Irate Mets fan doubles down after NJ Transit ruined Opening Day
A Mets superfan became the face of Penn Station commuter madness Tuesday with an exasperated rant about missing the start of Opening Day because of a derailment problem.
Frank Fleming, 41, tore the New Jersey Transit system a new one in a voice-cracking, zinger-filled tirade — ala Chris Farley’s motivational-speaking character Matt Foley from SNL— that went viral after he spent a total of nearly 10 hours on trains Monday.
“It was ridiculous!” Belleville, NJ resident fumed to The Post.
“I was stuck in a tunnel underground for almost 5 hours before the game with this terrible buzzing sound in my ear. And then they announce the wrong tracks are open — they’re sending us running around everywhere — and I had to get an Uber. I ended up missing the opening ceremony, and the opening pitch, which is the best part,” he said, still seething.
By the time the game ended, the train trouble still hadn’t been fixed, so he suffered through another grueling 4.5-hour ride back to New Jersey, he said.
“I’m tellin’ you, it was like that movie ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ — only it was subways, PATHs and Ubers!” the Belleville, NJ resident ranted. “New Jersey Transit is the worst! They need get it together!”
On Tuesday, the NJ Transit announced it was operating on a holiday schedule, creating more delays at Penn Station and further enraging the baseball buff.
“It’s been 24 hours now, and it’s still not clear. That is totally crazy,” he said.
Fleming, a court clerk who also runs the blog Sportsecyclopedia.com, said the best way to fix the troubled transit system is to hire a private firm to run it.
“If you contract it out to private companies that usually helps because they’re forced to do better. I think they need a rival company. When it’s run by the government, they can be as terrible as they want,” he said.
Ultimately, he said the nightmarish 10-hour journey could have been worse — noting, “It was worth it because the Mets won.”
A video of Fleming’s heated pre-game interview with NBC had raked in thousands of views online Tuesday. In it, he rages about the transit system, shouting, “They are incompetent!”