Woe Unto the Uniquely Beleaguered Mets Fan

Sherm makes a great point in re: the New York provincialism I mentioned yesterday:

With two world championships and five world series appearances, the Mets just might be the most successful expansion franchise. Not sure why the media and many Mets fans refuse to acknowledge this reality.

There’s really no “might be” about it. Only 3 other expansion franchises — the Blue Jays, the Marlins, and now the Royals — have two World Series titles, and the three franchises have one additional World Series appearance between them. Note as well that before they hired Bobby Cox the Blue Jays were as almost as much of a train wreck as the Stengel Mets and they have suffered their share of horrible regular season and postseason collapses, the Marlins had their two championship teams stripped to the studs virtually overnight by two different awful owners, and the Royals were in meaningful contention once between 1995 and 2012. And then there’s the Rangers, who have more epic postseason losses with no titles to show for it, the Mariners and Expos/Nationals who have never been to a World Series, the been-but-not-won Padres and Brewers and Astros and Rockies and Rays…you get the idea. Mets fans have seen considerably more than their share of success, not less. And yes, you’re right, Game 7 in 2006 was hard to watch and the defensive and managerial meltdowns in World Series last year were painful and 200 and 2008 were awful. But there are, surprising as it may seem, fans of non-New York teams and pretty much all of them have similar stories unless their team never made it to those spots in the first place.

But, of course, being a Knicks fan is as hopeless and important as the Middle Eastern peace process…