For today’s story, you’ll need these ingredients:
A frosty but warm Polar Bear
A play-by-numbers David Stearns
Seats filled with Mets fans, a rare sight in 2026
The song “Home by Another Way” by James Taylor, a whimsical biblical tune you’ll find on YouTube. We’ll wait here while you cue it up and play it in the background.
Speaking of the Bible, you know David and Goliath.
This is the story of Goliath and David. And a lesson any manager can learn, in any business.
The Polar Bear came home Monday night. Yes, yes, it should have been in the spring.
Maybe we should say more plainly, Pete fans filled the stands at Citi Field. They chanted his name. Alonso Mets jerseys were everywhere, a pretty good indication that while management had moved on, the customers had not.
There is irony throughout, notably this: Pete returned Monday and his team eliminated the Mets from the postseason, officially. That was just the first night, when the stands filled for the “welcome home.”
Pete hit 264 home runs as a homegrown Met, more than anybody in franchise history. 123 of them at Citi. Nobody close. Before he left Wednesday night, he added two more. 125 now.
He arrived with 299 career home runs. Homecoming Monday came and went. Still 299.
Tuesday night, in the ninth inning, with the Mets leading 3-2, Kodai Senga threw a ghost fork, 82.5 miles an hour. It was supposed to end up in the catcher’s mitt.
But the crack of a bat came between that plan. Clean, crisp. Audible only after the ball was already high in the air. Lightning is faster than thunder. It left Pete’s bat at 109.6 miles an hour and traveled 413 feet to the left-center stands.
And then came the part no spreadsheet models, but every script knows:
The Mets fans stood and roared. For Pete. For 300. Ron Darling, broadcasting the game for the Mets, commented that he’d never seen a visiting player treated to cheers that long, that loud.
Pete became the 171st player to reach the 300 mark. Next up: 400. And then 500, which says Cooperstown for every player not linked to PEDs.
Will 400 be against the Mets too? Will 500??
After touching all the bases, Pete went into the third-base dugout. The crowd got louder. He stepped back out and tipped his cap. A curtain call on the wrong side of the stage. For a moment, the black jersey and orange lettering looked… but there it was: a cartoon bird instead of elegant METS in script.
The King of Queens was back, and so was the crowd.
That is what loyalty and respect can buy.
415 feet away, because I know David is reading and likes numbers, in Section 136, Row 5, three friends from Smithtown, Michael Shaw, Nick Maldarella and Chris Makarius, watched the ball coming just short of them. Right where the girls had been sitting until the 8th inning. Something about “it ain’t over til it’s over” is burning to get into this story.
They had a fun scrum to see who’d get it. Things quickly worked out and they were brought under the stands, so they could give it to Pete. You can watch that on social media. After the Knicks, it was one of the top moments in 2026 if you are a sports fan in NYC.
There is no column for that on a spreadsheet. Just the wisdom that says “take your head out of your Excel.”
Which brings us back to the fans, who resumed the chant of 2026’s season, “Fire Stearns!”
For David, for anyone in management, the mistake isn’t using analytics. It’s often not digging deep enough in them and understanding your business and customers.
Every successful manager eventually eats their own strategic plan. You haven’t heard much about David’s “run prevention” plan lately. That idea of focusing on defense backfired spectacularly. Does your ego get in the way of making the right call, of changing your plan? How good you are is sometimes judged by how well you can blow up your own plan.
Senga couldn’t hear his PitchCom. The crowd noise lingered, a coda atop a coda it seemed.
David Stearns should have heard the customers.
Tone deaf can be expensive.
James Taylor had already supplied the line: “got to figure the gods are saying play the odds, and go home another way.”
David picked a fight, not with Pete, but with fans. Maybe they are Goliath from here on out. Maybe they always were. You know the management lesson:
Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. Or its corollary: Don’t use run prevention spreadsheets against run generation slingshots to Smithtown.
Gotta go another way.
One additional thing.
The name of the album “Home by Another Way” is on?
“Never Die Young”
If you’re going to gamble away that much history, affection and chances for the postseason, you might at least check the House odds.
Steve’s casino isn’t built yet.
And with a warm tip of the NY cap to Cindy Adams:
Only in New York, kids. Only in New York.