New York Mets dropped yet another one-run game

I’d like to make this simple and noteworthy.

I’ve been a sports writer for seven decades. I covered the pros, the colleges, the high schools, and whatever else was being played in the areas I covered, but I never, ever went on the air to knock a team, especially one I was covering. As a writer, I saved these comments for my stories.

That was something I felt I was entitled to do, but if I went on the air, as on radio and television, I kept comments to myself. One reason was that I could never do any better then teams or individuals. It was like in the “Bad News Bears,” when the crowd in the Houston Astrodrome yelled in unison, “Let them play.”

Now the New York Mets are a franchise I grew up with. I first covered them when they were born in 1962 and played at the old Polo Grounds. Now I’m relegated to just being a fan, and like always, I’m sweating this season, one in which the best pitcher in baseball, Jacob deGrom, has been sidelined since May. In my opinion, sidelined mysteriously.

And so after Wednesday night‘s 2-1 10-inning loss to the Marlins in Miami, and after then seeing that the team ahead of us, the Atlanta Braves, lost to the Washington Nationals, and in Milwaukee, the Brewers turned back the Philadelphia Phil lies, the other team ahead of us.

So after the Mets’ tough setback, the two commentators on the SNY channel really took a shot at them, the fact that this latest loss might have been the one to conclude their season, that they are only a .500 team, that if they can’t beat a team like the Marlins, and can’t win these close games, they are not a playoff team, and now being five games behind in the loss column, it’s time to count them out.

Says who? These two.

For these were the words that these commentators pieced together. They were said with shaking heads, nasty opinions, and I don’t think the franchise deserved this. The names of the two aren’t required, but listening to them was actually a downright joke.

Oh, and they took several shots at Mets’ manager Luis Rojas, but I do it all the time, but to myself, not on the radio or on TV, but I did want to take the time to address this.

First of all, the Washington team that defeated the Braves again last night is tied with the Marlins, both in won-lost records and last place in the National League division. It happens all the times. Even though hapless teams aren’t going to the playoffs, they do take the field and play the game.

And after Miami won the game, its players sped from the dugout and the bull pen and happily jumped all over each other. In the Mets’ final regular-season home stand versus the Marlins, Don Mattingly’s team will not bring gift wins to the New York team, it will come to play.

One more thing, Atlanta has lost seven of a dozen games against Miami, Philadelphia has split 10 games, but only the Mets get to hear from their commentators that they are bad news, as in Bad News Bears, but you know what, with 22 games left, they are trying their best to stay in the hunt, they have lost 43 one-run games, but are only four games behind the Braves and two behind the Phils. In the wild card, they are only 4.5 behind.

There, I said in my commentary what I had to say. It’s certainly not as offensive as hearing it on the air. And perhaps these two commentators would like to switch to another channel, LOL.