Again, the Mets Teach an Enduring Lesson in Humility. (Seek Salvation, Yankee Fans.)

By Fred Bruning

May 31, 2026

The Mets are having a dreadful season but this is not an attempt at apology or outrage, nor a reminder that the team has the second highest payroll in the Major Leagues (the L.A. “Dodgers” spend more but that’s Hollywood for you), or that the Queens squad daily competes with single-mindedness for last place, National League East, or that tickets in the upper deck at Citi Field can top $100 (field level seats for Powerball winners, only) or that the neighbor up the street draws a finger across his throat to signify the latest loss when he sees me on a morning walk, or that it is not yet June and things could get a lot worse.

No. None of that.

Just one other thing, for the record.

Still mourning the 1957 departure of the real Dodgers, those from Brooklyn, I swung, five years later, to the newly formed Mets – a hilarious, castoff crew that prompted manager Casey Stengel, to cry out, “can’t anybody here play this game?” – but do not use the first-person plural when discussing the club, do not say, “we only have to be hang in, things are going to break our way, just watch,” because billionaire owner Steve Cohen has not offered me a front office position, I am not part of the corporate structure, nor an overpaid slugger or starting pitcher (could I do worse?), just a shnook who will end up a few times this year in the back row, Section 513, seat 7, and pay his last dollars – highway robbery! – for a slice of alleged pizza, so, no, I claim no responsibility for these heartbreaking Mets, forget “we” and “our,” who’s kidding who?

Through most of their history the Mets have performed in a fashion that teaches the virtues of humility – they have won only two World Series in 63 seasons (this one isn’t over yet, though sure seems like that), the last in 1986, Ronald Reagan was president, a new Chevy went for under $10,000, a slice of pizza maybe 75 cents – and should be commended for saving us from terminal pomposity, the dreaded Yankee affliction, incurable.

For that, I am grateful.

Humility, we could always use.

(It makes no sense, but when I see a Yankees cap, I think, immediately, “stockbroker, fat Christmas bonus, Cuban cigars, Park City ski lodge, Ferragamo loafers, sans socks, two parking spots so his Porsche shouldn’t get scratched, box seats behind the dugout, expectations of October.” Just the sort of stereotyping that gets us into trouble, unfair to thousands of blue-collar Bronxites who love their Bombers, I know, but I can’t stop, and too late for therapy.)

“The person who is greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever honors himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be honored.”

There you have Jesus on the subject – put it in lights above the Yankee Stadium scoreboard – and, speaking of religion, didn’t Pope Leo do well last week with his first encyclical, 42,300 words on the perils of Artificial Intelligence, which, was a warning that we, uppity Earthlings, are pushing our luck?

Leo, who dealt impressively a few weeks ago with an odd, extemporaneous assault by our wartime president, now turns to the more daunting task of both celebrating technology and warning against its excesses, saying specifically, that no collection of computer chips and intricate circuitry will match good, old-fashioned humanity when it comes to “love, work, friendship or responsibility.”

The other night, I had a rousing debate at a local joint with my older daughter about politics – specifically what are we to think about people who vote differently than we do? What’s the trick to co-existence?

On and on we went, but while AI might have stepped in (Later, I made an AI inquiry. Answer: “The trick to coexisting with someone who votes differently is to shift your goal from changing their mind to prioritizing the relationship.”) nothing would come close to the fondness we have for one another, daughter and dad, evident as the conversation vigorously continued, even as our opinions likely arrived at the next table.

Leo worries that we’ll lose moments like that.

“…humanity – in all its grandeur and woundedness – must never be replaced or surpassed,” says Leo.

Grandeur, woundedness, oh, for sure, woundedness. Say, how about them Mets?

Previous Invisible Ink posts at: https://fredbruning.substack.com/archive