What Happens When the Losers You Love Look Ready to Win?

By Fred Bruning

April 6, 2025

The 20^th Century British philosopher and musician Mick Jagger once observed, “You can’t always get what you wa-ant,” echoing what is perhaps the most familiar of parental reproofs and, to the child demanding bags of both M&M minis and Nerds Gummy Clusters, a profoundly dispiriting statement on future prospects.

“Why not?!”

“Because.”

But suppose, unexpectedly, and after long last, you, in fact, get what you wa-ant?

This brings us to the New York Mets and an op-ed by Devin Gordon in the Times that ran below the unsettling headline, “What Am I if the Mets are Good?”

Gordon fears an “existential” crisis.

“I’m not sure how to be a Mets fan if the Mets are no longer the Mets.”

Let’s define terms.

Here’s a notation on “existential crisis” from the internet:

“…a period of deep reflection and questioning about the fundamental nature of one's life, purpose, and existence, often involving grappling with concepts like meaning, identity, freedom, and mortality,” says the worldwide web and I would have to agree that for certain Mets loyalists that pretty much sums things up.

I include myself among the lost of Mets Nation struggling for a sense of self (and was accordingly engaged along these lines even before the Times piece, though who would believe that? Not, probably, Devin Gordon).

Yes, deep reflection is advised because the Mets’ hilarious history of failures, fizzles and Ripley-level astonishments – once a batter stroked a game-ending grand slam that counted only as a single because the batter was mobbed by jubilant teammates before crossing home plate! – could be wiped away by the extravagant impulses of owner Steve Cohen.

Most newsworthy, the billionaire hedge fund executive – known to adoring fans as “Uncle Steve” – has hired the exquisite slugger, Juan Soto, a “franchise” player who, alone, could keep the team competitive into the next decade.

Soto is on the books for $765 million over 15 years. The accomplished, nice-guy shortstop, Francisco Lindor, enjoys an annual pay rate of something like $34 million. At first base, Pete Alonso, the estimable “Polar Bear,” re-signed for only $30 mil, still decent pay for eight months’ work.

Overall, Cohen is parting with an estimated $322 million to steer the Mets toward World Series glory, second only to the Hollywood Dodgers who will spend $355 million, or some crazy number like that, maybe even more.

This thrills many Citi Field fans – awright, Uncle Steve – while leaving others to deal with culture shock and collateral damage.

In late 1963, my wife, Wink, and I, newly married, visited Colorado Springs where I searched newspaper jobs (East Coast kids head West!) after journalism school.

Downtown, just off Pikes Peak Avenue, was the Antlers Hotel, a huge and stately old place (renovated now, I see) at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, quite a sight.

Wink and I noticed outside a sizable message board that might have announced a cattle industry convention or wedding reception of some wealthy rancher’s daughter. Instead, it said: “Let’s Go Mets.”

“Very funny,” I said to Wink. “Wiseguys.”

Almost surely, this was not a tribute to a struggling team nearly 2,000 miles away on the urban East Coast – a team that went 40-120 in its inaugural season the year before and, in the l963 campaign just completed, an ostentatiously awful, 51-111.

It was a team of such heroic ineptitude that the first manager, Casey Stengel, was moved to ask, “Can’t anybody here play this game?” and the superb columnist, Jimmy Breslin, to write a book employing Stengel’s exasperated inquiry as title.

“Big joke,” I groaned, passing the Antlers entrance. “Tell it to a moose.”

The Mets improved but fans still were treated to years of unmatched weirdness and recurring catastrophes. Improbably, the team won a Series in 1969 and, pacing themselves, again in 1986. Since, they’ve been classic underachievers – the guys we hope will win but love when they lose.

Now there is Uncle Steve and Juan Soto. There is competency. There is professionalism. There is aptitude and dexterity. There is a nearly Major League-leading payroll.

Where once there was only hope, fulfillment threatens.

In life or on the diamond, which is better?

Don’t rush an answer. Way too existential.

If success be our fate, Mets fans, we’ll just have to cope.

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