The New York Mets are off to a great start finishing the month of April with a record of 21-10, tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in MLB to this point. Just as a reminder, the Mets had their best start to the season in 1972, with a record of 23-7 after 30 games. So before you start getting ahead of yourselves, the Mets finished in third place with a record of 83-73 in 1972.

With very few exceptions, you are never as good as you are when you are your very best, and never as bad as you are when you are at your worst. The Mets have rallied out to the 21-10 record without exactly being at their very best, and certainly not at their strongest.

Ya know…the fans so wanted to get Juan Soto. They were going to leave the country if the New York Mets didn’t sign Soto. Oh, wait, that was in regard to something else…if someone became President. Whatever. But fans were going to be up in arms if the Mets hierarchy failed on that acquisition. And, yet, the complaints keep rolling in.

Yankees fans could tell you what you would be getting with Juan Soto. Soto is a VERY good player. He’s is a formidable bat in the middle of the lineup. He was a young talent when he came up with the Washington Nationals at the tender age of 19 and had immediate success.

Yes…I know, I know…everyone is entitled to their opinions. That’s part of being an American. More importantly, it’s a huge part of being a New York Mets fan.

Mets fans are no different than any other fans – they have a LOT to say. I mean, I have a lot to say too. That’s why I write about a lot of observations that I have about the Mets – past, present, and future.

Some years ago, fans expressed their feelings at social gatherings, at the local pubs, or at the office water coolers. Then talk radio became big and you got to hear so-called experts spew their own brand of nonsense and give you the “privilege” (if you were so lucky) to call in and say or ask something, only to have the host belittle or berate you because THEY know so much.

But now…social media gives everyone the chance to have their motors running and a place to blow out those exhausts into the air. Well that’s the way I view a lot of what I read on the various threads.

Spring trainings were always my favorite times of the year when I was a young broadcaster. My days were spent just hanging around and watching all of the activities, sitting back and enjoying the antics of the players, and, oh yeah, getting some sound bytes here and there.

Based in Miami, I got to cover the Baltimore Orioles who were in town, the Montreal Expos who were in West Palm Beach, but I was mostly assigned as the beat reporter for coverage of the New York Yankees in Fort Lauderdale. Yankees, not Mets.

As a baseball nut, it was Utopia for me. But I was kind of disappointed that I didn’t see a lot of the Mets since they were on the west coast in St. Petersburg, way out of our coverage area. But in covering the Yankees, I did get to see the Mets the few times they bussed it down to Fort Lauderdale.

The New York Mets have moved two times. Ok…so once was to another borough and the other time was across the parking lot. Franchises move. That’s how the Mets came along…because the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers moved to San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively.

The A’s are tied, sort of, to the New York Mets, because of the 1973 season…the season of Tug McGraw and Ya Gotta Believe! The A’s have been a storied franchise. Yet, they can’t seem to stay put.

I am so tired of the Pete Alonso saga. Will he continue to be a New York Met or will he be an ex-Met? And why has it gotten to this point? It’s February already.

Scott Boras is not ALL that is bad with Major League Baseball…but he has had a pretty big hand in the ruination of the National Pastime. And this debacle has his fingerprints all over it.

Juan Soto is a special player. But how special IS he and is he, or anybody for that matter, worth the amount of money being paid to have him play in a New York Mets uniform?

The experts say that he is a “generational” talent. And that tag is not handed out too often. Soto came up with the Washington Nationals organization. The same organization that produced Steven Strasburg and Bryce Harper. Two others whom were considered, at the time, “generational” players.

Just an aside…do the Nationals have the best scouting department or are they just lucky enough to draft these talented kids and then, in turn, unlucky enough to have to rid themselves of them because they just can’t, or won’t, pay them?

Moving on…is one player worth the monies Soto will be receiving? And for how long will he be worth that money?

New York Mets fans are clamoring for the signing of Juan Soto, the biggest bat available on the free agent market. And the fans have gotten their way before and it hasn’t always worked out so well. To wit, three of the biggest free agent hauls made by the Mets turned out to be the biggest targets of their scorn.

Let’s take a look at the three biggest mistakes the Mets made going after the biggest target on the free agent market.

Down the stretch of the 2024 season, New York Mets fans not only watched the scoreboard for the division and wild card races, hoping teams would lose, but there were also those who were doing the scoreboard watching hoping a team would win…the Chicago White Sox.

The 1962 inaugural season of the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club would be an effort in futility, a passion of love, and a symbol of baseball romance. That season of the “lovable losers” has been referenced often, and is viewed upon with reverence. How many times can you say that - that a losing team is revered?

New York Mets fans don’t have a lot to hang their hats on throughout their history, aside from Tom Seaver, 1969, and 1986, so why would they want to be stripped of a legacy where they didn’t even have to win to be cheered?

The 2024 White Sox made the 1962 Mets relevant again. And those 1962 Mets lost again…62 years later…as the White Sox set the record for most games lost with 121.

But was it truly the worst season in Major League Baseball history? Let’s take a look.

Overachieving. The New York Mets were not expected to be contenders. But they somehow came back from the dead and surged to a berth in the National League Championship Series against the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Nobody could have predicted that after starting off at 0-5 and stumbling and bumbling to 11 games under .500 early on, that the Mets would actually finish 16 games OVER .500 with 89 wins.

So where do they go from here?