We linked that Mets “fan letter” or “loyalty oath” or whatever that thing was yesterday. And, as we said yesterday, it may be a bit weird as far as these things go — teams don’t often pen open letters to their fans like that — but it’s really no different than any other sort of fan outreach, marketing or what have you. The Red Sox have convinced their fans they’re part of a Great Nation. The Yankees have crafted this grand fiction of a “Yankees Universe” in which class and history and nobility exist in the Bronx unlike they exist anyplace else. If you examine the stuff that led to those now-accepted tropes, they’d look kinda silly too.
But the Mets’ effort has sparked a pretty big backlash. The biggest I’ve seen comes from Mike Vaccaro in the Post who calls it “clueless” and “insulting” and calls the Mets “dense” for even bothering. He says it’s an “affront” to real fans. It’s quite a screed.
It just feels like a Mets pile-on to me. For years the Mets have done dumb things and that has led to a lot of “Dumb Mets!” or, in the parlance of Twitter “LOLMETS!” commentary. But it’s gotten to the point where people autopilot to that without, I think, actually trying to figure out if the thing they’re mocking is really all that mockworthy.
I don’t think this letter is. I don’t think it’s some masterstroke in public relations, but it’s no worse than what a lot of other teams do. Why it is creating such a furor among some I have no idea.
