Now, baseball fans can dream again.
Even with all the terrible things going on around the world, fans of all 30 teams have the annual March diversion of dreaming: free agents actually worth the money, franchise pitchers staying healthy, the promised brilliance of the latest “pheenom” (to speak with Casey Stengel’s vocabulary).
Once there was a spring when a ready-made fan base, equal parts bitterness and adoration, saw dreams come true, via the Worst Team in the History of Baseball — 40 wins, 120 losses. You could look it up.
The losses came after the Mets were cobbled together in the manic spring of 1962 and supported by a built-in fan base of New York’s brokenhearted National League fans.