On the demands of baseball fandom

Suffering through the Los Angeles Dodgers' brutal four-game sweep of the New York Mets last week was enough to shock me into the realization that this could be a losing season for the Amazin's. Of course, any reasonable human being would have concluded this long ago, but I like to think that fandom requires logic as only one part of its greater, more complex whole.

Thus, I--as, I imagine, many Mets fans have--have nursed the feeling that this season still holds promise. After all, my first favorite baseball player, Jose Reyes, is back and speedy as ever. Asdrúbal Cabrera can clearly play a mean second base. Yoenis Céspedes and his clutch-ness is locked in for years to come. Jay Bruce is raking and has, in a wildly unpredictable way, become the face and voice of the Mets' locker room. Curtis Granderson has kicked his early slump and blasted ahead to a .300-plus batting average in the second half of the season, according to a recent SNY report. Lucas Duda is at first and Wilmer Flores continues to flirt with .300 and Michael Conforto has made good on his two-years-ago potential and Rene Rivera continues to be a beast.

It should be an exciting time to be a fan of the Mets!

Instead, we've been treated to nightly pre- and post-game reviews of defensive inadequacies and an ever-lengthening list of injuries that threatens to derail a once-promising season but also promises to foster a parade of new faces to meet and learn about and allow us to be inspired to hope. The Mets' starting rotation has been hit hard by injuries, and with Robert Gsellman leaving tonight' game against Miami, there is only one original Mets starter who has not been hit by the injury bug--though I can't bring myself to mention his name here, for fear of courting superstitious disaster.

This all brings me to an essential question: what is fandom, and what are its demands?

In the simplest sense, being a fan should mean rooting for your team despite their place in the standings and being proud to support the players and, overall, the team that you've either grown up watching or grown to love. Taken another way, however, there are reasonable expectations of any major league team, and when they fail to meet them, shouldn't fans have a right to indignation and profanity? There is perhaps something healthy in this, as in expressing frustration and venting through sports in a way that is untenable or inappropriate in everyday life. Still, how much of a fan are you if you only support your team when it is winning. That seems awfully convenient...

My takeaway tonight--after watching the Mets lose Gsellman to a hamstring injury and lose the game due to a number of reasons--is that baseball fandom is complicated and demands a commitment of the spirit that is challenging. Unlike football fans, baseball fans don't receive a retrieve until next week. Instead, we have a mere 24 hours before our favorite team takes center stage once more for better or for worse. This is frustrating and maddening, yet it is also exciting and promising.

So, yes, I choose to hope: the Mets couldn't beat the Marlins tonight, but they might tomorrow and the next night. And if they can, then they could work their way back to .500. And yet, that doesn't matter as much as it could or should, because whether they do or don't recover this season, I'm going to keep on watching and rooting and that has to mean something in and of itself.

Doesn't it?