My 5 Most Hated Mets of All Time

God, it feels so good to loathe them

There used to be a time, and not so long ago, when a baseball series against the New York Mets elicited fervent emotion in Phillies fans. Now, the thought of it leaves us all as limp as Charlie Sheen with a bottle of vodka in him and a fat chick as his door.

The Mets, in a word, are a mess.

The owner, racked by guilt (and no doubt hounded by his wife, who can no longer afford those Jimmy Choo shoes) and his fortune depleted by one Bernie Madoff, is so frustrated he’s ripping his players as useless louts. That owner, Fred Wilpon, said this week that his team will lose about $70 million. And on top of that, Wilpon says that the $64 million he will gain at the end of this baseball season — from the conclusion of certain player contracts — will not be reinvested in the team, but will go into his thinned out bank account. That’s got to make Mets fans damn proud, eh?

On top of this, one of the most famous alums, one Lenny K. Dykstra, makes news everyday as a kook-a-louk. (You notice here that I am giving Dykstra, one of the more popular Phillies ever, over to the Mets. You can have the bastard.) Dykstra this week did something even crazy by his standards.

Lenny got word that Doc Gooden, one of his former Mets teammates, was in a rehab center for drug abuse. Dykstra somehow figured that Gooden had been kidnapped and FORCED into rehab and showed up at the facility with a couple of goons in an attempt to bust Doc out. Now that’s normal. Turns out that Gooden had willingly submitted himself to the television show “Celebrity Rehab” with that Dr. Drew guy. By the way, my sources tell me that in addition to getting the free rehab, celebrities who go on that show also get paid a stipend of about $250,000. Just think, Doc, how much cocaine that $250,000 will buy once you get out.

So, with all this Mets mess going on, I must hearken back to the good old days to get any excitement from the big weekend Mets-Phils series.

I hated when all those maggot Mets fans would descend on Veterans Stadium and then Citizens Bank Park in the early days. Those obnoxious, drunken goofs and their annoying New York accents. Those half-human louts who were compensating for the fact that they weren’t Yankee fans and thereby acting out on their inferiority as a species. Those cretin-like new money Long Islanders who had nothing better to do than ride down the turnpike and infiltrate our stadiums like termites on a log cabin.

I hated everything about the Mets, including their stupid blue and orange configuration and that ridiculous intertwined old style N and Y on the hats. Mostly, I just hated their players.

So in the spirit of that hate, I present to you my own personal list of my top five hated New York Mets (and in no particular order since hate is hate an cannot be portioned):

* Ray Knight. I just couldn’t stand the guy. A cheap-ass imitation of Pete Rose, who embellished things like pounding his glove and hitching up his pants. I can still see that idiot rounding third base and clapping his hands — as if the Mets really deserved to win that game — after Bill Buckner blew that Mookie Wilson groundball. And the thing that really pissed me off about Knight is that he married for money. Nancy Lopez looked like Snoopy One while she was the top ladies professional golfer in the world. Knight could have done better than that in a hotel bar, but he realized that his playing days were coming to an end and he needed a meal ticket.

* Jesse Orosco. I mean, come on. The guy pitched until he was 110 years old only because he was a left-handed pitcher who threw from the side and was called in to get one left-handed hitter out. A stone thief who stole money for at least 10 years of his career.

* Sid Fernandez. Hey, El Sid, mix in a salad or two from time to time and your fat body may not have put that kind of stress on your arm. A physical condition that was just a flat-out disgrace to athletes throughout the world.

* Kevin McReynolds. I’m not sure why I disliked him, but I just did. A country oaf who annoyed me because he was such a decent hitter.

* Todd Hundley. I just didn’t like his face. Looked like he should be in some motorcycle gang somewhere, flicking unfiltered cigarettes on the highway. (Full disclosure: I was going to put Gary Carter here, but news just came out that Carter is suffering from brain tumors, so I can’t kick the man while he’s down.)

I could go on and on, to Bobby Bonilla and Wally Backman and Steve Trachsel (who took about an hour between pitches and threw over to first base about five times an at bat, no matter whether there was a base stealer on first or not) and Pedro Feliciano and Luis Castillo and Keith Hernandez. But I’ll stop here and let you ponder your own hate for the New York Mets. At the end of the day, though, realize this: we are the haves right now and the Mets are the have nots. Emphatically.