History makes a Mets fan skeptical about hot start

	Some Mets fans can't get the bad taste of the Bobby Bonilla days out of their mouths. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

The last time the Mets were this good, El DeBarge was cool. I'm kidding, El DeBarge was never cool.

Mets fans are long-suffering, and we always will be. Sure, the Mets were in the World Series just six years ago -- but they lost to their cross-town rival. The only thing this decade that upset Mets fans more than Timo Perez's baserunning was Anna Benson's reneging.

In their 44-year history the Mets have won two World Series, lost two World Series and lost two playoff series. There are certainly teams that have suffered longer (I'm looking at you, Chicago). But what makes being a Mets fan tougher is that the suffering seems to be deep, and in spurts. And that the Yankees usually get better the more the Mets lose, sapping their powers through New York Post headlines. It's like they're an X-Man.

I got spoiled early as a Mets fan, watching them win the World Series when I was seven and make the postseason again two years later. I had no idea what kind of firecracker-laden future was in store. And then came 1989 -- the 20-year anniversary of the Amazins winning their first World Series. But as Barry McGuire sort of said, we were on the eve of destruction.

That song, by the way, debuted in 1965, when the Mets lost 112 games. But they were lovable back then. The early-'90s Mets were so bad that the team's official website doesn't even have an entry on their timeline between 1989 and 1994. Understandable -- those are the years whose names must not be spoken.

In 1989 and 1990 the Mets barely missed the postseason, but the team slowly started falling apart. Perhaps it started with the April 1989 signing of future convicted murderer Julio Machado. The Mets probably wanted to re-create the Ron Leflore story but failed to realized that Leflore was signed after he got out of prison. Machado was released in 2000, if any team is interested.

That June, the Mets traded 1986 heroes Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell for Juan Samuel. By the end of the season Lee Mazzilli, Rick Aguilera and Mookie Wilson were also, well, eighty-sixed. By December so were Gary Carter, Randy Myers and Keith Hernandez. And so was Samuel -- he hit a pitiful .228 in orange-and-blue.