Making The Call: The Citi Curse

Photo by Tien Mao

The 2009 Mets will wrap up their season next Sunday and mercifully put an end to a campaign that everyone will try and forget. But, before we bid these Mets goodbye, it’s worth wondering, why did the season fall apart so badly? Sure there were injuries at an amazing rate, but what caused those injuries? Perhaps you could say that the team was cursed?

Think back to February when everyone was urging the Mets to get rid of Citibank as the main sponsor of their new park. Remember “Taxpayer Field” and all the controversy? What if karma decided that in exchange for taking the $20 million a season the Mets would suffer cosmic retribution?

Would that explain the injuries to Reyes, Delgado and Beltran? Santana’s elbow problems? Minaya’s press conference stumbles? Bernazard’s shirtless tirade? Oliver Perez? The dropped pop up? Maybe it was all just some freaky coincidence, but just in case could we line up a new sponsor for next season. How about, Bank of America?

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By Peter Trinkle in News on September 27, 2009 5:50 PM

Comments [rss]

Mookie Wilson

Ummm...has anyone considered that the Mets cursed Citibank?

BongoBoy

I'm Calling It Shea was cursed on opening night when an orange cat ran out of the stands and took a lunge at Gov. Patterson, among others.

unregistered_wiseguy

Maybe it's the baseball gods punishing them for those ticket prices.

longacre

By that measure, the Yankees would have won 25 games.

saratoga mind

I can't believe no one in NYC figured it out: by extending homage`to ebbets field in their design they also got their mantra as a bonus:

'wait till next year'

dem bums!

ed_Extinct

The stadium is falling apart just like the team... Oh goodness!!!

longacre

Or in the immortal words of Suzyn Waldman, "OH GOODNESS GRACIOUS!!"

petemac

I think the NY Giants lost almost every defensive player to injuries in 2004... they won the Super Bowl three years later... it happens. More troubling is the fact that the players on the field gave up. That's a reason to fire the Mets manager. It's his job to get the the players he has to work hard every day.

John_Matrix

bababooey is to blame. after his crummy opening pitch the mets went from first to the toilet.

ides_of_march

What did they expect playing in a ballpark named for a failed bank that needed the taxpayers to bail their asses out?

dr zippy

Invoking a curse is lazy thinking and lets the Mets escape responsibility for their weaknesses. This is the 21st century not the 12th.

The majority of the Mets' problems this year arose because Minaya has put together a thin team with little in the way of a farm system. When the good players got hurt their replacements weren't of major league quality or even potential major league quality.

jaycjay

"The majority of the Mets' problems this year arose because Minaya has put together a thin team with little in the way of a farm system."

Exactly. Viable prospects were traded away in recent years in a gamble that the team was going to make a Series run with the pieces that those moves brought in. A shortsighted approach; roll the dice, sometimes you lose.

raji

If teams were cursed by the actions of their owners, like funding Watergate, the Yankees players would spontaneously combust opening day every year.

Then again, there were the 80s...

DFHdez

Metspolice did a piece on a likely Mets curse.

http://www.metspolice.com/2009/08/new-york-mets-should-honor-eddie-grant.html

jaycjay

Yeah, that's it. It's all because of a curse.

The curse of the incompetent GM.

"The dropped pop up?"

People make such a big deal of this. The fact is that over the course of a season there are scores of dropped popups. Just because this one resulted in an immediate loss and came against the Yankees, it's legendary.

But the same thing can happen in the first inning and still lead to a loss. And can happen in a meaningless game against any random opponent. Routine plays get blown all the time, even by superstars.