After Mets “Degenerate Night,” They Now Take “Pride” In Losing

I have mentioned several times in past columns my love for all Pittsburgh teams. The Pirates, Steelers, and Penguins are the reason I bleed Black and Gold. When I was growing up, the Pirates were always a team known for their big bats. We’ve had a few good pitchers over the years, but we could always hit and put runs on the board.

This year, not so much. Our pitching is really good and has a very real possibility of becoming great, but our hitting is atrocious. We needed a jump start, and lo and behold, the New York Mets provided us with a big one over the weekend.

Earlier this month, the Mets were on cruise control. In fact, on June 12^th, they were riding a six-game winning streak, and sitting in first place in the National League East with an impressive 45-24 record. But on Friday the 13^th, a day already notorious for being bad luck, the Mets decided to double down on their twisted fate by hosting an over-the-top pride night celebration, or as I like to call it, “Degenerate Night.”

The Mets’ Public Relations department hatched a scheme whereby the first 15,000 fans who attended that night received a Mets Pride tank top. That’s sickening enough, but they then took things a lot further by deciding to display the LGBTQ Pride Flag instead of the American flag on their video board at Citi Field while the National Anthem was being played. At that point, the universe, as well as all rational Met fans, had had enough.

The Mets lost that night to the Tampa Bay Rays and went on to lose the next six games. Overall, since that night, the Mets have gone 3-13 and now find themselves in second place behind the Philadelphia Phillies.

The best part, though, is that my team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, really lambasted the Mets this past weekend. Remember, the Pirates were having trouble scoring runs, so I was delighted when they hammered the Mets 9-1 on Friday. They followed that up with a 9-2 win on Saturday and put the whipped cream and cherry on top of the three-game sweep with a 12-1 win yesterday.

In the three games, the Pirates outscored the Mets 30-4, and it was a glorious thing to see. The run differential of 26 runs over the three-game sweep was the largest by a Pirate team since 1975. Teams don’t outscore other teams by that much in a series, so it was not only rare for the Pirates, but it’s rare for any major league team to pummel another team that badly.

Now, some will argue that the Pride flag fiasco has nothing to do with the team’s swoon. I disagree. A person, corporation, or baseball team cannot project over-the-top absurdities into the cosmos and expect everything to continue to come up roses.

Last year, many of the fans who are now downplaying the connection of the ridiculous LGBTQ flag’s denigration of the National Anthem believed that a purple mascot nicknamed Grimace turned the Mets’ season around.

Last year, the Mets were struggling with a 28-37 record until a purple McDonald’s character threw out the first pitch. The Mets then went on a run all the way to the National League Championship Series, and many believed it was that first pitch that changed the team’s fate.

The Met’s PR department is learning a cruel but very real lesson. It’s never wise to tempt fate with depraved displays of perversion, especially when you overlay something as meaningful as a country’s National Anthem with that depravity.

The Mets will now play out the rest of their season, but at the end of their “rainbow,” there won’t be a World Series Title waiting for them.

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