Mickey Callaway talked the other night about there being a different threshold for players to be medically cleared to play major league baseball, even if they’ve been allowed to play in the minors, and immediately alarm bells went off all over the various precincts of the Mets’ fan base because, well … nobody had ever heard of that before.
Of course, a little later, David Wright himself, the subject of Callaway’s remarks, reiterated that alleged protocol — “I have been told I need to do certain things to become activated, and I’m willing to do that” — and the alarm bells were still awfully loud.
And even when Wright addressed the 8,000-pound purple elephant in the room when he flatly declared, “They have never once brought [the insurance] up to me,” Wright said, referring to the front office …
Well, it still sounded like the inside of Firehouse 51 on the old “Emergency” show, with DeSoto and Gage ready to get on the horn with Rampart and figure out how to get some catatonic hippie freak out of the burning building before he went into full cardiac arrest.
Such is the vast, almost incalculable chasm that is the Mets’ credibility gap, the distant points between what the organization says and what their customers believe, which means that even if there are truths trying to be lobbed from one edge of that canyon to the other, they inevitably fall into a bottomless pit.
It’s a terrible predicament, one the Mets have earned on merit across these past 16 years of solo Wilpon stewardship — one that only worsened once their Madoff follies became public, one that continues with every transaction they make, every one they don’t, every nickel they squeeze and every season that gets hauled into a Port-O-John by the Fourth of July.
That gap isn’t the first. It isn’t close to the worst. Back in the day, George Steinbrenner would swear he was giving Bob Lemon or Yogi Berra the whole season no matter what — he would actually say these things on the record — then Lemon would get 14 games and Yogi would get 16. Hell, the very first time the Boss ever stepped behind a microphone he swore he would be a “hands-off” owner, then spent most of the next 20 years leaving more fingerprints than the dumbest “CSI” crook.
They aren’t the only ones with a gap this wide. Knicks fans can tell you all about that. But even as much and as long as James Dolan has frazzled their nerves, there is still the small fact that he owns the Rangers and runs them as a real owner should — letting hockey men make hockey moves, trusting them implicitly, paying the bills. So there is at least the hope, however illusory, that if he only adheres to the philosophies he holds dear elsewhere in his own empire, things could go OK.
There are no such assurances from the Wilpons, simply an endless string of realities that dig the gap deeper and expand it wider — whether it’s refusing to pony up money in deadline-deal dumps despite assurances they would; whether it’s keeping someone like Peter Alonso in bubble wrap when most of their clientele is begging to see him in September; whether it’s making Wright dance for his dinner.
It is entirely possible, in fact, the Mets do have best intentions in heart — that they really were willing to pay for prospects but just didn’t see any that were worth the cash; that they really do have a plan for Alonso that isn’t just about starting his arbitration clock earlier than they’d like; that they really do want to avoid the Seaver 2.0 outrage that would ensue if they were simply thinking about keeping Wright off the field to collect the full boat of insurance money they’d have to forfeit.
But nobody is inclined to believe any of it, even if it is true.
Such is the credibility gap. Such is the reason that when the Yankees goof up the Aaron Judge timetable last month, or the Giants make a mess of their quarterback situation last year, they endure a few barbs, some angry tweets, and that’s it. That’s the chief profit of running credible operations for decades.
The Mets? It will be a long time before their public takes their words at face value, even if they are issued honestly. Right now it’s like trying to go from Bay Ridge to Staten Island. The Yankees and the Giants get to use the Verrazano. The Mets have to doggie-paddle.
Vac’s Whacks
As we enter the closing hours of beach-read season: Jeff Pearlman’s book on the USFL, “Football For A Buck,” is every bit as fantastic as you’d expect a Pearlman book to be, and you honestly don’t need to have spent time as devoted USFL fan (as Jeff and I both were) to enjoy. Also well worth your while; “September 1918: War, Plague and the World Series” by Skip Desjardin.
I know it’s fashionable to act like Eli Manning is just shy of his 70th birthday with one foot already in a broadcast booth but … it sure does sound an awful lot, in all the gushing about Odell Beckham Jr., that ol’ No. 13 must have thrown all those balls to himself to accrue those gaudy numbers, pre-ankle.
I get it, this is entirely subjective and in radio beauty is in the ear of the beholder. I just have a hard time understanding how anyone can listen to Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott on WFAN and not see how much more enjoyable, informative and just plain fun they are to listen to than the guy they replaced.
Every time I see one of these bearded baseball players sprinting for a razor the second after being traded or signed by the Yankees, I always wonder: What if Babe Ruth had started his baseball journey playing for that old House of David baseball team instead of St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys?
Whack Back at Vac
Doug Giardini: With regard to Clyde Frazier’s comments on Kevin Durant needing an asterisk next to his name for joining Golden State, maybe he can personally deliver an asterisk to Earl the Pearl as well as a way of saying thanks for that second championship.
Vac: While he’s at it, he can drop one off at Jerry Lucas’ house, too. As Clyde himself might put it: He needs a retraction to that verbal infraction.
Frank Giordano: Is there any way Jacob deGrom can pitch a shutout and the Mets can still lose? I think that’s about the only thing left for him to do.
Vac: At this point, I have to believe he may have a Harvey Haddix night in him before the end of the month (look it up, kids).
@martyrosesi: My original (to “Camptown Races”): “New outfielder for the Mets, Duda Duda/Probably hits like all the rest, all the Duda day/Probably won’t hit at night/Probably won’t hit in the day/Bet my money on the NY Mets/We got another Jason Bay.”
@MikeVacc: Welcome to the intersection of fan genius and fan hallucination.
Eric F. Seldin: Your statement that the Devils change uniform color schemes “every few months” borders on the edge of ultimate sports ignorance. For the 1992-93 season, they made their one and only color scheme change to black, red and white, to which it stands unchanged to this day!
Vac: He’s right of course. I think the old Christmas red-and-greens may have messed with the matrix of my memory … though it is quite ironic that a day or two after that column ran the team announced they really are bringing those colors back for four “heritage games.”
Source: Read Full Article