Spring Training is in The Air

Pitchers and Catchers today. When was the last time you were excited for this team to begin Spring Training. For quite a few years it has been almost a fake optimism with a brand new year. "The Mets are going to be good this year! We can take this!" Then the good cheer slowly erodes away. Then we get into the doldrums of a hot, boring, crappy summer, with the Mets stinking up the joint. This year, it isn't fake optimism. I actually sense cockiness. Mets fans are cocky! What a weird awesome feeling that this is. I haven't felt it since the 80's. Even when the Mets made the World Series in 2000, I knew we as fans weren't going to get back to that level in the playoffs. In the mid/late 2000's I felt the Mets were never going to really get into the World Series. This year, I feel the Mets have the best shot in a long time in getting back to the WORLD SERIES and possibly winning it. They have the ingredients for it. Pitching, hitting, defense, now let's see if they still have the make up this team had at the end of last season. I can't wait to be down in Port St. Lucie on March 4th to get back to seeing live baseball. Hanging out with 399 of my fellow 7Line Army folks basking in the FLA sun hearing the crack of the bat. The ball hitting the leather of the glove. The murmer of the crowd. This is going to be a fun year.

The Mets Spring Training Send Off.

Where to begin? I have to give it to the Mets for trying to come up with an event that would be fan friendly to kick off spring training and the 2016 season. But, that's where it ends. The Mets did not expect the amount of folks showing up for this event. I heard at last count they had 6500 RSVP's and then they just threw that out the window so more fans could show up. The good and bad of this. The Mets had no porto potties outside for the mass of people showing up, the lines made no sense where/how they were set up, when you exited the under five minute tour of the "come on move, move, move" of the security pushing you through the tour, you ended back at the beginning of the tour line where you couldn't really exit. Some of us mentioned it to security and they said, "what can we do?" They run out of t- shirts and ticket vouchers, the lines to the raffle tickets still went on as they were pulling tickets for prizes, and the staff in general seemed overwhelmed. My friends and I were there before 11am and were already on line before the 12 pm kickoff. I'm glad we got there early.

MJ says-

It was disorganized. someone was walking down 126th telling people to park in Lot A but yet no one was stopping anyone from going into Lot G. We were waiting on the raffle/voucher line but gave up because it was so disorganized. There wasn't really anyone giving direction or had info. I was basically told ... When you get to that area right there, just ask someone what line they are on. The idea itself was nice but for $10, you could do a Citi Field tour with less people and a timed entrance with dugout access. The whole RSVP was a joke. I think if you got there really early, it was worth it.

Becca-

It being pretty much solely outside was a nightmare. The clubhouse/dugout tour was unorganized and inconsistent (some could go into dugout, some didn't). The lines overlapped each other. After we did the tour and got Kranepool's autograph, we still waited 40 minutes for the raffle (partly bc the line was wrapped around and it was unclear how it was working). Guys in the store said they were told on FRIDAY they had to open today. In theory, it was a great concept. They either needed to strictly limit it to the RSVPs (the news got ahold of it, with no reference to RSVPing), or plan for a large crowd, especially with it being President's Day (I think it was a great idea to do it on the holiday because, generally, more people could go). It was super cold, too; they should've had it in the Rotunda and/or on the main concourse, if not the clubs.

-quotes courtesy of Dave's Mets Dugout BTW Mets if you need help with ideas with future events, I know a Baseball Convention group from Queens that can help out... Give us a shout.