Bad Parenting

[Centerfield]

Last night, during his baseball practice, I heard my son get it from his teammates about the Mets losing and batting out of order. There is one other Mets fan on the team, the rest root for the Yankees. As we were leaving the cage, all of them stopped to watch the exciting (and very relevant) Yankees-Red Sox game. My son glanced at the TV, then walked out. That game doesn't concern him, and he clearly doesn't want to stick around to get the ribbing they'll throw at him. It's good natured, but even at 12 years old, I can see it starting to get old. This morning, I watched him put on his Mets hat again and walk out the door. I'm sure he'll hear it again today about the high-flying Yankees, his friends will rightfully tell him that the Mets will be irrelevant again before the end of May.

And as a parent, you wonder. What the fuck have I done.

There are very few Mets fans his age. If I had to guess, I'd say less than 20% of his age group root for the Mets. And all of those kids have parents that are Mets fans. In other words, if the parents aren't Mets fans, there is virtually no chance a kid his age will root for the Mets. (There are plenty of Met fan parents who say their kids root for the Yankees, almost none the other way around.)

And this makes all the sense in the world. In what universe would a kid voluntarily root for this team? ShortCenter will be 13 this year. Since was born, the Mets have made the post-season three times (including the one game WC in 2016). The first one was in 2006, when he was one, and too young to know what was going on. He started understanding the game of baseball at age 4, and then grew up watching 6 straight losing seasons. During that time, I told him to be patient. Losing was part of baseball. The Mets were building to something. That something came in the second half of 2015, when the Mets caught fire all the way to the World Series. They followed that with a respectable 87 win season in 2016. Since then, misery again. That's his payoff. That's the extent of his baseball joy as a kid. One real post-season, one Wild Card game. He's gone to 1 post-season game. And sure yes, there's joy to be taken from winning and losing. But at the end, you want to see your team fucking win.

His buddy, a big Yankee fan, was born a month earlier than him. During his lifetime, the Yankees have made the post-season 9 of his 12 years. He's gone to at least a dozen post-season games. Just when SC was starting his run of 6 losing seasons, his buddy went to the World Series parade.

And the thing is, it's not going to change. Not as long as the Wilpons are owners. The Mets will never commit to winning above all else, so this is what it's going to be from now on. Why on earth would I make him a fan of this team when there are teams (not just the Yankees) that commit to winning each year?

It's one thing if you live in Cleveland, or Pittsburgh, where the team is limited by geography. You can justify the David vs. Goliath angle. You can teach your kids the value of getting the most of what you are given. But there are no lessons to be learned from self-imposed financial restrictions caused by participation in an illegal Ponzi-scheme. There is no nobility in handicaps arising from one's own wrongdoing.

I used to say for years "Well the Yankees just buy their championships. There's no pride to be gained from that." You know, that's not at all true. The Yankees, and the Dodgers and the Red Sox, and the Cubs have all developed terrific home-grown talent. Then taken advantage of the rules of their sport to supplement that talent with high-priced acquisitions to create kick ass teams. The Mets, with their "let's try to be good enough to get a wildcard" outlook, will never be able to compete with that. Get lucky here and there? Maybe. But on a long-term basis? No.

So why the fuck do we root for them?

Sure son. Winning seasons and post-season baseball may be good for some. And other people might like rooting for clubs who show a commitment to being the best. But instead, come with me to CitiField, where we can root for a second-tier team owned by guys who lost money participating in fraud. All because daddy decided to root for a player named "Strawberry" when he was 8 years old.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Your son makes his own decisions. As you said, there are other Mets fan parents whose kids have decided to root for the Yankees. Yours didn't. Maybe he's rightfully put off by the smug attitude of their fans and decided he doesn't want to be one of them.

[Guest cooby]

CF where were you again? A TV at practice.

But yeah, razzing by the other teams fans’ kids’ is rotten

[Centerfield]

Oh, his team had a session at the batting cage. Indoor place on 74th street. They have TVs in the hallway and lobby.

[Ceetar]

Just make sure you he's not being a jerk about in in August when the Yankees are 3 games out of a wild card and the Mets just crushed the Nationals to take a 4 game lead in the division, what goes around comes around.

[Guest cooby]

Lol okay. I thought you had a heck of a swanky ballpark!

