5 Things Mets Fans Can Do For The Mets

A couple of days ago I posted 5 Things the Mets could do for their fans. Here’s what we can do for the Mets.

5 Things Mets Fans Can Do For The Mets

1. Love Citi Field.

Enough with the worn shitty field and taxpayer field jokes. I’m yet to meet anyone who thinks Citi Field isn’t a great place to watch a ball game.

The Mets delivered us the best park in New York City and even managed to set the bar high on concessions. You get some really good food for your money at Shake Shack and Smoke Joint, and the better beer at better prices goes down easily. Compare what you can get for $20. At Citi Field with what you can get for the same amount at any other sporting venue in the New York Metropolitan area and you will be impressed.

Bottom line, the Mets knocked it out of the park with their new park, even Yankee fans agree.

2. Stop behaving like Yankees Fans

Unfortunately, appreciating Citi Field is one of the few things Yankee fans do well.

By and large, Yankee fans are not good baseball fans. They may be great Yankees fans, but they see the world through Steinbrenner’s dark glasses, and their win now, win always world is not pretty. Let’s give our players some support. Let’s try to see the bright side of things. Get over the idea that postseason baseball is an entitlement. Baseball is about the journey. If you’re lucky, really lucky, once in a great while that journey ends with winning the world series. Appreciate the rest, even the pain.

3. Stop Behaving Like Imbeciles

Enough with the ridiculous “Jeter Swallows” chants. The Mets would be lucky to have a player who is half the leader he is (and this coming from someone who hates the smug look on his face). Enough with “Yankees Suck”.

Focus on our team, on our guys. Try supporting a player when he’s down, or even when he’s just doing ok. Luis Castillo is hitting .285 with absolutely no protection in the lineup. Notice the good.

4. Check out the Mets Foundation

The Mets have some interesting community service initiatives going on. Consider donating some time or money to one of them.

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/community/index.jsp


5. Your suggestion here

I’ve run out of ideas. What do you got? What can Mets fans do for their team?

5 Things The Mets Can Do For Their Fans

For all we know, in a few days, the Mets may be about to embark on one of the greatest second halves in baseball history. 6.5 back at the break is nothing to be happy about, but team’s have come back from worse deficits with a lot less season to play. Unfortunately, neither Mets fans nor the organization have to look too far to find examples.

That said, this may not work out all that well for the Metsies, and the second half may not be very much about winning. For a fan base that's come to think a bit too much like Yankees fans when it comes to winning, this is not good news, and if the fans are not happy, that’s not good for the organization.

Fortunately, as with many relationships, there is a lot of room for improvement. New York Mets, here are five easy ways to reach out to the fan base and improve our less than stellar perception of your organization. Mets Fans, there’s room for us to improve too. I’ll post 5 things we can work on in a day or two.

1. Metsify Citi Field a bit.

Citi Field is a wonderful place to go to a ball game, just wonderful. While it certainly plays as a big park and some don’t like that (I do for the most part), the one thing that most fans I have talked to don’t like about it is the lack of Mets specificness it has.

The good news is that this is something that can easily be improved as time goes on. More Mets logos and pictures from Mets history are no-brainers. Naming something after Bill Shea, Joan Payson, or Gil Hodges is a pretty good idea too. Paint somethings blue while you’re at it. Get the fans involved in the process and you'll probably receive some great ideas (along with many hare-brained ones)

2. Bring Back Banner Day

I don’t believe I ever went to a banner day or ever took much notice of it back in the day. Nevertheless, it is a part of Mets history and quite beloved. This is another easy thing to do for the fan base. Along those lines, though lesser known, was the New York Road Runner’s Run To Home Plate at Shea Stadium. I’d love to see that on the calendar next year please. It means something to the fans to get a change to play on the field, even if it's just a stroll on the warning track.

3. Reduce some medium priced tickets to something closer to $25., particularly for weekend games

Over the course of the first half, it seems like getting promenade reserved (the cheaper seats) tickets for a weekend game became nearly impossible. Find some way to make some seats more affordable. The Mets offered discounts on some tickets via the Flushing Flash emails several times during the first half, but this largely resulted in tickets priced above $50. plus significant fees.

It was a good step in the right direction, but the goal should be getting more sub $25. tickets into people’s hands. That’s the magic number now.

4.Reach out to the season ticket base and the group ticket buyers in meaningful ways.

