I wrote my first newspaper story about the Mets when I was 10 years old. It appeared in a niche publication with a small subscriber base and an uncertain printing schedule. And the first-half grades it handed out for the ’97 Mets — an A+ for Edgardo Alfonzo, a generous B+ for Manny Alexander and Luis Lopez as shortstop fill-ins — did little to separate it from the journalistic pack.

Not surprisingly, The Tim Times didn’t last very long.

But my earliest foray into journalism taught me what I wanted in a career. I wanted to write with freedom, to explore with depth and to connect with an audience. I’ve been looking for that chance ever since.

That’s what The Athletic is here for. Covering a baseball beat for a newspaper with tight deadlines means half-finished scorecards, interviews spent texting the office quotes rather than constructing good follow-up questions, stories written now even though you know they’d be better later. It means coming to terms with imperfection, in essence.

The Athletic alters that landscape. I’ll get to watch every at-bat, to go deeper on a topic after the game, to make sure the story is the best it can be on a daily basis. I pride myself on developing strong relationships with players, coaches and executives to get the inside story — why that pitch, why that pinch-hitter, why that promotion — with a reference to The Simpsons or Shakespeare along the way.

And you’ll get to read about it without clunky drop-down ads or auto-play videos that, I mean, could they at least pretend to correspond to the story?

For someone born in late October of 1986, covering the Mets — after a stint with the Red Sox — seems somehow preordained. I finished my homework to Bob Murphy and Gary Cohen on WFAN because we didn’t have cable. I kept score when the weekend games were on WWOR or WB11, and my dad acceded to my pleas to make the 90-minute drive to Shea about once a summer. We always stayed to the end — even if just to see John Franco relieved by Matt Franco in the ninth inning of a 16-0 loss to the Braves.

My teenage years were bookended by crushing season-ending losses: I turned 13 the night Kenny Rogers walked Andruw Jones, I turned 20 the night Yadier Molina took Aaron Heilman deep. I’ve argued that Rey Ordoñez is better than Derek Jeter, I’ve attended Double-A games only to find out Alex Escobar was on the disabled list, and I’ve watched my brother fall to his knees in Citi’s upper deck when Lucas Duda’s throw home was wide.

This is to say, I know what this experience is like. I know what your touchstones are, and I know what this team means to you and what caring about it brings and takes out of you.

The audience for that first story on the Mets? My parents, my brothers and the ever-gracious Petri family across the street, who offered a compliment for each unsolicited issue of The Tim Times that appeared in their mailbox. I hope you’ll be part of the audience for the next one.

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(Photo by Rob Tringali/SportsChrome/Getty Images)