Ten Reasons I Hate the Mets

Playing the Mets feels like a punch to the crotch. Just ask Santo.  

This season has been brutal to watch, painful to listen to, and arduous to describe. It's no picnic coming up with something to write about this team on anything resembling a daily basis, not that you care. Really, you don't. As a collective group, the Chicago Cubs fan base crossed the Care Barrier more than a month ago. I'm not writing about this team out of a belief that people care, I'm writing out of obsessive compulsion.

If I'm to lure you to be likewise obsessed and compelled to the point of actually reading something here, I have to get unethically manipulative creative. So I turn to the wisdom of the wizard of direct-response marketing: Denny Hatch. Denny is an astute business man who knows, among a panoply of other business success secrets, how to trigger the emotions of his audience to move them to the point of action. His arsenal of instigation includes seven emotional catalysts guaranteed to push people's buttons: fear, greed, guilt, exclusivity, salvation, flattery, and anger.

Fear is played out with Cubs fans. Day baseball at Wrigley might be putting the Cubs at a disadvantage and dooming us to centuries of failure, but that's just one monster of many lurking in the shadows. Greed is a chord best strummed in the spring when fans hope to get their tickets and have their money, too. Guilt is best explored during the holidays, because that's what all the celebration is meant to cover up, isn't it? Exclusivity? I'll leave that to people who think the bleachers is a country club from which the $10 crowd should be banned. Salvation? Not until Bobby Scales comes back. I have completely abandoned flattery. That leaves me with anger, so I'll muster all I have for the Mets.

Fortunately, I hate the Mets, so there's a lot of anger to muster. Why do I hate the Mets? I'm so glad I asked on your behalf.

Ten Reasons I Hate the Mets

10. They suck.
9. 1969
8. They let their cats wander out into the on-deck circle.
7. I'm still mad about their fake prospect who could throw 163 mph.
6. They play in New York.
5. Blue and orange? Really?
4. Dwight Gooden
3. I just do.
2. That stupid home-run apple
1. My mom always told me that when a New York Met wore a C on his jersey, it stood for "Cocaine."