The trinkets are nice, but something meaningful (meaning of real value) is better. Give us a free seat upgrade sometime, or some discount coupons for the concessions. Have an event for us in one of the areas of the park we may not otherwise get to go to (or an on-field event). I realize logistically, this may be difficult, but so it coming up with the money for season tickets in mid-december.

I do like that we still get the media guide, though, one friend of mine called the gift we received this year, “A Citi Field Tombstone”.

5. Represent Better

As an organization, sometimes the Mets...don't put their best foot forward. Don't micromanage, but manage yourselves better. I'm not sure why, but PR has never really seemed a focus for the Mets, it should be. It's tough to like an organization that seems to be constantly in crisis and rarely accentuates the positive.

Leaving New York And The Stars At Night

I mostly like New York, and whenever I leave, even if it's only for a few days, I tend to at least have one maudlin moment, and usually it's at the transfer point to the air train. There's something about seeing the train lines in winter that's quintessentially New York to me, and seeing the snow covered, dark early morning station in Newark really does it, even if they are technically in New Jersey.

Of course, the one thing that I hate about returning to New York is losing the sky. Nearly anywhere else the stars are so much more beautiful at night. I love lying on the beach, or standing on a snowy terrace in Vermont, and really being able to see all that.

The Real Dominican Republic

Here’s all I can tell you about the real Dominican Republic: When it rains, it really rains. I’m told by several resort employed locals that the weather the last few days has been very unusual. I’m on the eastern tip of the island, and their has consistently been a strong wind coming in of the ocean. Every few hours this is accompanied by a 15 minute monsoon, usually a pretty sneaky monsoon. I think it knows that we want to be at the beach, and takes advantage of that desire. The upside is this forces the Europeans to retreat from the pool, thereby abdicating their stranglehold on the beach chairs. It must be some residual colonial spirit or something.

Other than that, I can’t tell you jack shit about the D.R. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered more ground than most visitors to Punta Cana though. For one thing, I’ve spent time at 4 of the 5 RIU resorts located in the complex. I may make it to the 5th tonight, but it’s a long walk, and I’m not sure Disco Pacha is going to be entertaining enough. I’m actually staying at the poshest resort, or the 2nd poshest, I don’t really know. I was originally at the Riu Taino, but after seeing the Riu Bambu, I decided to complain about the subpar accommodations. For some reason, that got me the serious upgrade to the Palace Punta Cana., which is really nice.

One of the amazing things about this place is that because it is all inclusive, I haven’t really spent any money, in fact I haven’t even touched any local money, except for briefly this afternoon when someone offered me a coin as change and I said she could keep it. For all I know, it was a Czeck crown.

The one time I have spent money is on a snorkeling trip to Catalina Island. It was a fun day, and I saw an eel, a squid (or an octopus) and a flat thing I don’t know the name of, in addition to the usual array of colorful Caribbean fish. Snorkeling has become about my all time favorite thing, and I’m going to sign up for the Y scuba class sometime soon. I may try to schedule one more snorkel trip tomorrow.

Other than the snorkeling trip, my trips outside the resort have been limited to running; and I’m going to post a couple of my routes on facebook right after this goes up. On my first longer run, I saved a baby turtle who looked like he was never going to make it into the water, the surf was kicking his ass. Miia, you would have been proud of me. I realize the turtle would have probably benefitted from the experience of getting to the water himself, but after a passing horse flipped him on his back, I knew my actions were right. My other run took me into a slightly poorer resort area, where the locals were pretty amused by my attempt to kill myself at the hottest part of the day.

And that folks is absolutely everything I have learned about the D.R. this week.
(that and the fact that a Coco Loco is so much better than an iced coffee in the morning)

Write Now

A long time ago I was going to be a writer. I wanted to be a writer, not because I had so much to say, nor because I had stories that needed to be told, but because I enjoyed it, and because it was something I was very good at. I know the latter reason, not because my mom told me, or because I was frequently published, but because occasionally women were attracted to my very bad poetry. If you can write poetry bad enough that women will fall for you because of it, you have what it takes to be a writer

The reason I talked myself out of writing, at least creatively, was because I thought I had no stories to tell. Nobody I knew had died tragically (except for Richie Ligargeski (sic) and I was out of town when he was run over by a drunk driver the summer between 9th and 10th grade), I had experienced no great romances (something I still haven't, but maybe romances just arn't that great) and I had had no big experiences (though in retrospect this was not true, they were just things I wouldn't write about).

