“The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country”
― General George S. Patton Jr.
On a hazy day in September of 2012, I witnessed the rise of an Army.
Decked out in a blue shirt and my Goodbye Stache sign, I sat down in the Center Field section and watched Citi Field come alive.
R.A. Dickey was going for his 20th win of the season on the final home game of the season. The crowd on that Thursday afternoon was electric. It was the best thing I had seen in the four years since the building had opened.
The chants, the signs, the show of solidarity. It was beautiful, it was brilliant and most of all it was fun.
As I sat in the back, I saw The 7 Line Army come to life right in front of my eyes and it was a sight to see. I met people from Twitter that became my friends. I took pictures and learned that the death of the die hard Mets fan was vastly overstated.
This year I have seen that Army take that show on the road. I have seen them band together time and time again for a cause, that no matter how you feel, is one we can all get behind. To root on our Mets.
For Darren Meenan, the Commander in Chief, it does not take much for him to bring his Army together. To draw up the plans, print the shirts, buy the tickets and bring the people to the game of baseball is a sight to see.
To see them in the Bleachers of Wrigley Field, in Left Field at Yankee Stadium and the home base that is the Center Field seats at Citi Field is always amazing to me.
I think about how all these people, from all walks of life drop what they are doing and go watch the team they love and do it together as one.
For some out there, they find a way to think of this as a negative. They look at it as one big promotion or just a bunch of fools following around a bad team.
Those people, are plainly stupid. This is not about promotion, this is not about selling a shirt. This is about the love of the game. This is about the love of the Mets. This is about getting a gathering of Mets fans and letting them all have a good time.
Mets fans have had to deal with a lot of nonsense of the past six seasons. The losing, the injuries, the bad play, the waiting for the rebuild process to end, has been hard.
Attendance is down every year and the apathy about the team can be depressing. The days that devolve into a #MetsTwitter nightmare of fans bickering at each other seem to get worse and worse.
Things, to be perfectly honest, can really suck.
But for those special days that the 7 Line Army gets called up to take arms at Citi Field or on the road you see the best of the best in the fan base.
The people in Chicago, especially the TV crew covering the team loved what they saw. Even the YES Network, after some bull about the thunder sticks being an issue, showed them the love that they deserved.
If you have not had the pleasure to be a part of this group, you are missing out. I was lucky to have experienced one game with the Army and it will be something that I will never forget.
The next call to arms for the 7 Line Army can come at any time. They might defend the home base or bring the battle on the road.
No matter when or where, if the time comes to rise up and come together to root on the Mets, the Army will be ready.
The 7 Line Army represents the best of the Mets Fan and always lives by the same credo no matter what.
They Stay True to the Orange and Blue.
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