Mets fans got their Pete Alonso moment, and it wound up saying more about them than it did about anybody else.
On Tuesday night at Citi Field, Alonso returned as a member of the Orioles and was sitting one home run away from 300. He got there in dramatic fashion, too, launching a game-tying shot in the ninth inning before Baltimore went on to win in extras.
The night before, he had come up just short of a homer by a few feet to the left of the foul pole. This time, Mets fans were on their feet, cheering him after he tied the game and then giving him a curtain call.
That reaction is what set everything off. Alonso is not a Met anymore, and the sight of the home crowd celebrating him - while some fans were chanting “fire Stearns” - landed as the kind of scene that can only happen when a fan base is split between nostalgia and fury.
The anger is understandable in one sense. Steve Cohen is the richest owner in the sport, David Stearns has taken plenty of heat for the roster-building, and Alonso was a beloved player who became the franchise’s all-time home run leader.
He was the kind of player who could have become a Met for life.
But the contract trail matters here, too. The Mets offered Alonso a seven-year, $158 million extension before he reached free agency.
He turned it down, fired his agent, hired Scott Boras, took a lesser offer after a poor contract year, and then left for the Orioles’ five-year, $155 million deal - about $30 million more than what the Mets were willing to do. That is the business side of this, whether fans like it or not.
And the reality of Alonso’s Mets résumé is less romantic than the crowd’s reaction suggested. He was Rookie of the Year in 2019 and a fan favorite, but the Mets made the playoffs only twice during his time there and reached no farther than the NLCS. His postseason line is big in sample size, but the team’s results never matched the love affair.
That’s why the whole thing looked so strange from the outside. Yankees fans catch grief for plenty, including booing Juan Soto, but they generally don’t turn on their own team in the middle of the moment the way Mets fans did here.
This wasn’t a case of a superstar being run out of town for nothing. The Mets did not lose a perennial MVP candidate, a World Series champion, or a top draft pick.
They had a durable, very good player, got worn down by the negotiations, and moved on.
Was that the right call? No.
Jorge Polanco has been a complete waste. But that is not the same as saying the front office committed some unforgivable crime that should live forever.
Mets fans have spent plenty of time booing Alonso when the strikeouts piled up and the defensive miscues followed, and they even cheered Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as a visitor once Alonso was looking on. So the sudden outrage now comes off a little rich.
Cohen has already spent $800 million on Juan Soto, a move that was supposed to signal a new era and, yes, serve as a shot at the Yankees. If Mets fans were celebrating that just last weekend, it’s hard to pretend this Alonso reaction is all about principle. This was an owner-driven decision, with Stearns handling the margins, and the blame is being thrown around in every direction except the one that actually matters.
The Yankees have their own messes, and Brian Cashman gets ripped plenty online. But if the standard is loyalty, the Mets fanbase did not exactly cover itself in glory on Tuesday night.
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