(9 of 9)
At long, long last, they do. Hodges is wise enough in the ways of the game to know that it may take more than one season to transform baseball's most persistent losers into perennial winners. But whether they are backing up one another in the infield, putting together a three-run rally in the ninth, or whooping it up in the locker room in their half-barracks, half-fraternity-row style, the new young Mets have shucked off the mantle of defeat and despair that clung to the team for so long. "The Mets have the makings of a good sound ball club for the next ten years," says their proud manager. From the offices of the Valley National Bank in Glendale, Calif., where he now serves on the board of directors, Casey agrees, in purest Stengelese: "We had to start the team with aged players who it was questionable they could play a full season. Now if I was to go ahead and stick my neck out, I'd say the Mets had a real good shot at winning it all in their league. They're doing so good that people are even talking about the Mets up and down the whole Pacific Coast. They got a young ball club with lots of spirit and they got the fans behind them all the way."
The fans were always behind them.
The only difference is that where once they were resigned to defeat, and almost came to relish it, now they exult in victory. There are sunshine patriots, to be sure, who will turn away if victory is not forthcoming often enough. But the authentic Met fans have learned to accept both victory and defeat with blue-sky loyalty. In their inchoate, inarticulate way, the fans realize that the team is their surrogate, sometimes succeeding, sometimes stumbling, but always striving. If the Mets fail, the true fan understands and empathizes. If they prevail, why can't he?
So the rooters will continue to crowd the grandstands, shouting through soot-stained lungs: "Let's go, Mets!" They know in their gritty hearts that some day, some day, a National League pennant will snap smartly in the breeze atop Shea Stadium.
*This year the National League, like the American, has two six-team divisions to accommodate new expansion clubs in Kansas City, Montreal, San Diego and Seattle.