Being a sports fan is allowing one’s self to indulge in childhood frovility; it’s being Peter Pan in a world where people lean in to glean bon mots regarding Presbyterianism and the mystery of being a Seventh Day Adventist from Donald Trump; and in the next few days, the New York Mets will allow this middle-aged man to recapture a little bit of his youth as the Metropolitans play country hardball versus the Kansas City Royals.

Mets Fan?

The New York Mets will enter baseball’s Fall Classic with a team that was significantly upgraded at Major League Baseball’s trading deadline. Previous to the trading deadline, the Mets were impotent offensively. Their flaccid bats were in need of a powerful injection and the Mets’ front office found that in the Cuban slugger, Yoenis Cespedes.

Hammering all those crab legs could be the reason Cespedes has a sore shoulder.

Thirteen minutes before the trading deadline, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson sent two minor league pitchers to the Detroit Tigers and acquired an explosive bat that Mets manager Terry Collins could pencil into the cleanup position for the remainder of the season. Of course, the Mets were on the hook for the remainder of Cespedes’ contract, which was a prorated portion of the $3.7 million that Tigers owner Mike Illitch owed to Cespedes and eminently affordable to a New York Mets ownership that had been nearly financially-ruined by making major financial investments with Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme.

According to author Steve Kettmann and his book released in the spring of 2015: Baseball Maverick: How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets, Alderson had somehow already revived a moribund Mets organization despite ignoring the fact that the Mets had last made the playoffs in 2006 under the direction of former general manager, Omar Minaya.

Sheridan’s Recommended Reading List for any Self-Respecting Mets Fan:

1. Can’t Anybody Play This Game? The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets’ First Year by Jimmy Breslin 
2. The Worst Team Money Could Buy by Bob Klapisch and John Harper
3. The Bad Guys Won: A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid and the Rest of the … Put on a New York Uniform–and Maybe the Best by Jeff Pearlman
4. High and Tight: The Rise and Fall of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry by Bob Klapisch 
5. Baseball Maverick: How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets 

Prior to baseball’s July 31st trading deadline and the addition of Cespedes, the Mets held the unwanted distinction of being the most inept offensive team in the National League. The 2015 Mets are the first team in Major League Baseball history to enter the World Series after averaging the fewest runs per game through Opening Day to July 31st. Alderson’s deal had very little to do with revolutionizing baseball, but was the product of desperation and need: The Mets needed a bat in the middle of the order. Any bat.

Alderson’s deal to acquire Cespedes wasn’t rooted in the algorithms of Big Data Baseball or enhanced analytics, but was rooted in a basic premise familiar to Mets fans throughout the years, the Mets offense was incapable of scoring even a meager amount of runs. The Mets were squandering superior starting pitching – and wins – that could easily carry the team to the post-season with an offensive attack that was worthy of a team in the Single A New York-Penn League.

The acquisition of Cespedes was triggered by Alderson backing out of a deal for Milwaukee Brewers slugger, Carlos Gomez, when it was revealed that Gomez was suffering from an injured hip that somewhat plagued him through Houston’s playoff run. In the Gomez deal, the Mets were willing to part with shortstop Wilmer Flores and starting pitcher Zack Wheeler, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery. In acquiring Gomez, the Mets would have held his rights through the 2016 season, but Cespedes will be eligible for free agency after the World Series, where he will be able to demonstrate to his Cuban brethren the power of Yanqui capitalism.

Both the Astros and Mets benefited from their respective trade deadline deals, but Cespedes went on a tear at the plate that forced the prognosticators and pundits to reconsider the Mets. Cespedes’ performance, and his ability to carry a team on his back, was reminiscent of what New York’s iconic slugger, Darryl Strawberry, was capable of in his prime. Alderson’s accidental acquisition of Cespedes coupled with the continuing emergence of a trio of starting pitcher power arms, in the likes of Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard, catapulted the Mets to the top of the National League East.

The Straw Man

Cespedes’ intimidating presence in the four hole, hitting behind Daniel Murphy, has allowed Murphy to wage an assault on the postseason record books, with a combined seven home runs clouted in the NLDS and NLCS and a streak of six consecutive games with a homer. The last two Big Apple second basemen to enjoy such postseason success were Billy Martin and Brian Doyle, who wore pinstripes for the Bronx Bombers.

Billy “The Kid” Martin

For those Mets fans who are planning a social media campaign to convince Sandy Alderson and Paul DePodesta to throw around big bucks and sign Cespedes, here is a cautionary tale that may temper your enthusiasm. Cespedes has a lot of dog in him, and that is likely only going to get worse when he receives a contract that will make him one of Cuba’s richest citizens. Through Mets history, there has been a rich tradition of under performing free agent outfielders who were cancers in the clubhouse.

1. Bobby Bonilla
2. Vince Coleman – (Played for both the Mets and the Royals. 105 players in Major League Baseball history have played for both teams.)
3. George Foster

Major League Baseball is no longer a simple affair, where preseason prognostications can reasonably predict the teams that will play on into October. At or near this year’s trading deadline, three teams (Mets, Rangers and Blue Jays) were able to significantly re-tool their rosters by adding impact players, and enter the last 60 games with teams pumped-up and prepared for postseason hardball.

The Mets and Royals are similar yet starkly different. The Royals rely on a lockdown bullpen to safeguard any lead. The Mets’ success will be based on their starting pitchers’ ability to pitch deep into the seventh or eighth inning. Each team has a reliever that could be considered a fatal flaw. The Royals have Ryan Madson ready to puke on the mound, and the Mets have Tyler Clippard who looks at every batter as if they’re the Son of Sam serial killer. Madson and Clippard are poised to join the pantheon of bullpen buffoonery, where they will find company with Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams, Calvin Schiraldi, Bob Stanley and Byung-hyun Kim.

The Royals have the best positional team in baseball, but their starting pitching cannot compare to the Mets, and it is starting pitching that will carry the Mets to a World Series title. The Mets cannot manufacture runs relying on aggressive base running and team speed like the Royals are able to do. The Mets have a starting shortstop, Wilmer Flores, who lacks range going into the hole and runs the bases as if he is wearing concrete footwear provided by former New York gangster and enforcer, Andrew “The Squint” Sheridan. The Mets won’t be able to run on Royals catcher Salvador Perez like they were versus Cubs catcher, Miguel Montero.

At this time of year, there are no secrets. The baseball gods will bless one team and curse another. Two fan bases, who have been tortured and betrayed by incompetent ownership, will look to return to greatness that was last experienced in the 1980s.

The 1986 New York Mets are, and probably will be forever, the team that makes me thankful that I ever had a dad, a mom and grandparents who inculcated in me the legend of Cleon Jones. My early childhood obsession with Cleon Jones would lead to a 1986 fascination with Mookie and Lenny. In my experience as a fan, there has never been a team that I rooted for, which I thought was destined for greatness other than the 1986 Mets. I never found the Buckner game to be miraculous, because the 1986 Mets won in improbable ways throughout the season.

If this 2015 edition of the Mets wins the World Series, it will not compare to the championship of 1986, and that’s a shame, but adulthood robs you of youthful obsessions and fanboy devotion. Oh, I still desperately want the Mets to win, but this team does not consume my life and define me.

I don’t believe the possibility of getting into a fistfight over the defensive prowess of Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer and Mets first baseman Lucas Duda is in the fall forecast, but some things don’t completely change or do they?

PREDICTION: Mets in 7.