It’s the dumbest phrase a baseball fan can ever utter. Unless you’re saying it in early October, you’re not being honest. Or you’re being figurative. What fans say “the season is over,” they say it out of frustration. They say it to relieve their pain, to convince themselves not to care anymore because it hurts too much to get their hopes up every night and watch their team burn those hopes to the ground. They say the season is over when their team has largely played itself out of playoff contention, but not when it has actually done that because when things are really over, there’s no point in saying it out loud. It doesn’t hurt to be dead.
I’ll be honest: I have probably said “the season is over” two or three times this year during the Mets’ June swoon, which contained numerous games that made me want to smash my flatscreen over my own head. Of course, even after that horrific month, the season was not over, and nor were their postseason hopes. In fact, they’re still not technically out of it. All the Mets have to do is win two-third of their games for the rest of the season, and they’ll probably make the playoffs. Stranger things have happened.
The front office, however, isn’t counting on it. Last night, they traded their best relief pitcher (and probably the team MVP) to the upstart Marlins. The trade is an acknowledgement that this Mets team will not contend for a World Series, and that the process of drawing from the present to positively impact the future has begun. Other trades are coming, but this one speaks volumes. David Robertson is having another incredible season this year. He’s going to help the Marlins right now as they push for a playoff spot. The two teenage prospects the Mets received in return for Robertson won’t help the Mets for three years at least.
So is the Mets’ season over? No. Factually, it’s not, and if we say that it is, we’re only hurting ourselves. It’s a World-Series-or-bust mentality, a toxic form of fandom that will ruin your life if you let it. It’s based on the idea that a season is only a success if your team wins the World Series, or at least, goes on a long playoff run. That winning—not just regular, everyday winning, but winning it all—is all that matters. Nothing good can come of this attitude. If your team wins the World Series, you’ll be happy, but every moment up until that point will be wracked with tension, and as soon as it’s over, you’ll start worrying about next year.
Meanwhile, you’ll miss the beautiful present.
Even when your team is mathematically eliminated (which typically doesn’t happen until the last few weeks of the year), the season is not over. There are still games to be played. There is still fun to be had. Sure, there are points of interest, like watching the young guys get a chance to play every day and the aging veterans try to prove they deserve to keep their spot in the show. But stepping back, the end of your team’s playoff chances gives you a chance to exhale and simply appreciate the beauty of the game. Become a connoisseur rather than a tribalist. I like to think that, even in a losing season, I can still appreciate a crisply-turned 5-4-3 double play or that exquisite moment when a guy who hits a ball into the gap decides to try to stretch a double into a triple and the crowd holds its collective breath. The game is just as beautiful, I remind myself, in my team’s losses as it is in their wins.
In other words, we should take a page from the players, who are trained to live in the moment and not worry about the past or the future. They won’t let their failure to meet their ultimate goal stop them from going out every day and trying their best. For the next two months, they will show up to the ballpark, put on their uniforms, and compete, and they’ll do it not because it’s a step towards winning a title and redeeming their past losses but because that’s what they do. There is freedom in this tautology. They play because they play. It’s not the future or the past that matters. Just today.
Let’s join them and release ourselves from the burden of expectations. At this very moment, Mets fans, we are receiving a revelation that every game is a season unto itself. We can turn on the game tonight not because it’s an important game but because it’s fun to watch baseball. It’s fun to watch Alonso hit bombs and Senga spook batters with his “ghost fork” and watch Lindor dazzle on the infield. These are undeniable pleasures but the pressures of chasing a title hide them from us. They tinge them with anxiety. With importance. But that’s a choice. Baseball isn’t important because of some objective, arbitrary meaning imposed upon it. It’s important because we say it is, and we can do that for a season, or we can just do it for a game or even an inning. None this matters, and it all matters. Today is at least as important as October. Probably moreso.
The Mets are not going to make the playoffs this year. The dream is over, but the season is not. In fact, if you look at it through the right lens, the best part is about to begin.
That's right. So, I said "Season is over!" before it started. However, I still watch every game I can and enjoy (nearly) each of them.
To be honest, I said this phrase in May. But, I have historic performance to back me up.