I applaud your boy for sticking with the Mets

[A Boy Named Seo]

Like G said in the 67 v. 87 yearbook matchup, it's easy to get excited about a championship team. We all wish the Mets were great at baseball and won all the time, but the pain of failure grows us as humans and makes us genuinely appreciate the things in our lives that will make us pause and remember them before we die. This includes the sweet windows of time that cracked open for the briefest moments to let us experience this weirdly powerful and irrational joy that sprung from watching a baseball team beat all the other baseball teams one year. Your kid will remember that stuff one day. I'm sure some of these Yankee kids are fine children who get good grades, don't litter, and are generally nice to their parents. But they won't have the strength of character your kid will have from growing up loving the shitty New York Mets.

PS - I thought you were gonna say you punched out a dad wearing a Paul O'Neill jersey. That would be bad parenting.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Centerfield wrote: So why the fuck do we root for them?

I got an irreversible DNA implant in the early 70's.

In another year or two, when you think your son is ready, you can teach
him about YLD's and he'll see the light! hahahaha

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Your son makes his own decisions. As you said, there are other Mets fan parents whose kids have decided to root for the Yankees. Yours didn't. Maybe he's rightfully put off by the smug attitude of their fans and decided he doesn't want to be one of them.

For most things yes. But I don't know that I ever gave him the chance on this one. Most of the Met parent fans whose kids root for other teams are not nearly as active as me. SC was dressed in Mets clothes as a baby, he got a teddy bear named Mookie. We watch or listen to at least a 100 games per year and go to Citi at least 3-4 times each season. My brother is a big fan and they text each other about it. I don't know if he ever had a real choice here. I am seriously considering sitting him down and telling him that everything I told him about the nobility of rooting for this team was wrong. He should root for whoever he wants. I mean, I'm guessing it's way too late now. But I feel like I should at least say something.

ceetar wrote: Just make sure you he's not being a jerk about in in August when the Yankees are 3 games out of a wild card and the Mets just crushed the Nationals to take a 4 game lead in the division, what goes around comes around.

I would love for this to be true. And this is what I told him during his entire childhood. Wait until next year. Wait until the rebuild is done. But let's face it. This is never going to happen. Not on any sustained level. The process is wrong. Unless there is a wholesale change in philosophy, there will never, ever be a 5 year stretch where the Mets outperform the Yankees.

[Ceetar]

Centerfield wrote: I would love for this to be true. And this is what I told him during his entire childhood. Wait until next year. Wait until the rebuild is done. But let's face it. This is never going to happen. Not on any sustained level. The process is wrong. Unless there is a wholesale change in philosophy, there will never, ever be a 5 year stretch where the Mets outperform the Yankees.

Well, do you mean every year or as an aggregate? because damn, the Mets have had more success over the last 5 years. both made playoffs twice. Mets won two series to their one. Mets went to the World Series, with a real shot to win it.

If the Mets do in fact go farther in the playoffs this year than them, you could extend to more than 5 years.



But whatever, it's not about RINGZ! baseball is a social thing. Right now he's, presumably, having fun with you on your Mets outings, watching the games. There might come a time when all his friends want to go to Yankee stadium and he wants to not be a grouch about it. Maybe that's okay. That's not his collection of little league

Like, forced narratives aside, real talk, Yankees fans and Mets fans are roughly the same people, to like, the 99th %tile.

It's hard being so invested in something outside your control, but like, that's kinda life too.

[Centerfield]

I know it's not about the RINGZ. Neither the Mets nor Yankees have any titles in the last 5 years. But the Mets have had losing seasons in 3 of those last 5 years. The Yankees last losing season was 1995.

[G-Fafif]

CF, sounds like you're raising a real mensch. You wouldn't have it in you to parent a frontrunning jerk.

[Centerfield]

G-Fafif wrote: CF, sounds like you're raising a real mensch. You wouldn't have it in you to parent a frontrunning jerk.

He's really the sweetest kid around. Hell of a lot nicer than me. He's at the age where baseball still means the world to him, but he won't be there for long. The Mets could have won back to back championships when I was in college, but it wouldn't have meant nearly as much to me as that '86 team.

I don't know. I just feel like I did him a real disservice. His entire childhood has been three months of 2015, one decent year in 2016, and the rest of it hearing how the Mets suck. When I was growing up, I got to see a Mets team that was competitive for 7 straight years. 6 times they won 90 games. 2 times, they won 100. A World Championship. '85 Gooden. He's never going to see anything like that.

[G-Fafif]

Centerfield wrote: I just feel like I did him a real disservice. His entire childhood has been three months of 2015, one decent year in 2016, and the rest of it hearing how the Mets suck. When I was growing up, I got to see a Mets team that was competitive for 7 straight years. 6 times they won 90 games. 2 times, they won 100. A World Championship. '85 Gooden. He's never going to see anything like that.

