For many fans of the New York Mets, including this correspondent, last week exemplified disgust, disappointment and even dread about the upcoming 2026 season.  Apparently, the Mets decision-makers opted against retaining the best closer — Edwin Diaz —  in Major League Baseball and in the humble opinion of this corespondent and avid and arguably rather knowledgeable fan the best right handed clutch power hitter — Pete Alonso — in the National League. Plain dumb! No counter moves replace those player departures. 

Mets baseball head David Stearns apparently has a plan but absolutely no plan makes up for failing to retain two of the best ever players to wear the Mets uniform.  Baseball involves many moving parts and often relies on players achieving their potential and/or overachieving in any given season. That said, no other team sport “suffers” from the karma of bad decisions including letting players move on, signing the wrong players, lousy trades — you name it. One can only hope and pray no curse of an iced polar bear infects the team I root for.

 My angst over the failure to retain the Mets’ all-time leader in home runs —following my team allowing its all-star closer to sign with the evil empire aka the L.A. Dodgers — led to me almost getting knocked off of X.  It seemed that platform’s algorithms assessed me as non-human due to me decision to repost a large number of posts about Alonso leaving the Mets for the team 1969’s Miracle Mets defeated in that year’s World Series — the Baltimore Orioles. My repetitive comment: “Time to re-assess my ⁦@Mets⁩ #fandom — not sure ANY signing or trade will make ANY difference going forward!”

I take a small group Opening Day and run a much larger combined group from Gotham and my home Knights of Pythias lodge FDR 613 to the Subway series in May.  Not sure if I knew what transpired last week before I made these arrangements if I’d bothered.