A break in the action.

As we all wait with baited breath for the next big thing to come out of Washington, I thought it might be nice to mix it up a bit and offer a little baseball-related post for those of you tired of talking about Health Care reform. I promise not to take up too much of your time, and hope that you will enjoy this little tangent. Back to politics soon, I promise.

As a Met fan, this season has become interminable. If there were ‘death panels’ in the MLB offices, I’d be rooting for them to tell Fred Wilpon and Omar Minaya to take a painkiller and go wait for a train or something. Do not resuscitate.

This season is dead….and has been since roughly mid-June. Some might contend that it was over from the start and that the Mets were never any good. To them I say…NOBODY’S really very good in the National League, which is why the Phillies (a merely ‘good’ team that has risen to the top on the backs of inferior competitors)  are sort of running away with things right now.  With Beltran, Delgado, Reyes, Wright and the one-two punch of Putz and K-Rod closing things out, the Mets should have been good enough to be playing “meaningful games” in September.

Of course, we all know what happened. In May, the injuries started, and by mid-June, everybody except for Wright and K-Rod had bitten the dust. Without sufficient depth on the bench to fill in, the Mets became a sorry excuse for a major league team…let alone one competing for market shares with the NY Yankees. As Met fans, we all continued to watch the games…hoping against hope that Daniel Murphy would blossom or that Fernando Tatis would recapture the magic of last year and at least keep us afloat until the big guns got back on the field.

It wasn’t to be. Not only were the fill-ins atrocious (hat tip to teams like the Yankees and Red Sox for being so deep that that their subs would all challenge the Mets’ starters for jobs), but the big guns (no, Al Bundy, I don’t mean ‘bigguns’) never did get back. We all waited for them like we waited at the mailbox for those acceptance letters from our stretch schools in high school, but it was all in vain.

“Anything today, Pete?” (because in my recollection of the ’80’s, the mailman’s always named Pete).

“Sorry, kid, nuthin’ today.”

“Maybe tomorrow, Pete?”

“Yeah, kid, maybe tomorrow.”

And January slid into February and then into March and Pete knew as well as anyone that you were going to a state school after all. Years later, you still check the mailbox waiting for the letter from Duke and it still hurts to find nothing there. You wonder whatever happened to Pete.

The season has become an interminable, pointless rerun of a terrible episode of Saved by the Bell.

Reyes is still out. Delgado. Putz. Maine. Beltran is supposed to be back tonight, but damn, that “bone bruise” sure took a long time to heal, didn’t it? What the hell is a “bone bruise” anyway? Judging by how long it takes me to get out of bed some mornings, I’d swear that I’ve got at least a couple of them, but I show up every day. In the interim, Santana went down. Ollie too (not that he was helping). Wright missed some time.

The cavalry never arrived…and we got swamped.

Now it’s September and the games are certainly not meaningful. More like meaningless. The past 3 years I’ve been glued to the TV set around this time. Most recently, in 07 and 08, watching it all slip through my fingers on the final days, but hey, I’d not have traded it for anything (except maybe, you know, a freaking win against the Marlins). Now, I no longer watch SNY. I may put on a game on the radio in the car to see how bad they’re losing, only because it’s easier to snap off a radio than to get up and turn off my TV (I’ve got like 6 remotes now, so this isn’t jive).

I pick up pitchers on the waiver wire now for my fantasy team just because they’re going up against the Mets.

I’m in first place in my league.

As September now gets into full swing and I can see October now on the horizon, I’m not filled with the normal (for a Met fan) feelings of loss or missed opportunities. Instead, I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of …nothing. No hope, to be sure, but no loss either. I miss jumping up and down watching a baseball game. If I could ask the Wilpons for one thing this offseason, it’s to put a team on the field next year that will make me jump up and down again.

Now come on winter, do your dirty work. If you need me, I’ll be watching football.