I don’t make a habit of leaving Mets games early. I’ve done it only once in my life voluntarily. It was June 2012 in the Bronx; Johan Santana gave up three home runs in three batters early in the game against the Yankees, Elvin Ramirez couldn’t find the strike zone, and down 9-0 in the bottom of the eighth, I decided that leaving the stadium amidst a crowd of 50,000 rowdy, celebrating Yankee fans wouldn’t be in my best interests. Of course, the Mets scored their only run of the night the inning after we left, which only goes to prove that leaving early is never really a good idea.

But besides that game, and away from Yankee Stadium, I leave early only when I’m with someone who needs to leave early. Needs, not wants. I make it clear with every ballpark invitation I issue that leaving early isn’t to be taken lightly. You want to do it, you’d better have a damn good reason. I’ve stayed ’til the end every time I’ve been able, and along the way, I’ve done some waiting that might have been too much for a lesser fan.

Friday, March 23rd, 2014: a rain delay started in about the fourth inning of a game against the Diamondbacks. I stood there, in the upper deck and then on the field level, knowing full well that there was no way we would play, but waiting until it was official. The stadium was just about full when the game started, and still fairly crowded when the rain started; two hours later, it had emptied out. But at least the stragglers’ loyalty was rewarded; in the Flushing subway station, we told an MTA worker what had happened, and he radioed someone in charge to say hey, the Mets game just ended, Express service starts now. No, not two hours ago, that was just people leaving, it ended just now.

Or there was the time I waited, with my father and brother, fourteen innings in the cold shade of April 2014, for the Mets to beat the Braves. We were in the field level, but during the t-shirt launch at the 7th-inning stretch, we couldn’t catch anything. By the 14th-inning stretch — my first! — the stadium was so empty that we caught three or four shirts, wandering from row to row and gathering them up. And once again, the baseball gods rewarded the stragglers for their loyalty.

I’ve waited through thrilling wins like that one, and mind-numbing blowout losses, like this June, when we lost to the Pirates 11-1…and the Nationals 8-3…or last May, when we lost to the Dodgers 9-1…and the Nationals 9-1…and the Nationals 7-1…the blowout losses blend together until I can only remember them by the notes I’ve taken down in my log book (or its electronic equivalent, the MLB ballpark app), and yet, I keep waiting through them, hoping that one of these days, one of them will end well and all that loyalty will be rewarded, but knowing that even if it’s not, I’ll keep waiting anyway, because that’s what fans do.

At the first game I ever attended fully independently — bought my own ticket, made my own way through the New York subway system, paid for my own food and everything — the Mets were losing late. It was April 20th, 2013: we were up against the Marlins, and a young pitcher of theirs who was making his major league debut. His name was Jose Fernandez.

When John Buck struck out to strand David Wright and end the bottom of the eighth, people started filing out. In front of me, down near the field, a sign man was standing. A bootleg, not the original, although he did have a “sign man” jersey and a frequently rotating array of printed messages to display. Now, he was holding up a sign I hadn’t seen yet.

“Real fans stay ’til the end,” it said. And I wasn’t going anywhere. An inning later, Ruben Tejada was hit by a pitch, Kirk Nieuwenhuis singled, the runners moved to second and third on an errant throw, and Marlon Byrd drove them both home. And the real fans were there to see it.

Real fans stay ’til the end — it’s such a simple sentiment, and one that could be so obvious, but somehow, never holds true. People are always leaving. The seventh or eighth inning ends, and people head for the exits, no matter the score. Sometimes, there’s a reason, and even real fans can be excused for this; you have a child who’s fallen asleep, tomorrow is a school day, I’m going out to meet a friend. Sometimes, there’s a reason, but not a good one; the game is boring, the Mets are losing, the traffic is bad, the Mets suck. And sometimes, there’s no reason at all: people, it seems, have just taken to leaving baseball games, as if the rest of the game doesn’t matter and you’re only there to watch a few innings and then move on to another activity.

Sometimes, you have to leave. But the important thing is that real fans — real Mets fans — never want to leave. You leave for the kids, or for the parents, or for your friend who has to catch an early train tomorrow, or your friend who’s just tired. Leaving with a friend is a kind of loyalty just like staying until the end is, and it’s one of the few kinds that’s just as important. But leaving when it’s not absolutely essential — I can’t even imagine that.

