Baseball is fun. The most exciting teams are teams that look like they are having fun on the field. When the team is having fun, the fans will have fun. Conversely, when a team is faltering, it is frequently the infectiousness of the fans in the stands that will lift them back up, so if the fans are having fun, it will help any team. And that's what the Apple represents - pure, unadulterated, silly fun. Of course it's goofy and tacky, dented and faded, and entirely unnecessary. There's no need for any home run gimmick, or touchdown gimmick, or goal gimmick, or any gimmicks whatsoever - this is New York, and New York fans know their sports with or without gimmicks. But the apple is completely unique, the fans love to see it, and, need aside, it's quite simply fun to have.

Part of what attracts us to the Apple is that you would never in a million years see it in Yankee Stadium. The Yankees, and Yankee fans, take themselves far too seriously. They don't look like they're having fun. They look like they're making a lot of money and they know it. But, sitting at Shea Stadium, you can't look in to the Mets dugout and say that it doesn't look like Jose Reyes and Pedro Martinez and David Wright and Carlos Delgado aren't having fun. They always have a smile on their face, they are always joking and laughing. They look like they're enjoying playing the game as much as we're enjoying watching it.

And that is why the Apple is an appropriate icon for the Mets. The Yankees have their symbol, Monument Park, which represents everything they're about: history, tradition, and boring, business-like baseball (and they would never leave Monument Park behind - it is going to come with them to the new Yankee Stadium). The Mets, on the other hand, have their symbol, the Apple, which represents everything they're about: having a little fun. The Apple is fun and when the fans see the Apple they have fun, and if the fans have fun, the team has fun, and if the team has fun, the fans have more fun. How can you not smile when this giant Apple rises out of the top hat at a professional sports stadium?

We've received some e-mails, and some press inquiries, asking us why a new apple isn't sufficient? Why do we want this Apple, with no changes? Part of the reason we don't want a new Apple is that it would be too Yankee-like to do that - to replace the old with something shiny and new just because they can. Another part of the reason is the history of the current apple - who it has risen for already. If the Apple comes to the new Stadium and is used as it currently is, besides the "Mets" name and uniforms, it will be the only link that Mets players past and present have. How many things are there that Daryl Strawberry and HoJo and Mike Piazza and Cliff Floyd and Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado and even Carlos Gomez and Lastings Milledge and even John Maine have in common? They are/were all ball players on the New York Mets, and they've all made the Apple rise from its top hat. The same Apple for each of them. The same Apple that rose all year long in 1986. The same Apple that rose on September 21st, 2001 when Mike Piazza hit that huge home run in the 3-2 come-from-behind victory against the Braves in the first professional sporting event played in New York City since September 11th. The Apple rose then and it stirred the hearts of New Yorkers. It showed that we, too, would rise again, just as the Mets rose again (1969) and again (1986) and will continue to rise.

The apple is symbolic of the Mets as an organization. They are fun, a little beat up and not as shiny as their AL neighbors, but they keep on rising, and when they do, the fans cheer loudest.

- Lonnie and Andrew