Requiem for the Mets

I've been meaning to get to this and other subjects, but I happily spent most of last week on vacation with my family at Disney World in Orlando. I had a great time watching my daughter enjoy her first visit to Disney and meeting all the princesses. It was also good because I didn't have to be home watching the games or the lowlights on ESPN as the Mets completed their collapse.

The 5-12 finish to the season put the Mets in the pantheon of losers that include the '51 Dodgers, '64 Phillies and '78 Red Sox. Rare company indeed. But what I think makes this collapse worse than all of them is that 8 of the 12 losses came from the bottom of the division -- the Marlins and Nationals. If they got beat by good teams, contenders down the stretch, this would have been somewhat more bearable. But in the final week, the Mets showed less heart than the Tin Man, less courage than the Lion and with 12 errors in 3 games versus the Marlins, less brains than the Scarecrow.

The only other saving grace is that the Phillies and the Cubs (servers you right Wilbon...more on that in another column) were swept out of the playoffs. So the bragging rights by my brother-in-law Steve will be kept to a minimum.