Thumbs Down, Tone Deaf

Sunday was shaping up to be one of the more average of the baseball season for the Mets.
The reeling team finally won a series, scored a few runs, and beat up on the Washington Nationals. But for many Mets fans, it was simply too little, too late.
But a lazy Sunday in Mets-land can turn on a dime, which it di the minute Javy Baez met with the media in post-game Zoom chat.
Baez was asked why and a few other Mets were signaling “thumbs down” after a big hit or a run-scoring play.
Well, it wasn’t a tribute to the rallying cry of the 2017 Yankees, but rather a giant “screw you” to all of the Mets fans who voiced their displeasure with the team’s quick fall from first to third in the NL East.
Baez said the booing and negativity fromMets fans deserved a rebuttal, therefore Baez, Francisco Lindor and Kevin Pillar decided this would be their course of action.
Baez actually had the audacity to say the Mets fans have to be better. My response to Javy Baez: take a hike!
Does Javy Baez realize the Mets once held a comfortable lead in the National League East that immediately transformed into a seven-game deficit? Does Javy Baez realize that the Mets have had one of the most disappointing and underwhelming offenses in the sport?
Oh, and does Javy Baez and the other Mets players realize that fans have a right to boo and express their displeasure over bad baseball?
The sensitivity from a good majority of Mets players throughout this season has been awfully tough to take. When Mike Piazza and Carlos Beltran first became Mets, guess what, they got booed.
On the other side of town, two first-ballot Hall of Famers in Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter felt the wrath of the stadium crowd. Jeter’s response summed it up perfectly: “If I watched my at bats, I’d boo too.”
Javy Baez isn’t going to be a Met beyond the 2021 season, but this will forever be his legacy in a Mets uniform.
The bigger concern is the fact that Francisco Lindor, the $300 million man, may have been the instigator behind the thumbs down craze. That’s a scary thought for Mets fans.
Francisco Lindor is not going anywhere, he is under contract for a long, long time. He has no chance of being a successful, big-time Met if he’s going to be this sensitive to criticism.
If he honestly believes that taking on the fans is the best way to combat criticism, he couldn’t be any more clueless. Lindor needs to take a page out of the Piazza aned Beltran playbooks.
If you don’t want to hear boos, play better. Taking on the fans, no matter the situation, is always going to be a losing battle.
Imagine thinking that’s a good idea with the way the Mets have played?
In 1995, Jack McDowell flipped Yankee fans the bird. In 2021, Javy Baez and Francisco Lindor put their thumbs down in the faces of an incredibly loyal but beaten-down fanbase.
Good luck trying to convince me what’s worse.