The through line of institutional memory for that segment of Baseball New York that cares for the Mets is a consistent one: a 64-year loop of head scratches and facepalms and shoulder shrugs intermittently interrupted by moments of rapture every bit as surprising as they are fleeting. This is really not even up for debate. That’s simply the way it is. It’s the way it always has been. 

Sometimes, that can be misinterpreted as acceptance. But it never is. There is mythology now that Mets fans got a kick out of every one of the 737 games the team lost in its first seven years of existence, but that fable doesn’t hold up with what life as a Mets fan was really like. It was hard. It was frustrating. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as it’s been portrayed. 

Same as the Grant’s Tomb Mets of the 1970s. 

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Same as the Bobby Bo Mets of the 1990s.