The Cleansing

It's been 21 years since I have felt this good as a sports fan. I was just 15 back in '86 & '87 and it's hard to believe it's taken so long to duplicate that euphoric feeling I had when the Mets won the World Series and the Giants won the Super Bowl. Heck, at that time, I thought that's what was going to happen every year. With Doc & Darryl and LT and Simms, I assumed championships would become standard practice for these two teams. 

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Although the G-Men did pull off an upset of a different kind in Super Bowl XXV against the Bills, the Mets have come up lame for the last 21 years. 21 years...hard to believe.

The truth is, the Giants championship could not have come at a better time for me as a Mets Lifer. The pain and humiliation I felt after that epic collapse racked my brain relentlessly for months. It downright tortured me...Until the Giants went on an improbable run through the post season and the Mets got Santana. As a fan, all you want is satisfaction, fulfillment that your team is the best for that season. You want to taste victory so bad, even more than the players do. After all, we invest so much time in our teams that you just want a pay off. Yet, we all know 99% of the time we are destined for disappointment. 

So with a Super Bowl championship feeling flowing through my veins, and Mr. Johan Santan in Orange and Blue, a perfectly timed cleansing has taken place. I can now look forward to pitchers and catchers reporting next week as the pain of that historic collapse is well behind me. And that is as great a feeling as any for this Mets Lifer.