It was 2004 the first time I was dragged away from a Mets game against my will. Heath Bell was pitching, and it was Shea, so as we walked toward the exit ramps, I got quick glances at the field each time we passed the entrance to a new section. I didn’t want to leave; even then, I had my priorities in order. I was crying as we drove away from the stadium, and my mom promised me that next time, no matter how long the game went, we’d stay until the last out.

***

Lots of things make Mets fans unique. There’s the connection I’m convinced is unparalleled; the personal investment in our team’s fortunes; the attachment to the club that lets itself out on twitter amusingly and sometimes downright alarmingly. But there’s also the loyalty. That may be what defines us. Because more than anything else, Mets fans are loyal.

They’re always asking us what makes a Mets fan, and we’re always telling them. But they never seem to believe us. We pour our hearts out explaining how we’re truer, bluer, and closer to our team than anyone else in the league, or the country, and at the end of it all, they scoff, or crack a Jason Bay joke, and we realize they were only laughing at us. We explain how much we’ve been through, and how, after it all, we still manage to troop out to the ballpark for another game, and somehow, it doesn’t seem to register at all.

Maybe that’s because every city and every fan base feels closer to their team than anyone. I certainly won’t tell fans of the San Diego Padres that we’re better fans than they are; that would be mean-spirited, and frankly irresponsible. Somewhere in San Diego tonight, there’s a kid listening to sports radio on a transistor under his pillow as he pretends to be asleep, hoping desperately that he’ll hear something about his ballclub. There are good, loyal, die-hard fans in every city that has a team, and some that don’t.

But that same loyalty could be exactly why Mets fans are different. Lots of fans of all kinds of teams are loyal because that’s how they are. Mets fans are loyal because we’ve become that way — after submitting ourselves to the grueling rigors of Mets fandom, we come out, whatever’s left of us, as bastions of loyalty to a team we love unconditionally. We have to, if we’re going to put up with the shenanigans they put on.

Really — how can you be a Mets fan and not be a loyal one? If you’re a Mets fan — that is, if you’re still a Mets fan — you’ve been through head-pounding, face-palming nonsense from all sides. From the owners — Bernie Madoff, Bobby Bonilla, Jeff Wilpon getting sued, Citi Field forgetting it was the Mets who played there. From the players — valley fever, refusing MRIs, taxi accidents, brawls with onlooking relatives. And from people whose names fans of ordinary teams don’t even know — Ray Ramirez, Mike Barwis, Jay Horwitz, Eric Langill, Charlie Samuels, Tony Bernazard — Tony Bernazard! Ordinary fans don’t deal with things like this, and Mets fans aren’t ordinary fans. If you’re still here after everything we’ve been through, you’ve proven your loyalty beyond a reasonable doubt.

I own lots of shirts from The 7 Line, but somehow, I don’t believe they have one with their slogan printed on it. If they do, I don’t have it yet. “Loyal ’til the last out,” it would say, loudly and proudly across the front. Which means: you can leave after the sixth, and grab some friends and go out for a drink, and you’ll probably have a lot of fun doing it. Or you can stay in your seat in the upper deck during a 12-2 loss, and watch a reliever with a 7.29 E.R.A. pitch to some hitter whose name you’ve forgotten on a team that doesn’t even matter. Both are fine options. But if you want to be a true, orange and blue fan, you pick the second option.

***

“Loyal ’til the last out” is good. It’s better than good; it’s great, and it’s essential. But it’s only a starting point.

Sometimes, it’s easy to be loyal ’til the last out, when everything is good and the last out is cause for celebration. It was certainly easy to refrain from leaving early in 2015, when usually, the last out meant we’d won. In winning seasons, even when the last out means one game hasn’t fallen your way, it also usually means that you can look forward to another win tomorrow.

Hell, even in a bad year, it’s easy enough to stay until the game ends. Well, it’s easy enough for me; usually, I find that ballgames, even the worst ones you can imagine, go by far too quickly. But even for people who find baseball dull — they really exist, and I can’t stand them — staying for the entirety of one game isn’t usually too trying a task.

Real Mets fans, the truest among us, are loyal to the last out, and then more. We’re loyal to the next week, the next month, the next season. If you’re loyal to the last out, or the next game, only so long as the Mets are winning…well, so long, it was nice to have you. Here’s some news: the Mets aren’t winning very often. We’re all still here. We’re not loyal to the last out — we’re loyal to the last breath. Morbid? Sure. But there’s nothing I can imagine turning off my devotion to Mets baseball, nor many of the fans I’ve encountered, so it seems fairly accurate.

