Mets Fandom is Intellectual Business
by Maisie Morrison
Last week the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 7 to win the 2025 World Series. My team, my beloved New York Mets failed to even make the playoffs. I watched the final Mets game alone in my dorm room on the MLB app I downloaded specifically so I could watch the games at college. I think I started crying in the sixth inning. My eyes welled up as I saw playoff dreams slipping away. Once one tear was shed, I couldn’t stop. I nearly cried all evening.
Here at Oberlin in my Freshman year, I find myself trying to explain aspects of myself I’ve never before had to put into words. As I introduce myself to new people, I realize I have to explain who I am – and a big piece of who I am is the New York Mets. None of the friends I’ve made are big sports fans, and so in recent weeks as each Mets game mattered more and more, I found myself attempting to explain to my new friends why I just had to check the score during dinner, why I was crying that evening when they were eliminated, and simply why I cared so much.
When trying to explain my Mets fandom I was met with some confusion, but mostly curiosity. For the most part, in the media, sports fandom is represented by ‘sports bros:’ guys who think they’re smart mansplaining something you either already know or have no interest in. This, I think, has contributed to some societal understanding that is found at Oberlin, the understanding that being a sports fan is fundamentally not an intellectual endeavor. As I’ve had to explain my fandom to my new friends, it’s forced me to put words to a kind of fandom I don’t see represented very often.
To understand my fandom you need to know a few things about the Mets. They are perhaps the quintessential underdog team. There are never great expectations for their success, and despite big-name signings and promising teams, the Mets losing is always a safe bet. There’s a kind of attitude that a Mets fan has that is deeply critical of the team, yet so devastatingly devoted. Mets fans always expect the worst (as they should) but always have hope that they could suddenly turn it around. It’s a hard mindset to maintain, especially after so many years of disappointment, but it is very proficient at creating fans who have some piece of themselves invested in the team. For so many fans I know, including myself, being a Mets fan is a part of personal identity. There’s no satisfaction to be gained in being a casual Mets fan; if you want to watch a winning team, be a Yankees fan. The Mets have soul, they have grit. In order to be a fan of the Mets, you have to care about more than winning. It has to be about something greater.
It’s the pursuit of figuring out what that “something” is that best encapsulates how I love the Mets. I love them by simply thinking about them, and reflecting about baseball more broadly. I obsessively gather information and analysis. I have an app designated to send me push
