If you’re born a Mets fan, you inherit certain truths. You hate the Phillies and Braves. The Seaver trade was unforgivable. Game 6 was perfection. And Keith Hernandez belongs in the Hall of Fame. This isn’t nostalgia talking. It’s not mustache bias. It’s not orange-and-blue delusion. It’s numbers. It’s leadership. It’s 11 Gold Gloves. It’s a defensive revolution at first base that the voters simply chose to ignore.

Half-empty stadiums. Paper bags pulled over heads. Online petitions that scream what ownership refuses to hear. At some point, loyalty stops looking like devotion and starts looking like punishment. Sports fandom is supposed to be irrational, but what happens when the people in charge exploit that irrationality for profit? When hope becomes a business model and patience becomes currency? This is not just about losing. It’s about what it costs to keep believing when the peo