The loyalty Mets fans have showed sometimes impresses even me — and I’ve showed it myself (I like to think). Think about it. Starting in 2004, we witnessed an almost embarrassingly bad trade of our hottest pitching prospect, a pitcher whose party-prone wife couldn’t handle New York, a pitcher who was disappointed but not devastated, a 3:00 a.m. call to the West Coast, a season wracked by injury after injury after injury, a new ballpark whose dimensions were a joke and whose aesthetics were almost nonsensical, several players who were so bad they defy description (Oliver Perez, Francisco Rodriguez, Luis Castillo), Jason Bay, a five-way race for the second-baseman’s job that landed on Brad Emaus — Brad Emaus! — and a first baseman who returned only to be named an HGH user, a star pitcher who threw a no-hitter only to injure himself by the end of the month and never pitch again, owners shedding payroll after being involved with the largest Ponzi scheme in history, a star third baseman who, in the midst of legging out an infield hit, injured himself and hasn’t been the same since, the antics of Jose Valverde and Kyle Farnsworth, Terry Collins making decision after decision that may have cost us a World Series trophy, a heartbreaking loss in a wildcard game, and another season that fell apart after multiple injuries, and turned into our worst season since 2009.

My head hurts reading and writing that. And yet I’m still here, Mets cap and jacket at the ready, hoping like hell that the offseason passes quickly so I can get back to Citi Field and watch Mets baseball again.

We’re all still here, for the same reason that we’re still in the stands in the ninth inning of a game we have no shot at winning: it’s still baseball. It’s still Mets baseball. We’re Mets fans. We watch the Mets, and we love every moment of it, even the ones that are really unbearable. What else are we going to do?

***

Why do we love David Wright so much?

Is it because of his offense? His defense? The way he carries himself off the field? His beautiful smile? Well, those all play their parts. But I don’t think any of them explains it in full.

It’s not just his offense or his defense: Mike Piazza had better offensive numbers as a Met, and lots of people have been better defenders. It’s not his gleaming smile: we’ve had — maybe — better looking guys than David (have we? I can’t think of any, but we must have). And it’s not just his off-the-field bearing: David sure is a boy scout, but we’ve had lots of those. David Wright is quite possibly the most beloved New York Met since Tom Seaver — why?

Well, maybe it’s because we know what loyalty means to us. We, the loyal Mets fans, appreciate loyalty too. We’ve sat through the bad hoping for the good, and out there, playing third or stretching out in the clubhouse or rehabbing his back and his shoulder, David has done the same. Really, he’s just like one of us: He stays ’til the end because he’s a Met. That’s what he is, so that’s what he’ll do.

Not to bash Tom Seaver, but David may be the most loyal Met in team history. When ownership got tired of the Franchise, Tom demanded a trade. When Fred Wilpon said that David wasn’t a superstar, David signed an eight year contract.

As a child, I looked at David Wright and saw a star, a legend, an icon. I look at him now, and I still see all that. But I see something else too.

David Wright is a Mets fan. There’s no other way to tell it. He opted to stay here, in Queens, at a discount rate, because he was loyal to this team. His team. He wanted to win a championship — he said as much. But he wanted to win it as a Met.

David Wright, our captain and, it seems, our fellow loyal fan.

So why do Mets fans love this? Because we’re loyal too. David’s here to stay. So are we. And we respect that. Just look at David’s remarks after he signed the contract that was all but guaranteed to make him one of the longest tenured Mets in club history. He’s talking straight to the most loyal of the fans.

“I can honestly say I’ve never pictured myself in a different uniform,” he said, echoing what we fans think all the time, especially when someone’s asking what we’re doing rooting for a team that makes us pull our hair out. I’ve never pictured myself in a different uniform either; I’ll wear the orange and blue, with as much pride as I can muster, whether there’s anything to be proud of or not. And David Wright echoed that, when he said, at the same press conference, “I knew this was where I wanted to be. It made the decision pretty easy. I think that my friends and family knew that putting this uniform on was important to me, start to finish.”

He knew this was where he wanted to be; so did I. So do all the fans who wait out the ninth inning of an unsalvageable game because it’s a few more minutes at Citi Field with our guys. And putting on the uniform is important to us too.

