MLB: Do the New York Mets Need to Have an Intervention?

I'll confess, I haven't given much thought to the New York Mets this year. 

Ever since Jose Reyes decided to head to South Beach, it seemed pointless. It's not that I've actively gone out of my way to avoid the team, it's just hard to rationalize putting much time and effort into the matter. Occasionally, I would read a post on Zack Wheeler or glance at the latest headlines on the Wilpon/Madoff case, but beyond that...nothing.  

Yet, it's funny how a random picture on a celebrity gossip website can get you thinking about something you deep down want to forget. No, I'm not talking about Faith Hill sans makeup, instead I'm talking about Tim McGraw sporting a Mets hat before heading to Sydney on a flight from LAX. 

Of course, this shouldn't come as a shock, given Tim's father was none other than legendary Met reliever Tug McGraw.  At the same time, at least for me, it was jarring to see a celebrity wearing a Mets hat in public these days.

It's been a long and painful fall for the Mets, as I now look back at the lost season of 2006 with mixed emotions. The team didn't win, but they at least came close. It was disappointing to see a team that seemed capable of winning the World Series lose to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS; still there was the promise of something better and hope things would work out in the long run.

Unfortunately, it simply wasn't meant to be.    

With all that's happened since, it's hard to keep faith in much of anything or any one linked to the Mets from top to bottom within the organization.

I won't go as far as saying I'm done as that would be foolish and fair-weathered all at the same time. Fact is, I just can't quit on the Mets—they're like a bad habit in that sense—but the disappointment and doubt I feel now is different from times in the past. 

This isn't the same as watching a mediocre ballclub tread water across several seasons; and it isn't that someone needs to be traded or fired in order to turn things around or shake things up.  

It's more the feeling that the organization has lost its compass. And let's face it—it was never that great to begin with.

Yet, oddly enough, what's going on here is closer to how things were around the time Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday bought the ballclub in 1980 from the Payson family. Following the team's near miss in 1973 during the "Ya Gotta Believe" season (oddly enough coined by Tug McGraw), the team began a downward spiral as key players were shipped off one by one as ownership was left in the hands of Joan Payson's daughters following her death in 1975.  

The tipping point for many came with the trade of Tom Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds in 1977 in what became known as "The Midnight Massacre."  

Long story short, the Mets and their fans were miserable for the better part of the 1970s, in large part from mismanagement and neglect from top to bottom.

Sound familiar?

What's really sad in all of this, is the fact that the Wilpons are truly unable to see any of this.

If only we could stick both Fred and Jeff Wilpon in a room and genuinely try to have an intervention as an attempt to save the franchise.

Instead, the fate of the team will in all likelihood be left in the hands of a jury that will need to determine whether Wilpon was fiendish or foolish in his dealings with Bernie Madoff.

Until then, the Mets will continue to play games with a team that only the most diehard of diehard fans could stand to watch. Manager Terry Collins and General Manager Sandy Alderson will do what they can with what's given, but it's largely going to be a train wreck this season and potentially for the next several as the team continues their downward spiral.

It's hard watching some one or some thing you love lose its way. You want to help, but more often you can't. As time passes your initial feelings of guilt and helplessness morph into indifference as you resign yourself to the truth that some things are beyond our control.

Until yesterday, the New York Mets sat on the cusp on indifference for me, but there was Tim McGraw sporting that familiar hat staring back at me with his father's eyes.  

It was at that moment in some strange way I almost began to understand the Wilpons madness. How can you let go of something you've spent so much time and effort building, only to give it up without a fight?  

I suppose it's a question all of us as Mets fans will be asking ourselves for the foreseeable future...