It’s not easy being a Mets fan. Sure, you’ve
heard about the lovable losers on the north
side of Chicago, the Cubs, who broke a 100-
plus year drought and won the World Series
this past October, making the curse of the Billy
Goat obsolete. Then you have the Boston Red
Sox, whose fans were tortured by the Curse of the
Bambino, but now they’re a mini-dynasty, having
won three championships since 2004. And there
are plenty of teams that haven’t sniffed a World
Series victory.
However, there’s something about being a
Mets fan that tests the patience, raises the blood
pressure, causing fans to lose sleep, talk hours
on end on how to fix whatever issues plague them
during a particular year, call their favorite host on
WFAN to vent. The obsession and paranoia are also
what makes Mets fans the most passionate, if not
the kindest.
Could you blame them? They’re tormented by
friends and family that root for the historic and
more often than not, more successful New York
Yankees, the most popular team in all of sports.
They have nearly 30 championship rings to brag
about, even if most of them were won before
most of us were born. Mets fans are the scrappy,
underappreciated little brother that, when
successful, captivates a city in no way any team
could. Not even the Yankees. 1969 and 1986 were
owned by the team from Flushing.
Of course those surges are few and far between
but that’s what makes them more special. Fans
savor those precious highs.
You’ll always find a more passionate, learned
and dedicated Mets fan. They’re that insane for
their team. But you’d be hard pressed to find a
better one than Greg Prince, a writer and editor,
who has been a fan since 1969 when he was six.
Perhaps he brought those Miracle Mets luck.
Prince, along with partner Jason Fry, founded
Faith and Fear in Flushing in 2005, an exceptional
Mets blog in a world where these types of sites
come and go. Prince offers not only recaps, but
feelings on a loss or win, and offers deep insight.
Sure, the stats are there. But this site speaks to the
fans in a way no other has.
His love brought him to writing three Mets books,
his latest about just the second New York Met to
be inducted into the Hall of Fame donning a Mets
cap on the plaque, Mike Piazza. Finally, in 2016,
fans had someone other than Tom Seaver to call
their immortal player. Sure, the Mets have had Hall
of Fame players. However, whether it was Pedro
Martinez, Tom Glavine (sore subject), the late and
great Gary Carter, they all went to Cooperstown
affiliated with different organizations. Piazza
getting in was and still is a big deal for fans.
However, it wasn’t an easy process. When is
it with Mets fans? Due to playing in the era of
performance-enhancing drugs, there was always
suspicion, unfairly or not, that Piazza could’ve
have cheated his way to being the greatest hitting
catcher in the game. There was no evidence, but
there were whisperings, which it isn’t fair to punish
him for. After being on the ballot several times, he
finally got the call in 2016.
Prince penned Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon,
Star, a book that chronicles where the franchise
was before the all-star catcher came, how the team
was on the rise, but desperately needed that star
power to make a difference both on and off the
field. What followed was giving the team credibility
and excitement. I talked to Prince about the book
and the impact.
ON HIS MOTIVATION FOR THE BOOK
The instigator was his election to the Hall of
Fame in January of last year.
Every January that Piazza was on the ballot and
didn’t get elected, I was annoyed as a Mets fans.
And as an observer of all things Mets, I was taken
aback a little or surprised by the ferocity of the
reaction among my fellow fans. They were also
annoyed and disgusted. It seems to go beyond
disappointment and ‘we’ll get them next year and
too bad for Mike.’ There was something about the
connection Mets fans felt with Mike Piazza and how
we all seem to take it on some level personally that
he was suffering for the sins of others that were
suspected of PEDs and kind of lumped in there.
And also thinking about what it says about
Mets fans, sports fans, people. To me, it spoke to
the connection that Piazza has forged with us over
the years and how that was still strong, and also a
little bit about the process because I thought back
to the only other Met that went into the Hall as a
Met. When Seaver was on the Hall of Fame ballot,
not only did he go in unanimously the first time, we
knew it was coming. We didn’t get to do that with
Piazza.
We thought we would, but the whole PED thing
happened. Then it got me thinking that once he
went in, there was celebration among Mets fans
and everyone was excited about the upcoming
induction and the Mets acted quickly to retire his
number and he himself said the New York would be
on his cap because it was no sure thing. Putting it
all together, it struck me that this was an interesting
case study in how these things work and then it
occurred to me that Piazza’s career began within a
month of Seaver’s induction into the Hall of Fame
To me, it spoke
to the connection
that Piazza has
forged with us
over the years and
how that was still
strong, and also a
little bit about the
process because I
thought back to the
only other Met that
went into the Hall
as a Met.
which struck me as a happy accident. The
other actor in my thinking besides Seaver
and Piazza was the Mets themselves and
where they were 1992, late summer and how
they were falling apart as a franchise. All this
came together in my head in January, 2016
and I began to think I can write about it.
I pitched it to the same publisher who I
worked with on my previous book, Amazin’
Again about the 2015
Mets, and he was
all for it.
QNS.COM
SUMMER 2017 31