There’s another quote that I remember, maybe from the same press conference, but I can’t find the source. It seems like something David would say, though, so I think I have it right. It’s pretty simple; in fact, I can only remember the first half.

“I’ve been through some good,” he says, “some bad, and a whole lot of ugly.” Then he goes on to explain that good things are coming, and he’s going to keep working hard, and eventually, all that work will pay off. And as you listen to something like that, it becomes clear.

David Wright is more than our captain, our third baseman, our star, our favorite player — he’s all of us. He’s every Mets fan. And there he is, sitting in the upper deck in a game that hasn’t gone his way, not leaving, but looking forward to tomorrow, or next month, or next season, when maybe fortunes will turn his way again. But I get the feeling that he’ll be here with us regardless. We’ll be here to watch, no matter how the season’s going, and he’ll be here to play. He’s a Met. We’re Mets fans. What else would he do?

I’ve been reading Garrison Keillor’s column in the Washington Post lately; maybe you have too. You should be, because it’s a gem, nothing more or less. There’s something about rhythmic, lyrically arranged words on a page or a screen that makes your mind relax and your heart smile, and soon the day passes you’re saving your files and gathering your things, happy to be heading home.

I found myself thinking, the other day, about time travel. I’m no scientist, and this wasn’t a pipe dream or science fiction; this was a column Garrison Keillor wrote the other day, or the other week, about spaces where time doesn’t pass. The Grand Central Oyster Bar, he wrote. I would add: Fenway Park, Strand bookstore on 12th Street, the den when my brother and my father and I watch The Honeymooners, and maybe the beach we used to go on Summer weekends, before life got in the way.

I’d just gotten home from Washington for Thanksgiving; I was on my way out the door, in a Porzingis jersey, to see the Knicks. My girlfriend, Emily, was there too; she’d just gotten in from Michigan, and she was wearing a Porzingis jersey, on her way out our door to see the Knicks. I was rummaging around on a shelf in my closet, looking for a Knicks hat, but never quite finding the letters or logos I wanted, even though there was plenty of orange and blue. And that’s when the time travel started.

I picked up my Shea Stadium cap, limited edition, one of only 144 ever made, constructed from baseball leather with red stitching, and it was the end of the 2014 season. We were mediocre, but on the upswing. I was in a hotel room in Boston on Saturday night, and the next day, as our season was ending, I walked around Harvard Yard and then went to Fenway Park and saw the Red Sox play the Yankees while I wore a Mets shirt. Talk about time never passing. I never wear that cap; it’s mostly ceremonial. I put it aside.

A group of caps took me back even further. The old Veteran’s Day camo, my first classic blue and orange, the interview cap with stylistic rips on the brim, the orange-brimmed alternate that David Wright wore when he announced his re-signing…it was December 2012 or so, and I was in the process of becoming independent. I bought the caps my heroes wore, or the ones that looked good…either way. For the first time, I was buying my own tickets, going to my own games, filling my own metro cards. And it felt good, even if Frank Francisco at the back end of the bullpen didn’t do much to fill any seats besides mine. I lingered on those caps for a while, but I was still looking for a Knicks hat, so I kept rifling through.

I kept finding different caps and different memories. There was my green cap, the time I forced my way through St. Patrick’s Day Parade traffic to make it to the Mets Clubhouse Store; my updated classic home blue, with the 2015 World Series patch; the rest of the caps from the 2015 postseason, remnants of a hopeful, fist-pumping few months that has yet to come to full fruition; a battered, dusty black cap that I bought at a Lids in New Hampshire in July of 2011, during one of the most interesting weeks of my life. I didn’t find a Knicks hat, but I did remember all the Mets caps I’d been missing.

I don’t have a Mets cap in Washington. I forgot to bring one, or we didn’t have space in the car; really, it could have been anything. It probably didn’t seem consequential, at the time. I wear a suit four or five days a week, and on the weekends I’m here and there, back and forth, and nobody seems to notice what I wear. But you remember how great it is to wear a Mets cap, when you wear one for the first time in a while; the slight, tight pressure around the side of your head (7 1/4 fits pretty snugly when my hair is long, as it is now in anticipation of winter), is a constant, comfortable reminder that you’re a proud Mets fan, and the entire world can see it. You can feel the orange and blue, or the “Mets,” or the cartoon Mr. Met, shining out at the world, and you know that whatever else may happen, you’re happy to be yourself. So I’ll be bringing a cap back to Washington with me, or maybe a few.

