Remember When.... Our Mets Owned This Town.

     Try talking to a young Yankee fan about this.  I'm talking about a Yankee fan younger than 30.

     Today's young Yankee fans, who's parents let them stay up late in October 1996 to let them watch Wade Boggs ride a NYC police mounty around Yankee Stadium.  Who let them watch former Mets manager "clueless" Joe Torre finally not only GET to his first World Series as either player or manager, but to win his first of 4.   

     Before this once mighty empire rose again from mediocrity, the other team that played in New York City ruled this town both on, and off the field.  Those players in orange and blue racing stripes were the best ticket in town. It seemed everyone became a Met fan.  A team that went from drawing less than 800,000 in 1979, to over 3 mil in the 80s.  They were the FIRST baseball team in New York to do this.  Forget the Dodgers, Giants, and even the Yankee dynasty.  The Amazin' Mets did it first.      

     Growing up, it was an event to watch Dr K. pitch as a Met in the mid 80s.  We talked about it in school before the game.   The street, which would be normally full of kids riding bikes and playing wiffle ball would be in their houses watching the Mets on Channel 9.   A Strawberry at bat was an event.  You stopped what you were doing to watch it.   Gary & Kieth were the super all stars that you hated on their former teams, but then loved them when they got to play for ours.   Then they finally won that first championship since 1969.  And they did it the Met way.  AMAZING.   They had players with personality and grit on and off the field.  Players who had dirty uniforms after every game.  

     While this was going on, the team in the Bronx fell to the second row.  It's hard for some of these young Jeter fans to believe that Yankee Stadium was mostly half empty during that decade.  A lot of Mattingly & Winfield home runs disapeared into a sea of empty blue seats, where you would see 4 or 5 crazed fans fighting to get the ball. George Steinbrenner would make panic move after panic move with players and managers to try to regain the control that HE had in the late 70s when his team was champs, and Shea was Seaver-less and empty.   Old pitcher after old pitcher would go to the Yankee mound and get pounded.  Meanwhile across town, every night seemed like an ACDC concert.  Shea literally rocked every home game to the opening of Queen's "We Will Rock You"., which Met fans adopted as a "Lets Go Mets" chant.  During a Monday Night Football game at Giants Stadium on the night we won the World Series, Phil Simms had to rise out of the huddle to see why the place expoloded with cheers.  It was because there were 76,000 Mets fans in the building. That was the type of emotional hold the Mets had back then.   When you tell this stuff to a young Yankee fan in his Jeter jersey, he looks at you like you have 2 heads. 

     Now it is all reversed.  And it seems hard for myself a Met fan to think back and remember how the Mets ruled this town.  To remember how it felt when the field boxes would go up and down after a Strawberry Bomb, or a Gooden K.   The only way to make this a National league town again is to dominate.  Not only win, but dominate. like we did in 1986.