Barstool Sports

WSJ – It seems like eons ago, but three months ago, Citi Field was buzzing. The Mets were winning, Johan Santana had just thrown a no-hitter and R.A. Dickey was on a stupendous run. But the Mets’ second-half collapse has turned their ballpark into a baseball morgue. The combination of horrid play and vast swaths of empty seats has created one of the most depressing sporting scenes imaginable. That got us wondering: Just how quiet is Citi Field these days? To find out, The Wall Street Journal purchased a decibel meter and traveled to a region where few Mets fans venture anymore: the upper deck. On Monday—a chilly night in Flushing—we reached the upper concourse just as the Mets were about to begin their game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The atmosphere was post-apocalyptic, with most concession stands long since shuttered for the year.  A rock concert can reach 120 decibels, and a momentous sporting event can be almost as loud. During Game 6 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals in Boston, NHL.com reported decibel levels of up to 118. Fans who attended Monday’s game were at no such risk of ear damage. As the Mets took the field to the sound of “Meet the Mets,” the stadium noise reached 80 decibels. The Center for Hearing and Communication lists sounds equivalent to 80 decibels as “pop-up toaster,” “doorbell,” “ringing telephone” and “whistling kettle.”The lowest decibel reading recorded was 58—two below “sewing machine.” The high was 95 (“electric drill”), which came after the second of Ike Davis’s two home runs in the fifth inning. But after several seconds of applause, the decibel reading was back in the 60s.

What you just watched was literally more exciting than a New York Mets game. Thats how bad things have gotten. Watching and listening to bread turn brown is more intense than watching 9 innings of Mets baseball.

I, for one, couldn’t be happier. I was preaching all year how the Mets either needed to catch lightning in a bottle and be the most miraculous team of all time – or just completely fucking suck. Worst case scenario was lingering mediocrity which allowed the Wilpons to sit tight and make no changes because the team was “successful enough.” After an utterly shocking first half, I thought thats exactly where the Mets were gonna end up. I figured even in my wildest dreams, no matter how bad they played, they’d end up overachieving overall and fucking me and the rest of the fans for the future. But the second half the Mets have put together is somethin special. Really something else. Just a whole nother level of failure. Last I saw the Mets were 4-23 at home in the second half average 2 runs a game. That was a couple weeks ago. Probably upwards of 5-30 right now. Just absolutely abhorrent. And clearly they were finally bad enough for fans to say “I’d rather just stay home and toast bread.” In a rational world that would probably force to owners to open up the wallets and start to make some moves. But here in Mets land I think 2013 is gonna be quieter than refrigerator.