Ungrateful Mets fans just learned running New York is harder than they thought

Those spoiled New York fans. They always want more. When will they be satisfied? All they do is spend, spend, spend, then whine when they don’t spend even more. Real championships are earned. Real baseball fans know that. It just means more when you win them with guys you raised from within the system. Buying championships doesn’t always work, and when it does, it isn’t nearly as rewarding as doing it the old fashioned way. Owner with no limits and one of the highest payrolls in baseball. They don’t know how good they have it.

But enough about Mets fans.

Ever since Steve Cohen took the reins of his boyhood team in Flushing, Mets fans have been crowing about the turning tides in New York City. AJ Minter may have been the latest Met to insinuate that real fans support the Mets, while posers/folks who have to “learn baseball” cheer for the most decorated franchise in MLB history on the other side of town, but fans of his club have been echoing that sentiment for ages. It’s a baseless caricature, but it does seem to have caught on.

Objectively, the Mets have been an underdog across most eras. “David vs. Goliath” is an easy framing, and a far more effective one than “smart fans vs. numbskulls” — yet, for whatever reason, Mets fans prefer to sell themselves as the refined alternative to their loudmouthed brothers in the Bronx who just don’t get baseball’s purity.

In the end, though, we’re all New Yorkers. And any outsider who hates New Yorkers hopefully rolled their eyes at this attempted comparison again on Saturday, when Mets fans who paid to attend FanFest decided to chant, “We Want Pete!” and boo General Manager David Stearns for their unwillingness to go the extra mile to bring Pete Alonso back on his terms. This, of course, happened mere weeks after the team lured Juan Soto to Queens with a contract that could cost $800 million with escalators.

Yes, it’s relatively embarrassing that the team has chosen to skimp only in the wake of bringing Soto across town for 15 years. But if Yankee fans were the ones booing at their own event just a few weeks after securing a generational talent on the largest contract in league history, imagine how high and mighty Met fans would be about it? Heavy lies the head that is trying to steal the crown after decades of ineptitude.

Mets fans chanting, “We Want Pete!” and booing David Stearns after he brought Juan Soto to Queens…sorry, that’s “Yankees fan” behavior.

Perhaps it’s fatigue from being stuck in the same league as the Dodgers, a congolmerate that makes every team’s willingness to spend pale in comparison. But, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say Met fans are struggling with the realization that overwhelmed Yankee fans in the 2000s: once you’ve climbed the free agent peak, there’s always another mountain to scale, even though rings cannot be won in January.

Maybe, just maybe, Met fans who begged for a ruthless owner for decades aren’t enjoying the pressure that comes with it, the resulting loss of identity, and the very ruthlessness they were seeking. “Wait … you’re toeing a hard line with Alonso like a hardened businessman?! Wait … not him, do it with other guys! And why’s the price of eggs still so high?”

Speaking of an upstart hitting stumbling blocks while trying to take a city back, the New York Knicks played at the Mecca of basketball on Saturday night while the Brooklyn Nets retired a New Jersey Net’s jersey.

The Mets decided to take in the game together, but when they were flashed on the scoreboard, something very interesting happened: an arena filled with passion voiced their disagreement with AJ Minter’s assertion quite loudly in concert.

What’s that about “real New Yorkers” and their preferences? Sounds like 12,000 real New Yorkers telling you loud and clear they prefer the other guys. When both options start to look the same, the one with a history of winning wins the crowd. Always.