was only in the stuff of dreams and other mythical fables that a generational hitter, one of the best the game has ever seen, would choose the dysfunctional Mets over the storied Yankees.
Yet here we are. Soto, who would waltz into the Hall of Fame on roller skates (can you even waltz on roller skates? Who knows) were he to call it a career today, spurned the Yankees after spending a year in the Bronx and helping to lead the Pinstripes back to the World Series after a lengthy absence. All to sign with the Mets, who are intent on building their own version of the Evil Empire under owner Steve Cohen.
For Soto, who, again, built up relationships in the Bronx and had the best year of his career on a Yankees team that competed for a ring, to say no to the evil empire and the lure of the Pinstripes in order to become THE guy on the Mets really tells you everything you need to know about the direction in which this team is heading. Under the guidance of Cohen, president of baseball operations David Stearns and manager Carlos Mendoza, the Mets are really building something special. Landing a true unicorn hitter, who owns a career slash line of .285/.421/.532/.953 with 201 career home runs, 769 walks and 592 RBIs, not to mention 41 homers and 109 RBIs in 2024, is the shining example of that.
In signing a 15-year, $765 million deal, which could rise to $800 million with escalators, Soto has not only made baseball history and changed the game with his landscape-altering contract, but he’s changed the world order with the Mets now a relevant and legitimate World Series contender.
Again, never in my wildest imagination did I see a day like this coming.
And to hear Soto talk so passionately about the track the Mets are on and what they want to achieve together, including building a dynasty, really did send chills down my spine.
Mets fans have waited eons for a superstar to talk about their team in that kind of way. It still doesn’t seem real, but it sure as hell feels good.
And this should be just the beginning. Thanks to Cohen’s abundance of wealth, coupled with a forward-thinking front office that is ahead of the curve, the franchise will now become a premier destination for other big time free agents looking to go ring chasing with Soto and Francisco Lindor.
Nothing appears off limits for these Mets now.
After years and years of hanging our heads in shame and ducking in embarrassment over rooting for a team that couldn’t get out of its own way, Mets fans can now pound their chest and be proud of the franchise they love with every fibre of their being.
We’ve waited a long time for days like these, a day where a generational superstar like Juan Soto chooses the Mets over everybody else. A day where the rest of the baseball world watch on in envy as a phenom hitter makes Citi Field his forever home.
And we’ve waited a damn long time to even be spoken about in the same conversation as the Yankees.
Today belongs to the Mets and to Mets fans everywhere. And we’re going to enjoy every last second of it.