Decade in Review: Five Lessons Learned

As the decade gasps out a few final breaths, presented here are five lessons learned these past 10 years.

Some thoughts on the aughts, if you will, in no particular order...

1. You can't buy a winner

At least if you're not the Yankees, who can buy anything.

But if Mets fans learned one thing this decade it's that dollars don't equal titles.

I don't have the figures in front of me, but chances are excellent that the Mets spent more money on player contracts this decade than any other team in the National League. I'd wager good money that we spent more than any team other than the Yankees and Red Sox, the latter of whom we may very well have outspent.

What do we have to show for it? One World Series run, one dominant regular season/crushing playoff loss, and eight other seasons that ran the gamut from encouraging (2005) to disappointing (2001, 2008), humiliating (2007) and completely unwatchable (2002-2004, 2009).

For all the people screaming their heads off this offseason saying we HAVE to sign Jason Bay or we HAVE to sign Matt Holliday... what team have you been watching all these years? What history are you paying attention to?

2. Famous in Japan = Futile in Queens

There's no good explanation for it, but Japanese players who come to the Mets uniformly suck.

Some of them are entertaining; I wouldn't have traded those two seasons of Tsuyoshi Shinjo (and his orange wristbands) for anything.

But most are just downright disappointing. Kaz Matsui is, of course, the poster child for the Lost in Translation-syndrome that afflicts all Japanese Mets, but there are others as well. Satoru Komiyama. Kaz Ishii. Shingo Takahashi. Disaster, disaster, disaster.

With the start of a new decade we turn our "East meets West" dreams to Ryota Igarashi, who was known as "Rocket Boy" in Japan before elbow surgery a couple years ago.

3. Mets blogosphere on swoll

It's hard to remember a world without instant media and at-your-fingertips access to all the information you could ever want, but in many respects that was the world before Y2K (the year 2000, that is).

The advent of the internet changed sports fandom. For Mets fans it meant a host of websites to provide a daily fix. Metsblog, Mets Geek, East Coast Agony (RIP), Metstradamus, Faith and Fear in Flushing, and closer to home, Yankees 2000: Promote the Curse.

In time the name of the site will change, now that the Curse is no more. But, for me, the need to write, the need for that creative outlet, has not diminished, so the site will continue into its second decade.

4. Season of the Decade: 2006

Seasons like 2006 don't come along very often; for the Glass Man, a year like 2006 may never come around again.

For the team on the field, everything just came up roses. Every night there was a different hero, didn't matter if your name was Carlos Beltran or Endy Chavez, David Wright or Jose Valentin. Every night they found a way to win. I'd never seen anything like it.

And for me, life off the field made it possible to follow that team like I'd never followed a team before. Every other year of my life I'd been in school, so the Mets had to compete with homework at night.

In 2006 I was out of college and in a job with ridiculously good hours; 9-6, essentially. I was home in time for the Mets each night. I'd hit the treadmill during the pregame show, shower up, and hit the couch in time for the first pitch. I watched virtually every game that season.

Whether or not the Mets are ever that good again, chances are I won't have another season like that where I get to follow them so closely (actually, I may have the chance in 2010 as my current hours are pretty boffo... one feels certain the team won't be anywhere near as good though). 

Seasons like that don't come around very often. On the field and off, everything just came together to make my Mets experience the greatest it's ever been. I can only hope someday it'll be like that again.

5. "I was thinking how nothing lasts, and what a shame that is"

Sure enough, Benjamin Button, the passing of time has many unfortunate aspects.

I turned 27 today. There's no way to play the numbers game so that 27 is anything other than "late twenties". When I started writing for this website I was a fresh-faced, look-out-world-here-I-come 22-year-old. I was a college student who happened to have graduated from college.

I'm not sure when you "become a man" exactly, and I do believe that it's an inexact science, that for each person the timing is different. Either way, I can say that some time in the past five years (probably the last three), I became a man.

Things are just different for me now. I used to live for those nights when me and my group of friends would carb up at some hole in the wall Italian place and then jaunt from one Lower East Side bar to the next.

I still love that kind of night, but they're few and far between now, and I'm an active agent in their infrequency. I take it easy more than I ever did before. These days, the idea of spending a Friday night cooking at home with my girlfriend and a bottle of red wine sounds just about perfect, and if there's a Mets game on, even better.

I don't mean to suggest I'm some domesticated bore; I still enjoy going crazy with my friends and all that. But that's not the only thing anymore is all. A change is afoot, and I'm aware of it.

Those aren't the only changes. I had my first legitimate health scare this year, when the concern was that I had intestinal metaplasia, which would have predisposed me to stomach cancer and generally have caused digestive problems for the rest of my life. Fortunately I'm OK.

Physically, my blond hair shows no sign of gray, which is a plus, but my face now bares the indents that are, charitably, a pair of laugh lines on the sides of my mouth leading to my nose; more realistically, though, they're wrinkles, and chances are there are more where they came from (update to come in 2019).

Button was right: Youth, beauty, and health don't last, and that is a shame.

* * * * *

But this decade, baseball (bless it) taught us that nothing lasts, and sometimes that's a complete pleasure. In 2004, after 86 years of frustration, New England celebrated as its beloved Red Sox captured their first World Series since 1918.

In 2005 it was Chicago's turn to celebrate as its White Sox won their first championship since 1917, ending an 88-year drought. Chicago is still waiting on its (decidedly more) beloved Cubbies to end their 101-year drought. Remember, Cubs fans, nothing lasts, and that's not always such a shame.

And remember that, too, Mets fans. With the calendar turning to 2010, it will soon be 24 years since the Mets won it all.

That's nothing compared to 86 years or 88 or 101, but to a fan it feels like a lifetime (and to many of you reading this, it probably is a lifetime).

I was 3 when the Mets won it all in '86, and I have no memory of that triumph besides what was passed down in the hallowed 1986 Mets Tape.

I'm still waiting for that first taste of champagne celebrating a World Series victory. I'm still waiting for that first phone call with Sip and Nails and all the others after the Mets win it all. I'm still waiting for that first ticker tape parade. A lot of Mets fans are, too.

Our wait won't last forever. Nothing lasts, and sometimes that's not a shame at all.

* * * * *

And that about does it.

I may write another post this week, but if not, best wishes to everyone on a happy and healthy (Mets players, take note!) new year.

- A.F.O.M.G.