We saw the Knicks, and then it was Thanksgiving, and then we saw the Rangers, and they were two great wins. Then, Saturday night, we saw School of Rock, the musical, and it was a win as well. We fought our way through Times Square crowds for eight blocks because the 50th Street Subway Station was closed, and finally we got on the express uptown and got out at 96th Street and went to find a diner. As we were walking, we passed a man I didn’t know, wearing a thick blue jacket with a hood, and under the hood, I could just see the bottom of an orange NY.

I don’t even know what it was; his clothes, or the way he was walking, or the temperature outside, or something. But suddenly it was 2004 again, and I was just becoming a Mets fan, and I was noticing whenever adults or cool kids wore Mets caps, and the graphics at Shea were still stuck in the ‘90s, but were all the better for it. We got to a diner with walls covered in photos of old New York, but somehow, we sat near the front, and our walls were nearly bare, so my illusion didn’t waver, and for a while after that, I kept thinking about how it must have been in the early 2000s, when the Mets were a powerhouse that could never deliver, and when it was still okay to be a Mets fan, and we still had some names and some stars and some fun moments, but everyone realized we were sunk. Those weren’t exactly high points in Mets history, but it was fun to think about nonetheless, because there were scores of baseball memories to pore over, and outside, it was so cold it could have been snowing.

Then the night ended, and the new day began, and soon enough I was standing at Laguardia airport, waving goodbye and saying “See you in January” as Emily got on a plane back to Michigan. I took the  cap I was wearing off my head and looked at it, and it was one of the new ones, high tech fiber and all, and all of a sudden it was November 2017, and the Mets were coming off 92 losses and wouldn’t play again for four months. And that put me down for a second. Then I saw a plush David Wright doll in an airport store window, and bought it as a Christmas gift. The lights of Citi Field were just visible in the mirrors as we drove away from the airport, and towards the 2018 season. Maybe I’ll get a new cap then, and a season’s worth of memories to go with it. And as I’ve been learning recently, four months is next to nothing.

I haven’t made any secret of my qualms with the BBWAA. The organization has proven itself inconsistent, often misinformed, and almost indecently condescending to the fans for whom they write. There’s been improvement recently, as the world comes to accept advanced statistics and those who don’t slowly leave the BBWAA’s ranks, but the Hall of Fame’s voting body is far from perfect.

That’s why debate about Carlos Beltran’s future Hall of Fame candidacy began the moment — or perhaps, before the moment — he announced his retirement, and will continue until the day he is inducted or removed from the ballot. As CBS Sports reported this week:

Whenever a high-caliber player retires, the obvious question that follows is whether or not they will be inducted into the Hall of Fame once they become eligible. With Carlos Beltran announcing his retirement on Monday, thus ending a 20-year career that was capped by his first World Series victory, this represents as good of a time as any to take a look at his candidacy.

The short version is that Beltran has a legitimate case for enshrinement. The long version is that Beltran has a legitimate case for enshrinement, but could become a polarizing figure on the ballot.

Sure, Beltran never reached 500 home runs, 3000 hits, or an MVP award. But as we’ve come to learn, those numbers don’t matter. Carlos Beltran belongs in the Hall of Fame. The BBWAA, I think, will recognize this — eventually — but it’s worth going over just how strong his case is.

Here is a list of players with 400 career home runs and 300 stolen bases: Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez, and Andre Dawson. Four Hall of Famers. Oh, and Carlos Beltran, whose numbers are equal to or better than Dawson’s in almost every conceivable way, both traditional and sabermetric.

Andre Dawson: .279/.323/.482, 438 HR, 314 SB, 64.5 WAR

Carlos Beltran: .279/.350/.486, 435 HR, 312 SB, 69.8 WAR

And, of course, Beltran did it as a switch-hitter. Can you name another switch-hitter with 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases? Me neither — tell that to the next person who says that Beltran “didn’t make his mark on the game,” or whatever the argument is these days.

