I don’t believe that you can really judge a baseball team’s on-field success until at least May, once all of the kinks and bugs have been worked out, but I’ll go ahead and say now that one of the pleasant surprises of this early season is the 4-1, first place New York Mets. After an offseason of controversy and scandal involving owners Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon having to pay $162 million to the victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme because they allegedly knew about it and made money off of it, it’s nice to see a little good news coming out of Citi Field.

And that goes double for today, because the Mets are celebrating their 50th year as a Major League Baseball franchise. On April 11, 1962, the Mets played for the first time and lost 11-4 to the more intelligent and classier St. Louis Cardinals, which wouldn’t be a big deal except that they went on to lose 119 more times that season to set a MLB record.

But nobody cares about that, because New York sports means being positive all the time, or so the New York Post believes.

No matter: Five years after the Dodgers and Giants left the city for California, National League baseball was back.

And it didn’t even matter that the team stunk — or, as manager Casey Stengel famously moaned, “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

New Yorkers loved their Mets.

Not until 1969 did the team finally have a winning season — but that was the year of the Miracle: They won 100 games and the World Series, and the city went wild.

And New York needed it, because that poor town just can’t catch a break in sports. Not like those a-holes over in Pittsburgh and Chicago. No sir, those Pirates and Cubs can’t take a step without tripping over a winning season or a World Series.

In all seriousness, though, a winning Mets team would make for a good story this season, just so they can do it for this guy…

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Gary Carter died on Thursday.

He was, to most people, The Kid. A Hall of Fame catcher, a coach for Palm Beach Atlantic University, the guy with the most important single in New York Mets history in the 1986 World Series, a man who’d been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last May. He was an 11-time All-Star, a 21-year veteran, a 3-time Gold Glove award winner, it’s hard to find a picture of him without a smile on his face and he died at a hospice.

I want to extend my condolences to Gary’s friends and family, but who am I to do that? I do wish them well. I wish death didn’t have to happen like this. Hell, I wish death didn’t have to happen. It’s mean. It doesn’t make sense, even when a doctor says “yeah, this is what’s happening to your brain” and you’ve got a year to plan for it.

The goal, I guess, is to be remembered. Gary Carter won’t have trouble with that. 78.02% of his peers made sure of that back in 2003. But right now — in the days immediately following the realization that he’s gone — how should we remember him? A paragraph of stats? Pictures?

It’s not a thing I figured out, but the memories are what matter most. I’ve been reading our goodbyes to him all morning … Marty Noble at MLB.com, Jeff Pearlman talking through Ed Hearn at The Wallstreet Journal, Jason Fry, a guy who loves the Mets more than anyone I’ve ever met, at Faith And Fear In Flushing. I make baseball players pretend to curse at each other for a living, so I found it hard to find my own words. I couldn’t. I looked for a video, because I’m a guy on the Internet.

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I’ve always sympathized with celebrities and athletes who go to organized events where they’re supposed to deal with every jackass who approaches them. While I’m sure they do have some fun and thoughtful discussions while there, they’ve probably had to answer the same questions a thousand times. Baseball Hall of Famer Gary Carter experienced the dark side of fandom at All-Star Fan Fest earlier this week.

I’ve been receiving e-mails about a particular video that was just posted on YouTube. A fan shot this video during All-Star Fan Fest. When he asked Hall of Famer Gary Carter to sign a picture for his kid, Carter said “No” and all parties get angry. Security had to get involved. Well you’re just going to have to see the video. By the way, I was at Fan Fest yesterday. I’ll upload pictures later today.

Look, Tony Gwynn didn’t sign anything but a 8×10 picture that was made from State Farm. I’m not defending Carter, but if you already know he’s not going to sign anything else, why create a scene? I got Gwynn’s autograph knowing that I was ONLY going to get a 8×10 picture. He wasn’t going to sign anything else.

Security involvement was funny. He got in the fans face just to show up on YouTube. That’s all. Just watch it… –Vin Scully is My Homeboy via Sports Illustrated

Getting an autograph for your kid is a noble cause, but putting a camera in Gary’s face and “threatening” to put the video on Youtube isn’t the way to go about doing so. Sure, he got what he wanted, but set a horrible example for the youngsters in the process. Maybe letting your kid get denied an autograph would be a better life expierence for him than watching his dad pester a guy who’s sick of signing crap for ungrateful fans. Now, you’re just teaching him that if acts like a big enough douchebag, he can whine until he gets what he wants. You’ve probably seen this guy bitching incessantly at the umpire over balls and strikes at your kid’s little games. Video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »