The New York Metropolitans, more commonly known as the Mets and more fondly known by old-school die-hards as the Amazins, are a baseball franchise best known as the lesser New York team tucked away in a sadly, but appropriately, named part of Queens — Flushing.
For just about a decade the Mets front office has been doing a lot of flushing — flushing of money (I'm looking at you, Fred Wilpon), of good old Shea Stadium, of players and slowly but surely, of fans as well (average attendance at Citi Field has dropped by nearly 8,000 people in the past two seasons).
Their most recent flushes include closer Francisco Rodriguez — sent packing to the Milwaukee Brewers — and right fielder Carlos Beltran, who was traded to the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday for the Giants' top pitching prospect, Zack Wheeler.
So the question is, when will the Mets stop all of the flushing in Flushing?
The answer: Never. Not for a second.
Why?
Well, the explanation is two-fold. Part one is simple — constant trading, releasing of players and general wheeling and dealing is simply an integral part of professional baseball.
Part two is a bit sadder — wasting talent, misjudging talent and arriving just a bit too late or too early in players' careers is simply a part of the Mets' DNA.
Don't believe me? Let's take a quick stroll down memory lane, shall we?
In 1966, the Mets drafted a flame-throwing pitcher named Nolan Ryan. Fast-forward to 1971, where his tenure with the Mets is already over. Ryan accumulated a 23-28 record over three seasons with the team, which included essentially only one standout moment — his playoff performance in 1969, when the Mets won their first World Series title.
While not many baseball fans will know Ryan for that playoff performance, they do know the fastball-hurling pitcher for having thrown a MLB record seven no-hitters. How many of those were in a Mets uniform? Zero. Zilch. Not one.
The same goes for one of Ryan's peers, Tom Seaver, who was nicknamed Mr. Met, but threw his only career no-hitter as a member of the Cincinnati Reds. Also on that not-so-illustrious list are Dwight Gooden and David Cone, who pitched a combined 16 seasons for the Amazins.
Willie Mays, one of the best players ever to lace up cleats and put on a glove, also played for the Mets. It is a little known fact, mostly because Mays played only a season and a half — also his last season and a half — with the Mets. It was a glorified trot around the bases for Mays, who returned to his New York roots after following the Giants from New York to San Francisco.
The Mets also passed up on drafting Reggie Jackson in 1966. Not much more to say there. That stupidity is self-explanatory.
But enough about the long ago past. Let's turn to more recent times.
After reaching — and losing — the World Series in 2000, the Mets went into a playoff hibernation to lick their wounds inflicted upon them by their bigger, evil cross-town brother, the Yankees.
That hibernation lasted for six long years and it included the failed attempts at relevancy known as Roberto Alomar, Jeromy Burnitz, Cliff Floyd, Kaz Matsui, Mo Vaughn and plenty others.
Alomar and Vaughn were overpaid and past their prime. Burnitz and Floyd were both supposedly big bats that deflated faster (and often more comically) than whoopee cushions. In typical Mets fashion, they also missed on Matsui who barely lasted six seasons in the majors before returning to Japan.
But then there was a new generation — the post-Mike Piazza crew that was supposed to finally bring the Mets back.
The new Mets included a mixture of the two homegrown, farm-system talents Jose Reyes and David Wright — reminiscent of other Mets farm-system stars such as Gooden, Seaver and Darryl Strawberry — combined with the primo-paid talents of Carlos Delgado, Billy Wagner, Paul Lo Duca and Beltran.
Then, in 2006 the Mets won the NL East, toppling the Atlanta Braves from their lofty, 11-straight division title-winning perch. They burned through the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three game sweep and then they pushed the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals to seven games.
In that seventh game at Shea Stadium, Beltran stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, with the Mets down 3-1 and with bases loaded and two outs. He infamously took a 0-2 curveball from Adam Wainwright for a called strike three. He just watched it go by. And with that called strike three, with that choke, with that collapse, the Mets flushed themselves back into oblivion.
Sure, the front office then signed Jason Bay, Luis Castillo and Francisco Rodriguez to help guide the team back to contention, but the new crew did about just as much as those earlier signings — which is to say, nothing.
Bay is still clinging to life as a Met (he's hitting a measly .230 with six homers this season), but the rest of those top-dollar players are now gone, thanks to the recent dismissals of K-Rod and Beltran.
But the memory of the '06 Mets still burns bright in the minds of fans. However, now that that season’s most notorious strike-taker is gone, it must be the end of an era, right?
Nope. It's just the end of another wave in a long, vast and rolling sea of poor choices and missed opportunities.
It's not even August yet, so you won't catch feisty first-year manager Terry Collins giving up the fight for the wild card just yet, but give him time. Give any of the Mets time — old or new. All eventually come to learn what it means to be a Met — and no, it's not bein' Amazin'. It's all about flushing things away until there isn't anything left to flush.
But fear not Mets fans. Even though Beltran has gone to greener pastures, there's always something else to get rid of (Wright or the injured Ike Davis could be the next big "star" to go, perhaps).
However, fresh off of the Beltran deal, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson and Wheeler are both excited.
"That's why I'm kind of pumped about going to the Mets right now," Wheeler told MLB.com. "There's a lot of opportunity, and I just want to take that opportunity and go with it."
In a conference call with ESPN.com's Adam Rubin, Alderson said, "We could have gotten a package of three players from a number of clubs, but the overall potential of those players would not have equaled Zack's potential."
But that optimism will surely soon fall by the wayside.
So get that toilet ready, because before you know it (my guess is in 2015), the Mets will be flushing away all of their excitement regarding the 21-year-old Wheeler.
But just like Beltran, it won't be Wheeler's fault — if you're a Met, any greatness you have in you usually hides until you get flushed out of Flushing. Thankfully for Beltran — and someday Wheeler — the Mets like to flush everyone, and they like to overpay those players just for the privilege to do so.
