Like many people on Twitter, I was surprised by a specific line in a press release from the Bloomberg campaign yesterday:
Mr. Met is going to be at the Bloomberg campaign office today? Why?
This just seems like an odd thing for the Mets to do on several levels, which is probably why it doesn’t seem like such an odd thing for the Mets to do.
First, like most places in America, Mets fans are fairly split on politics. No data to back up this claim, just anecdotal experiences from sitting with people in the outfield. You hear things pretty far to the left (hi, that’s me!) and you hear things pretty far to the right. Baseball in general among specific demographics tends to lean more conservative (fan bases tend to be older, whiter, which leads to this, not that anything about baseball is conservative itself).
Bloomberg is also fairly divisive as a New York figure as well. He faces criticism on stop and frisk (very deserved – remember I lean left) to gun control measures (I support him on this, remember I really lean left).
For a team that can’t seem to find there way out of any scandals this off-season, doing something like this seems to invite another scandal to the plate.
Of course there is one thing Bloomberg could do today that would unite Mets fans from both sides of the political aisle – buy the Mets! Drop out of the race and just save us from the Wilpons.
