A Tale of Two Teams

I grew up in the Long Island suburbs of New York City, about 40 or so miles from Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets. Tom Seaver was my boyhood hero, and the Miracle Mets season of 1969 was one of the three or four best years of my life. I am, always have been, and always will be, a Met fan.

In 1982, I moved to Arizona, where there was no major league baseball team until 1998, when the Diamondbacks were born. Since that time, I have probably been to more Diamondbacks games than I ever went to Mets games, and I have adopted the D'backs as my second team. My stepson believes something like that is sacrilege, but what the hell does he know, he's only sixteen. When the two teams play each other, I root for the Mets. Against any other team, I root for the D'backs, and vice versa.

Both teams had rather disappointing finishes to last season, although the degree of disappointment was pretty divergent. The D'backs came out of nowhere to win their division and make the post-season with a bunch of young guys that no one outside of Arizona had ever heard of, other than Brandon Webb. They became only the fourth team in major league history to make the post-season while being outscored by their opponents over the course of the season. They finished with the best record in the National League, and summarily disposed of the Cubs in the first round of the playoffs, only to be subsequently swept by the Colorado Rockies in the NLCS. It was a disappointing end to a joyous season, but the young D'backs had nothing to hang their heads about, and the future looked optimistic indeed.

The Mets, on the other hand, having been the favorites to make the World Series in 2006, and coming up one game short in the NLCS agains the Cardinals that year, were once again tabbed as the team to beat in the National League. Omar Minaya, the GM, has spent a tidy fortune on such current and/or past stars as Pedro Martinez, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Moises Alou, Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, Shawn Green, and Billy Wagner to bring a World Series winner to Shea Stadium. After leading the NL east for most of the 2007 season, the Mets faded horribly down the stretch and completed one of the all-time worst choke jobs in major league history. It was brutal and embarassing. Met fans are still reeling.

Both teams have high expectations for this season. Both signed front-line big-time starting pitchers: Johan Santana is now a Met, and Dan Haren is now a D'back. Other than that, the teams pretty much stuck with what they had, and the results have been as different as night and day, which considering the make-up of the two teams, is not all that surprising.

The Mets are primarily an old team. Guys like Delgado, Alou, Martinez, Hernandez and Luis Castillo all have had their best years behind them. They are getting older, are extremely brittle, and are prone to injuries. Pedro, El Duque, and Moises Alou are already on the disabled list, and no one really knows when, or if, they will be back. The Mets needed to re-build and go with youth, but instead, gave up a good number of their best prospects for Santana. Other than Mike Pelfrey, who has become a member of the starting rotation by default, the cupboard is bare. There is some amazing young talent in David Wright, Jose Reyes, John Maine, and Oliver Perez, not to mention Carlos Beltran, who is in his prime. For the most part, however, the team is made up of a bunch of old guys an injury away from being out for an extended period of time. Not surprisingly, the Mets so far have only played .500 ball, and are struggling.

The D'backs, on the other hand, are young and rising. Guys like Mark Reynolds, Chris Young, and Justin Upton have all the talent in the world, are just now beginning to come into their own, and are getting better by the day. The line-up is made up of young, hungry, talented, enthusiastic ballplayers who are having the time of their lives. They are hitting the daylights out of the ball, have started the season 10-4, and are in first place in their division. The starting pitching, after Brandon Webb and Dan Haren, was a major question mark coming into the season, but so far, Micah Owings (another young pup) is 3-0 as the third starter, and Doug Davis hopefully should be back after his recent cancer surgery. He was in the dugout the other night, looking as if he was ready to put on a uniform. The bullpen has had a couple of meltdowns, and absent that, this team might have been undefeated so far. Their potential is scary.

Now, I'm no expert, just an ordinary baseball fan who has watched a lot of baseball over the last 40 or so years. It seems to me that the D'backs have done everything right, while the Mets have tried to out-Yankee the Yankees. The D'backs seem to be on the rise with unlimited potential. The Mets seem to be George Forman, trying to make yet another comeback at the age of 48. Care to place a wager on which team will probably go further in the post-season this year?

I'm still rooting for the Mets to start turning things around, and for the D'backs to continue their excellence. I would love to see both of my teams playing each other in the NLCS, although it would tear me apart as far as loyalty is concerned. It's a long season and anything can happen, but so far, it seems like the best of times for the team from Phoenix, and the worst of times for the team from Flushing (although it can't get much worse than last year's end-of-season choke). We'll have to wait and see what happens. Steroids and mega-salaries be damned, I love baseball.