The Nose Knows Not What He Thinks He Knows

Jon Niese apparently got into a little hot water today. Here is a conversation he had with Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York … who is usually on the Yankees beat:

“What do I think of Met fans?” Niese said with a laugh. “That’s a good question. I really don’t know except they want their team to win, pretty much like any other fan. That is pretty much all I know.” When it was pointed out to him that Mets fans have stuck with their team through a lot of bad times, Niese questioned the sentiment. “How can you say that?” Niese said. “We are not filling the stadium. Where are the Mets fans when we are down-and-out? They were here in ’06 and ’07 when we were really good, but we have struggled and they are not coming to the stadium.”

Sure, maybe Jon Niese should have played it safe and said “Mets fans are wonderful.” But he was truthful. He was honest. And it runs deeper than honesty … it’s honesty with a limited scope. How could any of us expect a baseball player … especially a Met … to understand the nuance of the Mets fan outside of how many show up to the games? Jon Niese has never had the opportunity to mingle with the Met fan because this isn’t the 1960’s where players would just randomly show up to the Patchogue LIRR station and say hello to regular folk. Why should he? Him and his ilk have never been encouraged to socialize with the everyday Met fan unless it was sponsored by Citi. Don’t blame Jon Niese, blame the organization for not getting current players involved with something like the 50th Anniversary conference at Hofstra or the Queens Baseball Convention or other events that could have really strengthened the bond between players and fans and ensured that when a player thinks of the fan base, the first person that comes to mind isn’t Aryn Leroux.

Of course, we’ll remember this after Niese is traded to the Cardinals and we get the inevitable Jon Niese quote about how Cardinal fans are the greatest human beings to ever walk the earth. You know, the same crap we hear every time the Mets visit St. Louis.

The real point in the Marchand piece that more people should be talking about is why Mets fans accept mediocrity. But that’s another post for another time.