Mathematically Alive: A Story of Fandom is a documentary about being a Mets fan during the incredible 2006 season, which ended in bitter disappointment. The film, released just after the 2007 season, is an exploration of what makes Met fans—and all fans, for that matter—tick. The directors, Joe Coburn and Kathy Foronjy were nice enough to answer a few of our questions.

MetsGeek: Just for the record—you’re Mets fans, right?

Joe Coburn: For the record, huh? Sounds serious. Better be honest. I grew up a Yankee fan. Don Mattingly was my man. While you may be cringing as you read this, keep in mind that when I was young it was the Mets who were the better team. All of my friends were Mets fans, and I was the black sheep. As I got older and started to better understand the other factors involved in fielding a competitive team I realized the Yankees were not for me. I am, after all, a die-hard Jets fan, and consistent winning just isn’t in the cards for me.

Kathy Foronjy: Yes, I am a Mets fan. I thank my older brother for making the choice for me.

MG: What is your first memory of the Mets?

JC: My mom wouldn’t take me to Yankee stadium when I was a kid because it was too dangerous, so we’d always go to Queens. It was a game around the Fourth of July in 1987, and outside of Shea (while my mom was buying tickets) some guy handed me a brown paper bag. It was the size of a lunch bag and filled with fireworks and a bunch of razor blades. I thought it was pretty cool. My mother did not. I was seven.

KF: Honestly, the first memory is that everyone around me wore Mets shirts. I think I thought it was a cool shirt before I realized it was a baseball team. After that, it was watching games with my family on the weekends.

MG: What is your best Mets memory? How about your worst?

JC: The best was watching Cliff Floyd hit a walkoff homerun to beat the Angels in the summer of ’05. There have been more important games, but there was something so intense about that. The game saw an inside-the-park homerun to tie, extra innings failures by Braden Looper and Doug Mientkiewicz, and Floyd’s (what seemed like) twenty-pitch at-bat. Even after a rain delay and extra innings, the fans stayed. What is so memorable to me was the reaction of the fans. They didn’t smile and then leave. They stayed. They danced and jumped around long after the players had left the field. Sometimes it takes a moment like that realize that what is often considered a “meaningless game” in the middle of July is neither meaningless or a game.

The worst is obvious. I was in the upper deck down the right field line as Carlos Beltran took a called strike three.

KF: The best moment for me was probably the 2000 season. My brother Charlie and I were living together and we couldn’t get enough of the Mets. We would throw Yankee/Mets parties all the time and as the season progressed our parties got crazier. When they went to the World Series against the Yankees we were ecstatic. We would pack both Mets & Yankees fans into our small second floor apartment and the battle was on. When the Mets did well our apartment was rocking like Shea stadium and when things didn’t go so well we may have wished bad things on the Yankees fans who were taunting us. My brother had rules like all Mets fan wore Mets cloths and we couldn’t touch a Yankees fan when the Mets were at bat. He made that rule because I happened to be dating a Yankees fan and swore that I would jinx the game if I were to dare to touch that Yankee. Even though the Mets didn’t win, it was still one of the best memories for me.

Game 7, 2006 was the absolute worst for me. I really think it was the first time that I really experienced loss as a fan. I’ve been a Mets fan since I can remember, but I always wanted them to win for my brother. They were his Mets. In making this film, I developed my own relationship with Mets, and then on top of that there were 500 fans that I interviewed who wanted that win so badly so it became very personal for me. It was an awful, awful moment.

MG: What “inspired” you to make this film in the first place?

JC: I could probably go back to my most intense moment as a fan and it had nothing to do with the Mets. I was 11 and I was watching, with my father, the last regular season game of the season between the Jets and Dolphins. The winner got a spot in the playoffs. The game itself was exciting enough to watch, but factor in all the soda and sugar I had consumed and I was bouncing off the walls. Of course it came down to a field goal. The Jets had only days before signed their kicker, Raul Allegre, and he needed to make a kick just to send the game to overtime. I could not even watch. I remember running up and down the stairs during the commercial break and then burying my face in the fuzzy carpet at the bottom. With my eyes closed but ears wide open I heard my father exult, and I knew it was good. I ran into the room jumping around some more, and thus began my descent into sports fandom. Even though they went on to win the game, it was the kick to tie that was the most intense. That’s what my teams are always trying to do it seems, just fighting to tie the game. There is something romantic about that.

KF: I knew I wanted to make documentary films because I like the idea of lending a voice to those who would otherwise be unheard. I was inspired by the passion of the many sports fans in my life. My brother Charlie is a Mets and Giants fan, my brother Michael is a Mets and Jets fan and my father is a Mets and Cowboys fan. I observed them and noticed that they all follow their team differently. Through them I realized that there were different types of fans and this became something I wanted to explore more. When Joe told me that he wanted to work on a project about fans I immediately knew that I wanted in.

MG: How long did you plan this? Were you timing the shoot so that the film took place during a winning cycle (2005-2006), or did you just get lucky?

