GODHELPTHEMETS2002

As of the morning of October 18th, 2024, the New York Mets are down 3-1 in the NLCS with one loss to the Dodgers ending their run to the World Series. Until they are eliminated, I’m reliving stories from my childhood that explain away my ardent allegiance and connection to the Amazins’. The next several articles will reflect these stories.

I remember the first time pledging allegiance to a dysfunctional baseball team.

I was 11 years old, innocent enough to let WFAN talk shows and NYPost back pages do my thinking for me. I had yet to understand that beyond the hype of signing incoming ballplayers via free agency and the hope they’d bring to the team, there were other aspects beyond a resume of accolades that go into formulating a winning ballclub. I had yet to learn about variables like team chemistry, ego checks, and alignment on the same mission; Playing healthy, playing to win, playing for greater purpose other than conning someone to give you a heavy paycheck.

All I had believed about the foundation for a successful team was that gathering a group of players who had proven they could hit a lot of home runs, drive in a lot of runners, and score a lot of runs would translate to an on-field winner.

Thus, I assumed the 2002 version of the Mets would be an incredible juggernaut. This would be the team to dismantling the Braves as perennial division favorites and perhaps evoke World Series aspirations. After all, the Mets improved immensely in the offseason - signing half their starting lineup with former and present All-Stars.  

How could an outfielder who hit .313 with 66 steals 3 years ago on his first stint with the Mets, plus a future Cooperstown inductee, plus a former MVP, plus a former All-Star…..well, how could that all add up to mediocrity?

Alas this was the infuriating case of the 2002 Mets, when Roger Cedeno, Roberto Alomar, Mo Vaughn, and Jeromy Burnitz taught me there is more to winning than the collective statistics on their trading cards. 

These four offseason acquisitions were being added to a starting lineup with yet another future Hall of Famer (Mike Piazza) and an overall squad who had won the NL pennant just two years prior.

Somehow to the shock of my fragile adolescent mind and spirit, I would soon learn that “more doesn’t mean more” and what I thought I knew wasn’t true. 

Opening Day 2002 coincided with a family vacation at Club Med in Florida. My parents were treating the vacation as a venture into new activities and freedoms with my mom learning trapeze, my sister taking tennis lessons, and my dad helping himself to much soft serve ice cream to compensate for his inability to indulge in the resort's immaculate array of pastries (alas it was Passover). 

I, on the other hand, didn’t need activities to feel preoccupied. I was happy to be cooped up in our hotel room, excited I could watch the Mets being broadcast nationally on ESPN.

Facing the forlorn Pirates who had previously lost 100 games in 2001, the 2002 Mets took the field with an optimistic energy. The hope could’ve led to a moniker of the “New Mets” as Carlos Beltran would coin three years later. 

The Mets handily won the first game with my most vivid memory being Alomar’s 8th inning opposite field bloop single, plopping between the sprinting infielders and right fielder. The bases loaded hit scored two, giving the Mets a cushion to safeguard a 6-2 victory. 

The following day, I was back at it - sitting on my hotel twinbed hoping these new look Mets would repeat yesterday’s result. Initially promising, Mo Vaughn gave the Mets an early lead with his first homer as a Met and 400th for his career.

I thought this was a great sign of things for Vaughn’s season…. little did I know. 

The Mets would lose that game 5-3 as well as the rubber match 3-2. This revamped offense - one who had received the most hype this offseason - had squeaked together 11 runs against the league’s 3rd worst ERA.

The Mets lost a home series to the pit of the National League….not a good omen. 

A month prior to Opening Day, my friends had introduced me to AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM for short. In anticipation of a prosperous Mets season, I created my AIM username sheinynym. The prefix of sheiny (pronounced “shiny”) was my nickname due to my last name Sheinman and the suffix of nym was the acronym for New York Mets. 

The nym in my handle was intended as a source of pride, not only displaying my fandom but also a resonance with the excellence this team would no-doubt soon embody.

But over the next few months, the team created a humiliating disservice to my AIM namesake. The Mets became a cornucopia of middling, angst-inducing, and putrid feebleness. 

It was an uninspired and baseless .500 team, completely underachieving relative to their acquired talent.

I was just 11 years old, but somehow dealing with confusion over anger. 

Why wasn’t this a great team? How had I been sold on this false future? Where was my clear misunderstanding about types of players needed to formulate a winner? 

I kept my sheinynym moniker throughout August, but forsook it after the Mets hit rock bottom. It was an August to not just forget, but to dismantle, burn, and never speak of again…..I guess until now.

The Mets August record of 6-21 felt like a fever dream, walking through a Dali painting of amorphous, incongruous amalgamations of has-been ballplayers who seemed to have tricked GM Steve Phillips into believing that they were a) professionals and b) played to win the game.

This franchise had poor months in recent history, but it was impossible to stoop lower than in August 2022. There is no number of wins lower than zero, which is the amount of wins the Mets had at Shea, setting an MLB record for most losses (13) without a win at home for one month. 

I had had enough.

The coping with four prior months of denial had now turned into acceptance, morphing into self-deprecation.

On September 1st, I changed my AIM name from sheinynym to GODHELPTHEMETS2002.

Yes, GODHELPTHEMETS2002 - a wry cry for help met with an honest plea. 

But what exactly did I desire from this plea?

Q1: Why include 2002 in the name since the 2002 Mets were almost eliminated from postseason contention and clearly unsalvageable?

A1: Perhaps, I added in 2002 because it was the first year I ever made this request. I knew 2002 was kaput and I might need to bank the request for the following years.

Q2: Also why ask help from God instead from the GM, Manager, or owners?

A2: Having attended Jewish Day School for a few years now - participating in a curriculum with daily scheduled prayers, lectures and exams about the Old Testament - God was a large part of my day to day. I was a believer.

Q3: Why use the word help? Why not use God’s omnipotency as an opening to make myself more transparent? How about God “save” or dare I go unapologetically all in - “GODMAKETHEMETSWIN2002”

A3: I must have accepted “God help the Mets” had a good ring to it….which it still does. Plus if the big man in the sky existed, He could read between the foul lines of what I implied. 

Let young Adam Sheinman feel what it’s like for the Mets to win - to generate positive emotions to cultivate in the present and stow them away into a warm memory bank to reflect on for a lifetime. 

It would take years for my plea to be answered. Four years until a postseason berth, thirteen years for a World Series appearance.

If God does exist, He provided some assistance. He pulled me out of this 2002 netherworld haze into more joyful, cherished, heartwarming moments to be shared and relived with others. 

We are currently one loss away from ending our magical 2024 season, but as of now - 22 years later removed my notorious AIM name, we will soon know if God is ready to outdo Himself.