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Like other moderately pathetic things, the New York Mets are defined by what they are not. They gestated in the wound the Dodgers and Giants left behind, and were eclipsed from birth by the glory of their crosstown rivals, the Yankees. Tethered to more middling fortunes, Mets fans pride themselves on finding humor, meaning and even beauty in failure. As was instilled in me by my father, who had it beaten into him by the Dodgers: Winning is uninteresting, as compared with the more edifying stuff that comes with losing.