So, I studied journalism, which led to the internet, which led to computers. I put writing off to the side, I said I would tell stories one day when I had some. From time to time, I would come back to it, journaling, blogging, the very rare attempt at journalism, the even rarer attempt at something truly creative.

And then I stopped.

I stopped nearly two years ago, not for any particular reason, though maybe in part because I drink too much. I just noticed one day that I was writing next to nothing. It was no longer a part of my life, it was as remote as an old girlfriend, or a city I used to live in. For the last year and a half plus, I've written about as much as I've been in Miami, or as often as I've spoken to J, and that is not enough.

It's bothered me lately, for the last few months actually. It's bothered me because writing is one of only three things know I do very well (the other two are kissing and loyalty) and I don't like neglecting the art. It's also bothered me because, and I know how stupid this sounds, there are some really bad writers that I get exposed to. There are people who do write and are just awful, and if you're writing anything at all that worships the dark of night and you are not Anne Rice, I'm probably talking to you.

For the record, every writer should have an Anne Ricesq phase, but get it over with when you're young. Get the damn cat poems out of the way too. Anyone over the age of 25 writing about how they feel lost in the cowl of evening's coat or some shit like that, oughta be drowned in pulp.

I like that bit about the coat though.

However, I think I'm going to start writing again, and if I do, I have to be honest, in part I'm going to write about you. Remarkable things happen to people in the course of regular life; simple fears lead to destructive behavior, destructive behavior leads to dead ends, dead ends lead...Where do you go from a dead end? It's one of many things I have to think about. Dead ends are fantastic though, aren't they? They're not quite as good as wherever you are when you stop falling, but they're still something.

Anyway, that's all for now. I believe you're allowed one declamatory post here and there, and this is mine.

No cat poems though.

A Day In My Life January 2007 (Art School Project)

I woke up to thoughts that I didn't feel great and could have slept longer and that I probably should not have drank half a bottle of wine before bed, this is not unusual these days, what's unusual is when I don't wake up feeling one of those two way. My inability to figure out how to deal with this will intermittently anger and sadden me throughout the day. I will consider going to therapy.

The dog greets me from the couch with a happy wagging tail, I scratch her head and she smiles and I love her for this even though she will later seem uninterested in peeing, a tactical mistake on a freezing cold morning.

In the bathroom, I read about something I will quickly forget in the NY Times Magazine, it might have involved that senator from Virginia. Online, I skim the morning tabloids and peek at the times, nothing interesting at brooklynian, tomato emailed me in response to my suggesting we get drunk and while she's game, I no longer am. I read something I will quickly forget on slate.com, I remember to check out fbofw.com, something I feel a little guilty about enjoying. The dog and I watch part of a bad bad episode of star trek, the dog does not mind. I feed her 6 ounces of kibble and head to the shower.

Outside, while walking the dog a man roller blades by me very very fast on ice slick streets and another man thinks he's crazy, I nod my head and say "That's For Sure!" We stop at Connecticut Muffin for a large coffee and a cheese danish and I think for the eightieth time I really need to replace that carafe that broke last week. At home I scramble some egg whites to go with my danish and settle down for a hodge podge hour or two of email, telephone, and the occasional game of online scrabble played at the speedy pace of 10 or less minutes per game, the mouse on my backup computer is really not up to the task.

I head out again, this time for the subway en route to clients who depend on me to keep them on the technological rails. The dog is not happy to see me go, but I have headphones on so if she whines I can't hear her and I am glad for this. I bundle up and even though it is not deathly cold, I don my gator which allows me to walk the streets and feel warm. I think about spending a few days in Florida this weekend, and this may be a very good idea I will revisit tonight or tomorrow. I stop and buy a gatorade I will nurse all afternoon and descend into the subway.

On the train I read the science section from last week; it includes stories about hospice, how sperm swim, and how to use forced migration to benefit species facing extinction and later on the way home later when I finish this, I wonder why I read science so religiously. At 23rd street I get off the train and check voice mail and I realize 6 hours later that I have forgotten to return the message.

