Mets Puzzling “True New Yorkers” Campaign

On Tuesday the Mets launched a media campaign called “True New Yorkers” (it has a hashtag and everything), and I have no idea what its point is.

The campaign is center around an “open letter to Mets fans” that was almost surely written by the team’s PR staff but signed by Mets stalwarts Cleon Jones, Jerry Koosman, Ed Charles, Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling and Dwight Gooden.

The “players” say that they did not win their championships on their own, that the fans were an important part. And along the way, “we’ve proved through the way we did it that true New Yorkers are Mets fans.”

Perhaps this is in response to last week’s survey in The New York Times that shows that New Yorkers are Yankees fans by a wide margin.

In any case, fans are asked to add their name to the letter to show that true New Yorkers are indeed Mets fans, and one lucky fan will be able to present the letter to the team before the first game of the Subway Series with the Yankees.

Maybe this will work. After all, the Mets helped David Wright get named the “Face of MLB” in that asinine contest in the off-season. So maybe enough people will sign up to convince ourselves that true New Yorkers root for the Mets instead of those guys in The Bronx with their 27 championships.

I wish it were true, but it is not. I think New Yorkers get more excited when the Mets win as opposed to when the Yankees win simply because it happens so rarely. But that does not mean more New Yorkers identify themselves as Mets fans.

Here’s a way for the Mets to energize the fan base — put as much effort into building a better ballclub as they do on these nonsense campaigns.