On the day 40 former Mets players returned to Flushing for the first annual Alumni Classic game, the legends of the franchise had some advice for the current team.
And with the 2025 squad sputtering through a rough stretch of seven straight defeats as they look to hang on to the final NL Wild Card spot, any pointers should be seen as little shards of gold dust.
Carlos Beltran pointed to a similar situation he experienced during the 2007 season, which painfully saw the Mets’ seven-game lead in the NL East evaporate as they dropped 12 of the final 17 games and missed the postseason entirely.
“Thinking about what I can say to a team that is going through the same, I would say, ‘Just go for it,’” Beltran said. “Don’t limit yourself, don’t be timid. Just be aggressive. Be who you are. Think about what has put you in a position where you at today, because you are fighting for a playoff opportunity.
“Do you know how many teams would love to sign up for that opportunity, to be in exactly this position?”
Beltran, a World Series champion with the Astros in 2017, added, "Just go out there and play hard baseball. And if it’s meant to be, it’s gonna be for you. And if it’s not meant to be, at least you’re gonna go down giving your best.”
Carlos Delgado agreed with his former teammate.
“I like to focus more on the positive,” Delgado said. “If you told me in February, by Sept. 13, you are gonna be holding a Wild Card spot, I’d take that any time.
“Just continue to play hard, don’t scoreboard watch, one day at a time, one at-bat at a time, let’s win today. Let’s figure it out. And give it all out for the next two weeks and, hopefully, for the next six weeks after that.”
“The advice that I can give them now is to take it one game at a time,” Jose Reyes said. “They’ve been through some tough times, but whatever happened in the game yesterday, leave it there. Just focus on the game today and try to go from there.”
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