I reorganize a long neglected email system increasing productivity for a small literary concern. I like the people I'm working for a lot and they ask smart questions and do what I suggest which makes them so so so much better than some clients. When I'm finished a few hours later, I have a cobb salad at Cosi. I think about how salad is no longer considered all that healthy and think about going to McDonald's instead. The girl behind me at the Cosi talks too loudly. On the way home, I restart a book about a family of circus geeks that I started a few months ago and then got sidetracked from.

Back in Brooklyn, I lift weight, I stretch muscles, and I steam and when I steam I think of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty thinking "This is the best part of my day." I love the schvitz. I talk to EY briefly about our possible trip next week. As I leave the gym I bump into someone who I used to see at the hash and we may get a drink sometime. I'm not really so sure I want to go out and get a drink ever again but I am sure that this is not really true.

I head to the tea lounge where I write these words and fail to resist the urge to edit too much as I go along. There is a girl sitting next to me for the last hour and she looks vaguely familiar but we don't do anything besides exchange a smile here and there and I watch her laptop for her when she gets up for a minute. Eventually because I want to tune out the sweet and tender hooligans sitting nearby, I'll put on my headphones and listen to the only music I have on the ibook, Morriseys first and best solo work Viva Hate.

On my way home tonight, I will buy asparagus for dinner and blueberries for breakfast. I will get home and the dog will be so happy to see me that she will practically insinuate herself into me. I will call an old friend I have neglected, K2, and I will drink a half a bottle of wine, and if I'm lucky someone will read me a story before I fall asleep.

This Song Is Not A Rebel Song

So...

I'm sort of over Park Slope, and by extension, maybe Brooklyn. It remains to be seen whether this is a passing disinterest or the real thing, but at the moment I'm just not feeling it. I don't believe in this place anymore.

Before I go any further, if you don't know, there are many many things I love about this neighborhood. You'll have to take my word for it. Assume that my natural predilection for negativity has at long last won out, though it may just be temporary.

It's the provincialism that's sort of worn me out. Brooklynites constantly pat the borough (and themselves) on the back, a behavior which our Borough President has mastered to the point of obsessive compulsion. It isn't completely new, it was started by my parent's generation, a group that fled to the suburbs, maudlin for the stoops, spaldeens, and sports teams of their childhood. Maybe this is what we receive in return for cursing Walter O'Malley who took the Dodgers to California.

I think until then, Brooklyn never felt the need to pat itself on the back. Those were some big hits Brooklyn took in the 50's and 60's though. It was tough after that, the Brooklyn of Vinnie Barbarino. Still, Brooklyn came back.

Of course, the Brooklyn that everyone loves doesn't exist without Manhattan, and this is where the provincialism gets ridiculous; most of it is done at the expense of Manhattan, the center of the universe. This is patently ridiculous, it's like stabbing yourself in the heart.

There are some great neighborhoods in Brooklyn, but part of what makes them great is that they are in a sense bedroom communities. They are retreats from the turmoil of Manhattan. Park Slope is one of these and a very nice one at that. In fact, it would be a very nice place anywhere, but it is what it is, and it's a bedroom community.

It's not just the provincialism though, it's the entitlement and the way that everyone believes they are always right and always the center of the universe. This needs no great explanation. It's just annoying.

So.
(sorry this is kind of disjointed)

Haven't Had A Dream

Some days I'm not sure what I'm doing exactly. I didn't do much today. I got stood up by a client. I did some reading about css and cms, wrote emails. If you spent the day in the office, I realize this doesn't seem so bad, but I have too many days like that. I feel pathologically lazy sometimes and there are so many things I want to do.

I need to start a new business because, well because I want more money to be honest, but also because what I do is largely uninteresting to me. I don't hate it, but well I want to do more.

I need to volunteer more. There are all these people that have so much less going for them than me, and I want to spend more time with them. I would have really liked to have done something with the developmentally disabled for a living, but it didn't work out like that. So, I need to volunteer. I used to, but I get distracted easily.

I need to cook more. I'm going to make a nice corn chowder tomorrow or Sunday, whenever I have the time.

My friend loaned me a guitar because I've been without one for a while. I need to get past bar chords this time round.

I need to read more, write more, learn more. I don't seem to ever have the time for this. I feel stunted intellectually these days. I know someone who I think stopped learning and I think this has contributed to his decline. This scares the living fuck out of me.

Damn, I'm in a mood today, ugh. Sorry I have nothing more interesting to write.

Link To My Secret Blog About You

http://www.quickbyte.net/thisonesboutyou