And let’s not forget about Beltran’s other claim to fame: his postseason numbers. Looking at Beltran’s playoff career, compared to other players of his caliber, he becomes even more impressive:

Beltran: .307/.412/.609, 16 HR, 11 SB

Dawson: .186/.238/.237, 0 HR, 2 SB

Mays: .247/.323/.337, 1 HR, 3 SB

Bonds: .245/.433/.503, 9 HR, 9 SB

Rodriguez: .259/.365/.457, 13 HR, 8 SB

So, for those of you keeping score at home: Carlos Beltran has better postseason numbers than several of the greatest hitters of all time, is the best power/speed switch hitter of all time, has better career numbers than an already-enshrined player of identical type, and, lest we forget, won three Gold Gloves. So, if you’re going to argue that Beltran didn’t do enough to merit Hall of Fame induction, I have one question: what more does a power/speed switch hitter need to do?

This being the offseason, and the Mets being the Mets, it’s no surprise that we’re simultaneously being treated to A) rumors that the Mets are in on all the hottest free agent commodities, and B) explanations as to why these rumors cannot possibly be true. It’s a tradition about as old as free agency itself, which encompasses names as varied as Michael Bourn, Aroldis Chapman, and Norihiro Nakamura. But this time, it’s different — the rumors are even more salacious than usual, and even more enticing.

It’s hard to look at Shohei Ohtani and see anything but greatness. He’s 23 years old, has pitched like a superstar in Japan for the last three years, and is an offensive force. He’s been called Japan’s Babe Ruth, but that seems an insult to his physique, if nothing else. Shohei Ohtani is the real deal — you don’t need to look at a list of suitors (which is, for the most part, just a list of every baseball team) to know that.

That’s why it was disappointing when, during the 2017 season, the Mets neglected to send a scout to watch Ohtani in person. And it’s also why it was pleasantly surprising, and vaguely electrifying, to wake up to this reporting from Newsday:

Mets officials know that the competition will be fierce for Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani. They begin the process with the understanding that they’ll likely be long shots to win a battle that includes most every other team in baseball.

Yet, general manager Sandy Alderson on Wednesday did not hide his level of intrigue in Ohtani, the pitching and hitting dual-threat star who has been hailed as the Japanese equivalent of Babe Ruth.

“There’s still a lot to be learned to be in his situation and how it potentially will unfold,” Alderson said before departing the general managers’ meetings. “But to sit here today and say ‘no, we’re not interested,’ would be foolish.”

Several things are obvious, right off the bat. There’s no chance, none in the world, that Shohei Ohtani lands in Queens, except maybe at Laguardia Airport on his way to the Bronx. The Mets have played this game before, recently enough that we can all remember it: as far as I can remember, the Mets have expressed moderate interest in roughly every high-level free agent ever, and as the record will attest, our success rate has been far from optimal.

But I’m a Mets fan — aren’t we all? I’ve learned to get over past disappointments, and forge on into tomorrow still expecting the best. With this team, after all, getting over past disappointments isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. And we know it, and they know it too — why else would this ludicrous, infeasible interest in Shohei Ohtani be making the rounds just as the winter starts to get cold, if not to jog interest in a fanbase that’s proven itself gullible time and again?

Well, maybe there’s another reason — and here, gullible time and again comes into distinct focus. Maybe it’s real. Maybe, this time, it’s the real thing.

Time for some disclosure: I’m all-in on Shohei Ohtani. I can’t think of anything I want more than to see him wearing the orange and blue in Queens next March. Do I like the homegrown group of talent we’ve cobbled together? Sure — who doesn’t? But I also liked 2006, when we put together a team of overpaid free agent superstars and kicked opponents to the curb every night. Maybe 2006 was too much of a good thing, as 2009-2014 indicated — but there’s got to be a balance. And in that balance, right in that grey area that’s not too organically assembled and not too dream-teamy, Shohei Ohtani is waiting.

We can tweet and comment and grouse as much as we like about how we’ll never see the likes of Shohei Ohtani again, but what we’re unable to do is conceal just how much we want him. How much we want a superstar who’s sold out the stadium before he’s thrown a pitch, a player whose jersey starts appearing all over the five boroughs you can’t help but be excited. An established superstar, with nothing to prove and everything to show off. It’s been a while since we’ve had one of those, and I’d say the time is ripe for another.

And I know, there’s no chance in hell that it happens. But consider this my formal plea. Mets management: give us hope. Give us a spark. Give us a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and give us something to dream about at night. Give us a wing, a prayer, and a rocket powered arm.

Give us Shohei Ohtani. And let the dreaming commence.