Fans Fret All Year
By Lew Freedman
Fans of big spending teams in the off-season cheer in January as well as July. If you are a devotee of the Angels, Marlins, the Tigers, the Yankees, the Rangers, what’s not to like?
Your team has showed you the love, committing hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to win. For fans who love to gripe, there is no criticizing those teams for lack of effort. If they don’t win division titles or make the playoffs, they will share your pain, and it will cost them a lot more to do so, too. But what of the have-nots who still haven’t?
There are teams with the reputation of spending what it takes to get the job done. The Yankees, as always. The Red Sox over the last decade. More recently the Angels. Even more recently the Rangers. The Dodgers over the long-term, although that’s been clouded by the recent family soap opera swirling around the ownership. The Mets over the long-term, but the Mets are such a mess right now it’s hard to classify them. There will be no boo-hooing in baseball for a team based in New York that seemingly has all the advantages it needs, but has botched its recent chances to put a playoff team on the field.
Faith of the faithful ebbs and flows with performance on the field among certain teams. If the fans believe ownership is trying, they cut some slack. If the fans believe the ownership is incompetent, isn’t trying to win, and is treating them with contempt, bet on there being a sea of empty seats come April.
In some cities, it has just gotten to the hopeless stage. Teams can’t even say they are rebuilding because it’s taking them longer to build something than it did to construct the Brooklyn Bridge or the Empire State Building.
Say you are a Baltimore Orioles fan. Does Boog Powell still have a few designated hitter swings left in him? That’s about where the level of hope lies for the upcoming season. If the Orioles make it out of the basement in the American League East, passing the Yankees, Red Sox, Tampa Bay, or Toronto, that will be an accomplishment.
Once upon a time the Pirates had Roberto Clemente, Honus Wagner, Pie Traynor. Now they have a changing cast of characters that nobody has heard of farther away than Beaver Falls. Pittsburgh hasn’t had a winning year since FDR was in the White House. At least it seems so.
For a couple of years we have been hearing how the Kansas City Royals have developed the best farm system in baseball and how all of this young talent is due to break through. Well, it is overdue and the time is now. The Royals are not going to beat out the Tigers in 2012. They are not going to beat out the Twins unless the Twins’ best players all get hurt again. Can they beat out the Cleveland Indians? No evidence of that yet. Now the White Sox might descend to Kansas City’s level, but still, that isn’t exactly the same as making noise in a pennant raise.
Other teams will be bad this year. The Houston Astros could be the worst team in the game. They only won 56 games in 2011. And while my memory may not be what it used to be, I can’t remember any off-season deals that automatically make Houston a better team in 2012. How psyched those fans must be.
Which brings us back to the Mets. During the first days of their existence, in the early 1960s, the Mets were historically bad. But they were also funny and their ineptitude was embraced during a honeymoon period. These days the Mets are shaping up as bad, but unsympathetic. If you want to check out the Mets’ new stadium, Citi Field, this may be the year. Good seats are bound to be available.