The newest trend is to give anyone who ever bought a hot dog in your ballpark or arena a tribute video.
I suppose, on one hand, this is a somewhat innocent and innocuous trend. I suppose that in a world where it feels as if people are screaming at each other at the top of their lungs most of the time, where anger is forever percolating just below the surface, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being nice.
(As Felix Unger perfectly put it many years ago: “It’s nice to be nice to the nice!”)
So look, I’m not about to fly off the handle because it seems like the newest trend is to give anyone who ever bought a hot dog in your ballpark or arena a tribute video. It’s a nice gesture, a kind thing to do. There is no financial leverage in play here. Nothing to be gained or lost other than looking at a few of, say, Eduardo Escobar’s greatest hits.
But that doesn’t mean they haven’t gotten … well, a little silly.
And, yes, the Mets have become sort of the local clearinghouse for tribute videos, especially because it sometimes feels as if there are more ex-Mets playing in Major League Baseball as guys who actually wear the uniform. That has meant the past two months of this lost season has become something of a Homecoming Tour for the Mets.
Escobar got a tribute video when the Angels came to town last month, and it was sort of surreal paying tribute for the .240 batting average and 24 homers he hit in 605 at-bats for the Mets. That was followed by a similar tribute to Max Scherzer when the Rangers came to town the next series.
That one didn’t go as well, and let’s face it, it was doomed to not go well. Mets fans got a lot of practice loathing Scherzer when he was a dominant force for the division-rival Nationals. His 42-game stint with the Mets, while pockmarked with some high marks, was also defined by his getting shelled by the Padres in the tone-defining opener to the wild-card playoff series last year. And he had some pointed things to say about the Mets after he was dealt.
