Wolf! Wolf!

The Colorado Rockies will win the World Series next year.

If they don't, I will keep predicting that they will.

Over the course of several decades, I may end up being correct:

"So you know the Royals will come into Game 1 on Tuesday night thinking that this is every bit their time in baseball, as they try to win their first World Series since 1985 the way the Mets try to win their first since ‘86, especially after the way the Royals won Game 6 against the Blue Jays on Friday night, Lorenzo Cain running the bases the way Junior Griffey ran the bases against the Yankees in another October."

Yes, every team that goes into the World Series is on a roll and every team feels like a team of destiny.

You brought up an anti-Yankee moment from 20 years ago and compared two plays that were actually very dissimilar. Other than the fact that both plays had baseball players score runs via running around the bases.

But, you know ... good job. So stupid ...

• Donaldson struck out looking and it reminded me of Beltran taking a third strike against the Cardinals.
• A guy hit a HR and it reminded me of the time that Molina hit that HR to beat the Mets.
• Some pitcher walked a guy and it reminded me of the time Kenny Rogers walked in the winning run against the Braves.

"Still: It is the Mets who come into this World Series as the best and most complete team in baseball, with the best starting pitching in this world."

I think this is inaccurate.

The Mets won 90 games in a terrible division. The Mets absolutely earned their trip to the World Series. They beat the Nationals head to head, they beat the Dodgers, they humiliated the Cubs.

I don't think they're the best and most complete team in baseball, even after their July acquisitions.

The defense is average at best, the lineup is streaky at best, the "bridge" to Familia is non-existent. It wouldn't shock me if the Mets win the World Series. It also wouldn't shock me if the Royals' lineup handles the Mets' starting pitching and then destroys the Mets' middle relievers.


"They come into Tuesday night riding the same kind of wave that the Giants did the last time they won a Super Bowl, after they were 7-7 that time. And by the time those Giants made it to Lucas Oil Stadium, 7-7 didn’t matter anymore the way the Mets being just two games over .500 with 60 games to play doesn’t matter now."

Right.

The New York Giants.

I thought for sure, up until the point it said Super Bowl, that this was a baseball comparison. I thought it was going to say "the same kind of wave that the Giants did last year with Bumgarner ..."

So now, instead of pointlessly comparing two dissimilar baseball plays 20 years apart, we're comparing two different sports.



"The waiting was hard and mean, especially in baseball New York. The Yankees have only won one Series of their own since ’06. But there was the powerful idea, built over so many playoff seasons for the Yankees over the last 20 years, that not only was this their town now, but always would be."

A made-up idea you have been fighting against for 20 years.

So when it finally comes true, guess what? You don't get any credit for making that prediction.

Because, if it took twenty freaking years? That's indistinguishable from forever, for all intents and purposes.


"Only that changes, and maybe for a long time. Because whatever your rooting interest is, if you had to bet your own money right now, you would bet it on the Mets."

So?

What?

I mean, this is the moment you've supposedly been waiting for.

The Yankees are offering no resistance, but they've never been the enemy. This is a prison of your own making. You could fly the whole time, Dumbo.


Besides, baseball analysis-wise? ... the long-forgotten supposed job of baseball journalists? ... one can easily look at the Yankees' future with optimism, independently of the Mets.

The Yankees can quietly build a good team with unheralded promising young players and it would be a dream come true if Lupica crushed on Daniel Murphy for a while instead of Alex Rodriguez.

The worst thing the Yankees can do right now is react to this so-called rivalry with the Mets. Try to get media attention by making a splash. The Yankees are going to have their hands full with Toronto and other AL East teams for a few more years while they wait for all these long-term contracts to finally expire.

  
"There it was last Sunday night after Game 2 against the Cubs when the loud, cold night had finally ended, and I was with the crowd of people coming down the stairs and out into the parking lot, shouting 'Let’s Go Mets!' as they headed for their cars or for trains, some of the crowd heading towards Roosevelt Ave. and the rest hooking a left up 126th.

And in that moment, you could remember what it was like in this same parking lot when the ‘86 Mets were as big as any New York baseball team had ever been, and people were filing down those old, narrow ramps and out of old Shea; when the huge October swings came from Strawberry and Dykstra and Kid Carter and Ray Knight and Keith Hernandez, the way they come from Daniel Murphy now, and Curtis Granderson, and Yoenis Cespedes."

 What were you expecting when your team makes the World Series?

Toronto hadn't even made the playoffs in 22 years. The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. The Royals made the WS last year, of course, but their playoff drought was 29 years.

Are fans in KC sitting on their hands, or something? Does their enthusiasm somehow denigrate the enthusiasm of, say, Cardinals fans?


My gripe is something like this: I am certainly not dismissing the genuine enthusiasm of genuine Mets fans. I'm dismissing the notion that this enthusiasm is somehow unique to the Mets, unique to New York City, that Mets fans in particular are "long-suffering."

I keep hearing, "We've never seen this before," as if Mike Piazza and Edgardo Alfonzo and Robin Ventura and Endy Chavez. never existed. How come nobody remembers Edgardo Alfonzo?

I recall a short-lived Benny Agbayani Obsession. Because: Playoffs! I could probably google Lupica + Agbayani and find the same article from 15 years ago (Lupica + Josh Satin would be truly terrifying).

 
"There is never any timetable for a moment like this, at Citi Field or anywhere else. There was no timetable for the Giants that time. Then Eli Manning threw one to Victor Cruz and by the time Cruz stopped running it was a 99-yard touchdown play against the Jets.

That was no fluke. Neither is this. There are no straight lines in sports, especially not to the Canyon of Heroes."

OK, not sure why it's necessary to cross-pollinate sports moments.

The 2015 Mets have a very obvious NY baseball analogy and that is the 1996 Yankees. Ahead of schedule, young players, fan base surprised by their playoff success, etc.

If it's important to gauge the relative enthusiasm of New York's two baseball teams, then you can't do this in 2015 because the Yankees aren't good enough. I don't think Yankee fans were, you know, quietly exiting the Stadium in October 2000, bored with their third title in a row :-(


"I love when people who didn’t watch five Mets games during the regular season tell you with great certainty why they are now going all the way, baby!"

I love when journalists who didn't watch five Mets games during the regular season tell you with great certainty why they are now the best baseball team on the planet.