Famishus Vulgaris

Games 140 through 150 - Mets

Cardinals 5, Mets 0
Cardinals 3, Mets 2
Cardinals 4, Mets 2
Mets 7, Cardinals 2
Nationals 4, Mets 2
Nationals 6, Mets 3
Nationals 6, Mets 5 (10)
Mets 4, Braves 0
Braves 7, Mets 4
Mets 4, Braves 1
Mets 3, Marlins 2 (12)
Record: 74-76

Let’s go back to the very beginning and review. An ill-conceived plan, amazing in hindsight that it was ever formulated, which results in a free-fall to the bottom. Next go-around, we see a seemingly better-crafted strategy, one with more promise but one which only prolongs the inevitable – a longer, harder, more painful plunge and crash. Third time around, the scheme seems imminently workable, the pieces are in order – though they’ve cost a bundle to acquire – and success actually seems within reach; alas, despite the fanfare, the result is once again merely an extension of the temporary reprieve from the same excruciating outcome: a momentous plummet of epic proportions. Sad, wryly funny, and at times, tediously predictable.

Yes, that’s right, this is the saga of the last three seasons of the New York Mets. Now go back and read that first paragraph once again, and see if someone else comes to mind.

You guessed it . . . it’s also the continuing tale of Wile E. Coyote. To a tee, for crying out loud. Holy hell. That I’ve typed half a zillion words chronicling the baseball equivalent of the most redundantly pathetic of all Looney Tunes characters has me ready to check myself into the wackjob warehouse for a few weeks. Honestly, the way the Mets are tumbling (now 4-14 in September, perennially the Mets’ cruelest month ), you look at their recent schedule and you can see the coyote sailing down the ravine with that distinct, declining whistle . . . and at Game 162, that familiar thud.

Well, I could go into more detail, but honestly, why bother? Oh, right, because if this project is ever to be taken seriously, I should treat it with a degree of professionalism and perseverance even as the folks I’m discussing are playing with all the grit of a second-term president’s final weeks in office. Not bloody likely. Those of you who endured MLC ’04 probably remember being disappointed (or elated, depending upon which scribe here at the Department of Misery you exclusively tune in to read) by September Met posts that were rare, pointless, and decidedly bitter, like some kind of Metric System for America convention. Clearly, this month’s worth of entries is a walk down memory lane for you people, and in an atypical sentence void of sarcasm, I really am sorry for that.

There will be time in the next 12 days and beyond to look back on the highs and lows of the 2005 season, but right now I’m too busy watching the latest contraption from Acme malfunction as the poor coyote descends towards his impending doom at the bottom of the canyon, all while the road runner looks on bemusedly while doing the Tomahawk Chop.