I did not see The Exorcist until I was in high school. I watched it in a film history class on a TV suspended in the corner of the room, evoking the hospital rooms that the young and possessed Regan finds herself in throughout the first half of the film. Last year a very forgettable sequel ushered in a re-release of the original classic. I finally got to see this seminal work of horror on the big screen. It was even more of a masterpiece than I remembered from its small confines in that musty classroom.

I find myself thinking a lot about demons and their ousting these past few days. To help their postseason chances, those New York Mets needed to win this past weekend in Milwaukee. They finally managed to get a W on the board on Sunday. This came after two lifeless performances on Friday and Saturday.

The evil spirit of Captain Howdy eventually makes Regan vomit pea soup and levitate. The specter haunting the Mets in Cream City torments more akin to Regan’s ailments in that sterilized first half of the film: their vitality is sapped, they seem quite ill. The Mets are 32-41 in what is now called American Family Field—should still be called Miller Park, obviously.

Perhaps this is proof that the hackneyed trope of “ancient Indian burial ground” is fully without merit. In a city with a Potawatomi name that was once host to the questionably named Braves, it is the home team that triumphs in this equation. Then again, the possible $24 sale of Manhattan to the Dutch might be haunting the Metropolitans.

With the win on Sunday the Mets left the former home of the questionably named Braves for their current residency: Atlanta. In 2022 the Mets needed only one win in Atlanta at the end of the season to win their division. They failed. The poltergeist returned, causing the team to fumble and collapse at an urgent moment. Atlanta seemed cursed. As you watch a stadium full of people doing a racist chant and gesture you have to wonder just how all this cosmic influence works.

The Mets had to play a doubleheader in Atlanta this past Monday due to the catastrophic arrival of Hurricane Helene. As I write this, my father outside of Asheville is rationing food and water with his neighbors. He is lucky to be alive, and to still have a home. While cataclysmic weather is nothing new in the South (and will only be occurring with more frequency) the Mets fan in me could not help but feel like this was again some sort of divine retribution for an unknowable wrong.

In reality, it was incompetence on the part of Major League Baseball. They knew the storm was coming. They could have relocated or rescheduled the games. Instead, the Atlanta Braves got to make the call and have that call go unchecked.

Then that first game happened on Monday. If you did not watch it, I feel bad for you. My dad didn’t get to see it because TV does not exist for him right now. That’s the only acceptable excuse if you’re a baseball fan. Spencer Schwellenbach’s pitching dominated the Mets for seven innings. The Braves put up three runs in that span, all on the long ball. It felt insurmountable. It felt like the ghosts troubling the Mets in Milwaukee simply got a head start on traveling to Atlanta.

However, the Atlanta bullpen coughed up the lead. Yet, closer Edwin Diaz could not hold the lead for the Mets. He missed covering first base on a ground ball. This gaffe felt entirely Metsian, that the invisible ghouls were again exacting their revenge. Then Francisco Lindor made all of us Mets fans feel silly for believing in ghosts. He muscled a dinger over the fence. Diaz returned to the mound and got the final three outs. The Mets were going to the postseason. They were going back to Milwaukee for the wild card series.

The game last night in Milwaukee was electric, at least for the first six innings or so. The lead seesawed back and forth in the opening frames, but the Mets put up five runs in the fifth inning to put the game away. The proceedings felt decidedly boring from that point onward. After all the hand wringing over the past few days, this ennui felt refreshing.

I don’t really believe in spirits. I am decidedly plain and grounded when it comes to matters of the unknown, the divine. However, I find that sports, especially baseball, will bring out superstition in the most atheistic of fans. I watched the first two of those Mets losses to Milwaukee at a neighborhood bar. I refused to return to it on Sunday for game three. The Mets won that game. I can’t watch at that bar anymore.

In a broader sense, this past week feels like an exorcism for the New York Mets. The demons that tormented them in Milwaukee and Atlanta feel almost vanquished. They will face another test of fortitude in a matter of hours. If they win tonight, or even if their advancement does not come until tomorrow, a weight will be lifted—the oppressive spirits banished to the nether realm. We can start creating new superstitions, new narratives, new excuses for our pain. Remember, they are still making sequels to The Exorcist.