As Pete Alonso stepped into the batter's box in the 9th inning of the decisive game three of the Wild Card series against the Brewers, my brother-in-law commented that if Alonso didn't do anything in this at-bat he would go down as "the most hated Met of all time." An extreme statement, but that's where New York sports fans reside-the extremes. It was October after all.
The giddy laughter of thousands of Milwaukeeans hollowed out his ears, their gleefully contorted faces burned into his retinas - a cruel sun spot that mocked him even with his eyes closed. And that enormous mass of ridicule would be nothing compared to that of the posters on Mets ' Reddit, or pundits on talk-radio, or the quiet tuts of disappointment from Keith Hernandez.
All that Alonso had built in those six-years in the Big Apple-the 53 home runs, the Rookie of the Year, the All-Star nods and MVP votes and credit card commercials with Mr. Met-completely cored, mashed into a sauce with the slightly poisonous pips left like rodent droppings after a down year, a quiet series, and fruitless performance in a do-or-die game that could possibly be his last in a Mets uniform.
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