The Jester’s Quart: On The Mets Bandwagon

Columnist Greg Wyshynski has always taken his sports fan cues from his father. But as the New York Mets steamroll into the playoffs, it’s clear to him that dear old dad is actually a bandwagon fan! Can he forgive this fan faux pas and enjoy the postseason?

Greg Wyshynski
Columnist, SportsFanMagazine.com

If you’re a regular reader, you know I’m a Mets, Jets, Nets and Devils fan. I owe the first three loyalties to my father; then again, a quick check of their respective winning percentages over the last 30 years makes me believe he might actually owe me.

I respect my father as one of the truest, most dedicated sports fans alive. Not only because he steadfastly refuses to accept that the Nets are going to move to Brooklyn one day, but because he has managed to have a successful marriage while watching nearly every sporting event ever held involving his teams — by ironing more clothes than a Korean dry cleaner in front of the television.

But he’s lost some of that respect recently.

For years, the Mets were dead to him. Because of the strike. Because of the futility. Because baseball just wasn’t on his radar screen like it was for about 40 previous seasons.

Today? It’s like talking on the phone to Buddy Harrelson. My dad is Mr. Met, chronicling every at-bat of the NL East champs like he was writing next year’s media guide. He’s even made a pilgrimage to the Mets Clubhouse shop to pick up some new geek gear to show off on the weekends; he’s especially fond of the 69/86 World Series hat he assumes will be obsolete by the end of October.

You can always tell my dad is into a team because the players immediately become “the boys” in casual conversations. “Did you see the boys against the Rangers last night?” “Are the boys on T.V. against New England this week?” “If Jason Kidd hits that jumper, the boys win.”

The Mets haven’t been the boys for the last 10 years.

Which makes my father a bandwagon fan.

Some might label my father’s newfound love for the Mets as his being a “fair-weather” fan. I never liked that term. It’s P.C. for “bandwagon,” like using “shoplifter” instead of “thief” or “Chris Simms” instead of “sucks.”

He’s a bandwagon Mets fan.

That’s a difficult thing for me to accept, because of the spoonfuls of bile I’ve seen my father swallow as a Nets and Jets fan. It’s one thing to have the romantic heartbreak of a Red Sox or Cubs fan; it’s an entirely different situation when the majority of your fan life has been spent wading through a cesspool of futility. And by that I mean paying to watch Sam Bowie play center and Joe Walton coach a professional football team.

But here’s the rub, dear friends — is my father truly a bandwagon fan? He’s not one of these dolts in NYC who owns a Mets hat and a Yankees hat and swaps one for the other depending on what he sees on the 11 o’clock sports highlights. He’s a guy who rooted for Kranepool and Seaver and Koosman and Tug and Darryl and Doc and Hernandez. He’s got Mets T-shirts older than I am. And like a lot of baseball fans his age, the strike really did him some harm — cancelling the World Series was like taking a dump on a picture of the Pope.

So is it fair to call him a bandwagon fan when he practically helped build the bandwagon?

If the Mets win the World Series, I know his celebration will come from a place of longtime dedication to the team. But it’ll be different than when I was with him for the Devils’ first Stanley Cup, because at that time I knew how much spirit-crushing disappointment we had shared as fans. That he was able to practically check out on the Mets until now dulls that pain a bit.

But if the Mets lose in the postseason — and pleasedeargod let it not be the Yankees again — perhaps there will have actually been a small victory this year: winning an old fan back to the bandwagon.

-SFM-

Published on the web and www.SportsFanMagazine.com since 1997, "The Jester's Quart" is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Senior Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History" can be ordered now. Email Wyshynski at jestersquart@hotmail.com.

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