If you’re a sports fan, maybe you can relate: All my life, I’ve had a team. All my life, I’ve followed the New York Mets. I read Mets blogs, follow Mets social media. I obsessively follow Mets games. My team gives my life drama without consequences — a swelling sense of well-being when they are good, the glorious highs of a comeback win, the occasional moments of crushing despair and, because they are the Mets, long decades of languishing mediocrity.
This season was the most fun I’ve ever had as a sports fan. For the first two months of the season, the team was thoroughly bad and demoralized. The next five months, though, were a string of walk-off home runs, miraculous comebacks, clutch pitching and joyous celebrations. When somebody does something tremendous in my workplace, we don’t dog-pile on one another like children and pour sports drinks on people’s heads. Thanks to the Mets, over the past few months, I got to vicariously experience dozens of those celebrations.
Two things are great about being a sports fan. First, the miraculous win. We humans love a story of triumph over the odds. I’ve forgotten whole years of my life, but I can still tell you all about the astounding Mets comeback win in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Years hence, I will be able to tell you about this year’s Francisco Lindor home run that launched the Mets over the Atlanta Braves or the Pete Alonso home run that took them past the Milwaukee Brewers.
But there is something even better in sports than the comeback. It’s anticipation. It’s hope. It’s the sensation that some great talent has appeared on the scene who will bring you joy for years to come. It’s the rookie who gets off to a sensational start and carries with him bursts of possibility. It’s the free-agent signing that will bring future stardom to your roster. Dreaming about triumphs to come is sometimes more fun than the triumphs themselves.
The Mets have always had some good players. This time, they have a good organization.
The owner, the front office, the scouts, the manager — they seem to know what they are doing. Maybe my hopes will be dashed again, Mets style, but it sure is fun to be hoping.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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