The past is the luck of the draw; the future is you never know. You did good.

[Guest 41Forever]

You did well.

Yankee fans are entitled. They expect to win, they expect the best players to go there and they expect lavish praise even when they don't deserve it -- see Jeter, Derek F. When they don't get those things, they feel screwed. They look down on all others. There is no joy in their celebrations. Not real joy, anyway.

Mets fans appreciate the good times better because they earn them. Nothing comes easy. When the championships come, they are savored and appreciated. You think those guys remember and celebrate the 25th man of those Torre dynasty teams the way we talk about Ed Hearn and Rick Anderson Randy Niemann? Not a chance.

And that's what life is like. Struggle and hard work leading to success.

It is far better to be this guy:



Than this guy:

[Guest d'Kong76]

[Benjamin Grimm]

Centerfield wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: Your son makes his own decisions. As you said, there are other Mets fan parents whose kids have decided to root for the Yankees. Yours didn't. Maybe he's rightfully put off by the smug attitude of their fans and decided he doesn't want to be one of them. For most things yes. But I don't know that I ever gave him the chance on this one.

I really and truly believe that kids shares interests with their parents if they're by nature inclined to do so. Certainly that's true by the time they're 13 years old. Would he have been a Mets fan if you weren't? Maybe not. But he certainly had a choice.

[Methead]

I don't know where I got it, but I had a Yankees jacket when I was a little kid.

I'm thankful that shit didn't stick to me.

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Benjamin Grimm wrote: Your son makes his own decisions. As you said, there are other Mets fan parents whose kids have decided to root for the Yankees. Yours didn't. Maybe he's rightfully put off by the smug attitude of their fans and decided he doesn't want to be one of them. For most things yes. But I don't know that I ever gave him the chance on this one. I really and truly believe that kids shares interests with their parents if they're by nature inclined to do so. Certainly that's true by the time they're 13 years old. Would he have been a Mets fan if you weren't? Maybe not. But he certainly had a choice.

This is ShortCenter when he was zero. And Mookie. This isn't too much pressure to root for the Mets?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I got dragged to church every Sunday and every Holy Day of Obligation. I had eight years of catechism. I never really felt it, never believed it, never wanted it, and when I was old enough I walked away from it. Your son is a free-thinking human being and if he didn't want this, he'd know he had options.

[DocTee]

My wife and I are Mets fans. We lived in the SF Bay Area for 15+ years-- both our daughters were born and raised there.

The Giants won three titles in six years, and we often went to their gorgeous stadium as a family. One day, the kids came home from school with "important news"-- they were Giants fans. I can't say I blame them.

[Guest sharpie]

My son, the long-ago poster Lenny Harris, grew up a Mets fan in the midst of the Yankee late '90s early 2000s run of WS titles. He was 8 and a big Met fan for the 2000 World Series. We went to the stupid Met-Yankee rally in Bryant Park. Most of the kids he knew were Yankee fans although his best friend was not a baseball fan.

I do think being a Met fan in Yankee ascendant times teaches good lessons: the rich shouldn't have everything; gloating is obnoxious; be skeptical of idiot traditions.

Being a Met fan builds character in a way that being a Yankee fan doesn't. He's not a real baseball fan anymore but is a good person -- he doesn't gloat, he is skeptical of idiot traditions, he was there at the beginning of Occupy Wall Street so he certainly isn't a fan of the rich.

Your son will be fine, CF. LGM.

[Lefty Specialist]

My son, born in 1995, had a similar path. He could barely comprehend baseball when the Yankees beat the Mets in 2000. He was crushed by a frozen Carlos Beltran when he was 11, then doubly crushed when he was 12 and 13 by Mets collapses. Yankee fans made his life miserable. But it also taught him to appreciate the good times when they were so fleeting. We Skyped game 3 of the World Series in 2015 with him, as we were having a party and he wanted to be a part of it even though he was 200 miles away at college. It was awesome.

This year, at 11-1, he said he was leery of the start. He knows the pain. But he could never be a Yankee fan. Living in Washington now, he says that one of the best things about the city is the lack of YLDB's.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

sharpie wrote: My son, the long-ago poster Lenny Harris, grew up a Mets fan in the midst of the Yankee late '90s early 2000s run of WS titles. He was 8 and a big Met fan for the 2000 World Series. We went to the stupid Met-Yankee rally in Bryant Park. Most of the kids he knew were Yankee fans although his best friend was not a baseball fan. I do think being a Met fan in Yankee ascendant times teaches good lessons: the rich shouldn't have everything; gloating is obnoxious; be skeptical of idiot traditions. Being a Met fan builds character in a way that being a Yankee fan doesn't. He's not a real baseball fan anymore but is a good person -- he doesn't gloat, he is skeptical of idiot traditions, he was there at the beginning of Occupy Wall Street so he certainly isn't a fan of the rich. Your son will be fine, CF. LGM.