JC: It was in the works (in our minds) for a couple of weeks, but really just started all of a sudden the night before tickets went on sale in February 2005. Kathy and I just grabbed a camera and headed over to the Shea parking lot to see the people we had heard wait on line during the week. From there, we knew that this was something. We had no idea what, but it was something.

MG: What were some of the challenges that presented themselves during the filming and producing of the documentary?

JC: I think the biggest challenge was that neither one of us had ever done anything like this before. We had no idea the amount of work that was going to be needed. It will be three years this February. That’s 1095 days. That is an awful lot of mornings where one thing is the first thing on your mind.

KF: Every day presented a new challenge. When you’re spending all of your free time and money on something that has no guarantee, it’s usually a little scary. But, the greatest part of it all is that when you believe in something and it finally comes to life, it’s the most gratifying experience ever, so every challenge was worth it.

Learning about the legal stuff was a big challenge because no one really gives you a clear answer. Asking if we can shoot in a public place got us five very different answers. That stuff definitely caused a lot of panic and surprise.

Overall, the edit was the biggest challenge. Cutting down over 150 hours to 90 minutes is just insane. First of all you want everyone to be in the movie because they all have great stories. You also you want to show them that you appreciated their time, so you feel like the least you can do is keep them in the movie. It doesn’t work, and it was a painful, painful process. Joe and I probably could have used some therapy during the edit.

MG: Why was there no “real” baseball footage in the film? Legal licensing agreements?

JC: It’s a legal issue. Next time you go to a game, read the back of the ticket stub. It’s pretty clear that if I ever fly a rocket to Neptune and broadcast some Mets game footage I can assume that the MLB lawyers will be on the next rocket over to serve me with papers.

KF: Game footage is very expensive and so is the use a certain player’s face. More importantly, we really liked telling the story without the game footage. The focus is always on the game, the players and the organization. This was time for the fans to take center stage.

MG: What about the locations you visited? How many did you go to, and what were they like?

JC: We were all over the States. We spent most of our time on the Atlantic coast, but through email we corresponded with the globe. We had fans all over the country and all over the world. An individual’s sport fandom is just something that they really want to talk about.

KF: The locations were such a great bonus. Although Joe is not into four-star hotels and thinks the car is a great place to sleep, it still was such an adventure to visit so many places and meet so many cool people. We drove to Chicago for Piazza’s induction into The National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. That was really fun. Joe actually drove the entire way, which kind of happened a lot on our road trips. It was a black tie affair so we enjoyed being fancy for a night.

We got to drive across California to meet up with Andrea Mallis, a sports astrologer. She grew up in New York and relocated to California 20 years ago and still is a die-hard Mets fan.

We were actually shooting fans in Florida when Katrina hit New Orleans. It happened to be one of the best trips because we met Jim Ferttita who has the Mets House and Gordon Freed who’s a Mets collector, but it was really scary to be there knowing that Katrina was on the way.

MG: Who were the best interviews? Personally I really liked the kid who went on about Shingo Takatsu.

JC: Man, we even had some great interviews that we couldn’t fit in. I really liked doing the interviews after Game Seven because it was just one big therapy session.

KF: Honestly, this is a tough question. It’s like asking a parent who their favorite child is. My honest answer is that I enjoyed them all for different reasons. The Takatsu kid is Ross Chapman. He’s nine years old and was one of the most amazing interviews. He’s a die-hard at a young age and can really back it up with knowledge. Nancy Muth is another die-hard who moved to Philadelphia and kept her love for the Mets. Listening to her was inspiring and her words were poetic. I guess it makes sense that she’s a minister. I liked Steve Keane because he’s just a normal guy with a Mets blog who is in love with his team but really seems to balance his family life well. He told us a bunch of great stories about his experiences in coaching for his kid’s teams; he should probably start a documentary about that stuff. Nicole Macioci is a teenager who proudly sports orange blue in her school of Yankees fans. She adores the teams and really loves the bond that she has with her Dad because of the Mets. I loved that she had blue and orange braces and fingernails. The best part of them all was getting down to why the Mets were important to people or why they were so connected to the team.

Okay, I lied. I do have a favorite. It was Dr. Wann. He’s the sports psychologist who tied it all together for me. He explained what the different levels of fandom are and what it is that we get from being a fan. He explained the psychological connection and really made it clear that consuming sport is quite healthy. I wish we could have included a lot more of his interview. It was very interesting.

MG: Any other filming plans?

JC: We have some things in the works, but knowing now what kind of work is going to go into the next project makes you pause and make sure you have the right idea. Our collective innocence is what made this project so much fun, and what made it a success.

KF: The ideas are rolling around, but we’re still wrapped up in Mathematically Alive because it’s going to be screening through out the year. I think another documentary will take off soon, but we’re also focusing on other projects for our production company Vitamin Enriched, Inc.

MG: Kathy and Joe, thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.