I started reading this book because of Spring Training, and the approach of baseball. I usually like to help get into the baseball mood with a good book or two, especially one about my team. This one especially helps because Mr. Prince is a quality writer, which should help this book appeal to more than just Mets fans, which are obviously the target audience. But he could be any fan, of any team, weaving his personal life into a narrative about his favorite teams life. All you have to do is change a few names, alter a few dates, and it could be about you, and your favorite team. I just happen to connect a little bit more because the Mets are actually my favorite team also. I knew what he was talking about when he referred to a specific player by his first name only, or a specific event, or even an obscure song, I mean, the only thing I really feel he left out of our history was the song Get Metsmerized, but I only noticed that because it was a personal favorite of mine.
At its core, this book is half biography, and half being a fan and what that means, maybe 1/4 and 3/4, but let's not be nit picky. Anybody who is a diehard fan will recognize themselves in the books undertones, being a Mets fan also is just the icing on the cake. All in all, a well done, sometimes emotional, most of the time funny, look into what it means to be a fan of a team. ( )

Greg Prince, one of the co-authors of the Mets blog Faith and Fear in Flushing - the most intelligent and literate Mets blog there is - writes about his 40 years as the guy everyone knows as the big Mets fan. Part memoir, part baseball history this book explores the ups & downs of fandom in parallel with the events of his life. If this sounds familiar it's because it is very similar in concept and execution to Fever Pitch. That is Fever Pitch the autobiographical book by Nick Hornby about his love for the Arsenal Football club, not the wholly fictional romantic comedy film about the Red Sox.

Prince's ruminations on the Mets are a pleasure to read for the most part although he does have a tendency for repetition especially in the more navel-gazing portions of the book. As a fellow Mets fan, I enjoyed reliving the Mets good years and many fallow years from the perspective of another fan. I think this book could be enjoyable as well to someone unfamiliar with the Mets or with baseball, especially since it gives a literary perspective on the game that breaks from the mold of Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers.

If there's one thing I quibble with in this book is Prince's characterization of Mets fans loving the Mets but hating the players. While I think that negative attitude has become prominent in the past five years or so, historically that "win or your a bum" kind of thinking has been more of a Yankee fan ideology. Mets fans used to be opposite, the cult of the underdog, a humanistic approach to accepting the players despite their flaws and celebrating their accomplishments and commiserating with their failures. The Mets were a team the ordinary guy could identify with and thus players like Marv Throneberry, Lee Mazzili, Mookie Wilson, Butch Huskey, and Tsuyoshi Shinjo became local heroes despite never leading the league in anything.

At any rate, I find it harder to be a Mets fan these days not because of the Mets but because of the hostile and vulgar attitude of my fellow "fans." This book gives me hope because it shows that there are still thoughtful and literate fans among our numbers. ( )