Off the Keyspan sign

[seawolf17]

sharpie wrote: My son, the long-ago poster Lenny Harris, grew up a Mets fan in the midst of the Yankee late '90s early 2000s run of WS titles. He was 8 and a big Met fan for the 2000 World Series. We went to the stupid Met-Yankee rally in Bryant Park. Most of the kids he knew were Yankee fans although his best friend was not a baseball fan. I do think being a Met fan in Yankee ascendant times teaches good lessons: the rich shouldn't have everything; gloating is obnoxious; be skeptical of idiot traditions. Being a Met fan builds character in a way that being a Yankee fan doesn't. He's not a real baseball fan anymore but is a good person -- he doesn't gloat, he is skeptical of idiot traditions, he was there at the beginning of Occupy Wall Street so he certainly isn't a fan of the rich. Your son will be fine, CF. LGM.

This is it for me. There's a reason the quote says "rooting for the MFYs is like rooting for US Steel."

[Fman99]

My son is 13 too. He also loves the Mets. He elates when they win and curses (in a non profane, 13 year old adorable fashion) when they lose or when they suffer injuries. And he's taken some shit, in little league (when he was wearing a bright compression sleeve like Yo only to get ribbed for it), and probably at school. He wore his Cespedes shirt today. The Mets swag is in regular rotation, regardless of the team's record. He does it because it's part of who he is. He's a Mets fan.

Having said that, it's easier, up in the 'Cuse, than I suspect it is in the boroughs. It's just less prevalent here. There are Mets and Yankee fans, his age and mine, but it all takes a backseat to other sports, Syracuse basketball, Bills football, local minor league hockey and baseball, etc. I'd say there are more MFY fans than Mets fans up here but we've closed the gap with the 2015-2016 successes, plus the impending arrival of the Syracuse Mets AAA ballclub.

Here's the thing, though. It's not about how much more likely some other team's fans are to get to experience the joy of being champions. It's about the bond you forge with your child over baseball, rooting for the same team.

Your son, I am sure, wants to be like you. If you're doing it right, or, really, even if you're not. That's how they do it. He'll live and die with the Mets, same as Fboy, and you and me. He won't abandon his fandom if you don't.

And I'm not giving up mine.

Because it's the bond I shared with my dad, as a kid.

(My dad grew up a MFY fan, in the 1950s, but living in Flushing, he gravitated to the team after Shea opened (he was 19 in 1964) and gave up on the MFYs when the Steinbrenner era kicked in.)

We drove to Shea to watch games, first as a four person family with Fbro and Fmom, and then, once I was older, just he and I (as my mom and brother were never huge baseball fans). And he's gone now, and I can't talk about the Mets with him, so that is just a thing that I have in my heart, that I still think about. We went to our last game together at Shea, in 2006-2007 sometime.

And now my son and I go and repeat the process. We watch the games on TV. We drive 1-2 times per year to Flushing to see it live. Someday, Fboy will (Lord willing) be a father to Fgrandson and they will drive down to see the Dominic Smith Rotunda and count the rings on display, and he'll tell his son the stories about how his dad took him to Citi Field, and the time Mr. Met waved to him, and the time he got to try on a real deal World Series championship ring, and 30 other stories from his childhood, and the dream will perpetuate.

And you know what? They'll be 38-51 that year and it won't matter one damn bit.

Keep doing what you do.

[seawolf17]

no YOU'RE crying

[Guest cooby]

My daughter played junior high basketball

One of her best friends (Katie) was a Yankees fan. My son (named for Tony Pena) is a Cleveland Indians fan.

Sometime in the mid 90’s, after the Indians beat the Yankees in a playoff, my grammar school aged little boy walked into the gym for a big-sister b-ball game in his full Indians regalia, and Katie saying ‘aw, Tony ’

Sweet memories. CF all these things will eventually become the best things of your life. It all interweaves.

[metsmarathon]

in the words of john kennedy:

"We choose to root for the Mets. We choose root for the Mets to win and do the other things, not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

Mets fandom builds character. yankee fandom builds douchebaggery - as the other kids are so helpfully demonstrating. choose character.

[Edgy MD]

Sheesh guys, you've made this a Game Six of a thread.