I Like(d) Ike.

       Ike Davis could have had it all.  Ike Davis should have had it all.  The son of a major leaguer, he was drafted in the first round by a team in New York and was fast tracked to the big leagues from moment one.  He looked good as a 23 year old rookie in 2010 and wonderful things lay ahead.  Instead, it all went horribly horribly wrong...

His sophomore year was over before it really began after he had a freak injury to his ankle during a collision with David Wright on a pop up.  The wonderful Mets medical team misdiagnosed him at least twice and he never got back on the field.  But he eventually healed and we were all looking forward to his 2012 season.  I insanely predicted big things for him.  He got off to a dreadful start, if by dreadful I mean nightmarish, and if by nightmarish I mean absolutely god-fucking-awful.  In the middle of June he was hitting a buck eighty with 6 homers.  The hitch in his swing that was supposed to be smoothed out by now was bigger than ever.  Then a funny thing happened...he got hotter than the sun.  The rest of June was a supernova and he bashed homer after homer.  He got his average up to .227 and finished with 32 dingers and 90 RBIs.  Now the question remained, which Ike was the real Ike?   Was it First Half Ike or Second Half Ike?

Sadly, we got our answer almost immediately in 2013.  Ike came out hitting a whopping .160 for the first two months and was demoted to the minors by the all star break.  All of our Mets fan dreaming of a homegrown power hitting Paul Bunyan first baseman were being dashed before our eyes.  The Mets even drafted the Next Big Thing at first in Dominic Smith in the first round. The dream was over for Ike Davis as a Met.

By spring training of 2014, the Mets had announced that he was going to be part of an unfathomable and untenable three way platoon at first with the immortal Lucas Duda and the incredibly terrible Josh Satin.  He was sadly third in a two man race.  He got into 12 games and got 30 at bats but it was obvious to anyone who has ever seen one game of baseball in their lives that Ike was on the outs with the Mets.  He did whack one last pinch hit walk off grand slam on April 5th to emphasize those saddest words of tongue and pen.  He was unceremoniously dumped on the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 18th for a middling middle reliever and the ol' player to be named. 

I collected all these Ike cards out of hope, not for profit.  I bought and traded specifically to get most of these cards and hoarded the ones I pulled.  I really had such high hopes for Ike.  I want him to do well with the Pirates, I really do.  But he is yet another in a long line of disappointments for the Mets in terms of developing power hitting prospects.  He's that girlfriend you wanted to move in with and make babies with but instead she flakes out and you just have a little pile of her shit in the corner of your apartment in a shopping bag, waiting for a day to get around to giving it back to her so you never have to see her again.