Losing in October: My Mets Heartbreak and Red Sox Schadenfreude

Let’s just get it out of the way. October baseball is supposed to be fun, right? Playoffs, drama, suspense. What they don’t tell you is that for fans like me, it’s a full on emotional rollercoaster with no seatbelts. My Mets didn’t make it, and honestly, I’m still crying into my Gatorade like a professional athlete in training. Meanwhile, the Red Sox ,Boston’s pride, the team everyone roots for because of history and hype got eliminated too, and I have to admit, I laughed quietly in the corner. Not because I’m evil, but because someone needed to balance the scales of sports karma.

Watching the Mets choke again is a ritual I never signed up for. You think it’s going to be different every year, and then it isn’t. You watch the highlights, scroll through Twitter, and see the same heartbreak memes recycled from 2015 like we’re in some cruel Groundhog Day for baseball fans. I have legitimately considered taking a vow of silence every October, but where would that leave me? My entire personality revolves around complaining about baseball with dramatic flair.

And the Red Sox. Oh, Boston. My feelings about Boston are complicated like, yes, the team can be fun to watch when they win, but also, that city smells like history, regret, and lobster rolls. Watching their elimination gave me this weird satisfaction. You know that feeling when someone else falls just as hard as your team does, and you go “Well, karma does exist”? That was me. Half schadenfreude, half pure relief that someone else finally got a plot twist they didn’t deserve.

Let’s not forget the absurdity of fandom during postseason. The memes, the takes, the “experts” who somehow act like they’ve never seen baseball before. Twitter becomes a battlefield of opinions nobody asked for. Meanwhile, I am over here trying to eat something without crying because my Mets are not in the playoffs, and the Red Sox have been sent home like a bad Tinder date. And the funniest part? People are already acting like next year’s season is guaranteed to fix all this. Honey, we’ve been here before. We know the pain is cyclical.

You also get those conversations with casual fans who don’t understand your pain. “It’s just a game,” they say. Oh really? Tell that to my 27 year old self who planned her life around Mets schedule updates and cried over a wild card game like it was a personal betrayal. Baseball is not just a game, it’s a lifestyle, a high stakes emotional investment that we put in for cheap seats and minor league nachos. And when your team doesn’t make it, it’s like losing at life for six straight weeks.

But let’s be real, the absurd part of postseason heartbreak is how fast fandom moves on. In one week, everyone will forget about the Mets missing it and Boston’s elimination. People will post “New season, new me” tweets, and fans will buy tickets to games like nothing happened. Me? I’ll be over here, silently plotting revenge in the form of tweets dripping with sarcasm, just to keep the October energy alive.

And yes, there is joy in shared misery. I texted my friends, we cried, we laughed, we screamed at highlight reels, and we pretended to have lives outside of baseball. That’s what makes fandom beautiful it’s messy, it’s dramatic, and it’s basically therapy disguised as sports entertainment. You can’t just watch a game; you live it. You feel it in your chest. You debate it with strangers on social media. You exist in a constant state of emotional whiplash.

At the end of the day, losing in October doesn’t mean giving up. It means preparing for the next season with a slightly bruised heart and a lot more sarcasm. It means appreciating the weird joy that comes from watching a team you love fail spectacularly while quietly enjoying Boston’s elimination, even if you’d never say it out loud. Because sports is not just about winning. It’s about surviving, laughing at the chaos, and having stories to tell when next October comes around when hopefully, somehow, your team won’t break your heart again.

So here’s to the Mets, who broke my soul. Here’s to the Red Sox, who reminded me that karma is real. And here’s to fans like us, navigating heartbreak with a little humor, a little sass, and a lot of October energy. Because if we can survive postseason baseball, we can survive anything.