I hate these guys

Until last year, I'd been a Mets fan since 1964. For nearly 40 years, I allowed Mets baseball to pummel me senseless, and two years ago I finally swore I'd never go back. Then Mets baseball would come groveling around, with flowers and presents -- things like Keith Hernandez, or an entire young pitching staff, or a scrappy kid like Lenny Dykstra, and Mets baseball would swear it won't break my heart again, and I believed it every time.

Then the Mets would do something like trade away every good player on the team that didn't get along with Gregg Jefferies, only to realize later on that it was Gregg Jefferies who was the problem.

This went on for years. I wondered what was wrong with me and why I let them do this to me year after year after year. Oh, sure, Mets baseball and I had some good times, but was it really worth the heartbreak?

I finally left the Mets last year and spent the last year in a shelter for disillusioned Mets fans in an undisclosed location, but on the night before opening day this year, Mets Baseball found me, and boy, did it look hot, armed with two dozen roses, a beautiful diamond bracelet, Pedro's long, curly locks and Carlos' formidable biceps -- and I succumbed to its charms again, to the point where I engaged in a hot night of watching the WPIX "New Mets" promo program -- staying up too late just two days before having to drive 535 miles to North Carolina.

Then Mets Baseball beat the crap out of me by losing the first five games in a row, and I left again. Then tonight, they sent Aaron Heilman to woo me back -- Aaron Heilman, with his thirty-something ERA in spring training -- armed with flowers, candy, diamonds, and eight no-hit innings, followed by giving up a cheap single and unlike most of his Mets predecessors, NOT blowing the game but finishing with a one-hit shutout, putting him in the exalted company of such Mets legends as Terry Leach and Pete Schourek. So I confess: I stayed with Mets baseball tonight.

I know I'm delusional, but I can't help it. I really need to keep going to those group sessions to find out why I keep believing Mets Baseball when it tells me it loves me and that this time it'll be different.

They're now at .500.

I hate these guys.