An open letter to a random Mets fan

Dear Mets fan:

Please, please take a step back from the ledge.

I totally understand. It's late August 2009, and your season of dreams has turned into a six-month long nightmare. One injury was enough to take, but to see a veritable All-Star team of Metropolitans take up the trainers tables all summer has been too much to bear.

Reyes. Beltran. Delgado. One by one, they've become the boys of suffer. And you've spent the sweltering summer months watching Jeff Francoeur hit into three outs in a split second.

And now, the one anchor on a ship otherwise lost at sea has been pulled up. Johan Santana isn't starting Tuesday night, and depending on who you believe, he either needs rest or surgery.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, you've had to watch the Bandbox Bombers muscle their way to the top of the standings, all while finding yourselves closer to the last-place Nats than the first-place Phillies.

I know the desire is there to step in front of the next plane taking off from LaGuardia.

Don't.

There comes a point where the injuries and bad luck just becomes laughable. And that's all you can do sometimes... just laugh it off.

Pirates and Royals fans have to laugh every year, just to keep from crying.

You'll have your boys back and healthy in 2010. There isn't any reason to stress for another second about an absolute lost cause in 2009.

Waive the white flag. Let Fernando Tatis play a whole bunch of second base if he has to between now and the first of October. See what kind of talent's down in Buffalo and Binghamton.

Maybe, just maybe, you're getting all your bad luck out of the way in one season. The Red Sox only wish they'd had that happen to them over that little 86-year stretch.