The Rangers have been doing this since they made their run all the way to the last Friday night of the Stanley Cup Final in Los Angeles, reminding not just their fans of the way things used to be for them, but reminding the rest of us what it is like around here when one of our teams has a real chance to do something in sports.
The Rangers have been doing it for more than a year now. The Mets haven’t even done it for a couple of weeks. Still: Their fans have suffered since the bat was resting on Carlos Beltran’s shoulder in Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series the way Rangers fans suffered when their team missed the playoffs seven straight years between 1998 and 2004.