I give up. I have lost the faith. I am tired of getting a lousy night's sleep and walking around with this pit in my stomach. Why do we let our love for our sports teams define us as people? What is this character flaw that somehow I am a winner in life if my team wins? Why do we invest so much time, energy and emotion in our favorite teams.

It is especially perplexing when you consider that failure is the one major constant for all sports. A batter in baseball is considered a star if they are successful and get a hit 30% of the time. The Mets have built their franchise on failure. They began in 1962 as "Lovable Losers" and still hold the Major League record for the most losses in one season. In 45 years, they only have two Championships (of course there are several teams during that same timeframe that did not won any Championships).

There was the loss in game 7 in the NLCS last year when we had a better team than the Cardinals. The ignomy of the loss to the Yankees in the 2000 Subway Series and having to deal with all the Yankee fans. Our only Hall of Famer, Tom Seaver, losing game 6 of the 1973 World Series when we were up 3 games to 2 to the legendary Oakland A's. Mike Scocia's home run against Dwight Gooden in the 1988 playoffs against an inferior Dodgers team.

Maybe the pain is still too acute but this season's failure hurts more than ever. Maybe the cumulative years of disappointment are just too much to ignore anymore. The Mets now own another record of failure-the only team to lose a 7 game lead with only 17 games remaining in the season. The New York Times described it as " a collapse of unprecedented proportions" and a nosedive that that "would be downright humiliating to New York".

But I really should not have been fooled by this team. They had the most 40+ players of any team. The pitchers were either old, coming off injuries, inexperienced rookies or castoffs from other teams. As compared to last year, not one regular had a career season. The most games they won in a row was five while they had three losing streaks of at least five games.

Unfortunately it is time to break up this team. Keep Wright and Reyes and maybe Beltran and then everyone else is expendable. I think Willie deserves another year but he may be put in a Tom Coughlin situation where he has to win while the team is rebuilding. It is definitely time to infuse this tea, with players who are coming into their own not passed their prime.

The e the Soldier

A nun and a soldier


             A soldier ran up to a nun. Out of breath
he asked, "Please, may I hide under your skirt. I'll
explain later." 

             The nun agreed. A moment later two
Military Police ran up and asked, Sister, have you
seen a soldier?" 

             The nun replied, "He went that way." 

             After the MP's ran off, the soldier
crawled out from under her skirt and said, "I can't
thank you enough Sister. You see, I don't want to go
to Iraq " 

             The nun said, "I understand completely." 

             The soldier added, "I hope I'm not rude,
but you have a great pair of legs!" 

             The nun replied, "If you had looked a
little higher, you would have seen a great pair of
balls, I don't want to go to Iraq either."