Hire The Guy With A Head For Baseball
To take the pulse of baseball, one need look no further than New York. The Big Apple is the Yin and Yang of baseball, the Alpha and Omega, the Kill and Be Killed. The Yankees and Mets represent opposite ends of the spectrum: the Yankees consistent excellence, the Mets entrenched futility.
The Mets have always existed in the shadow of the older, storied, and far more successful Yankees. So, what’s a well-meaning, desperate soul like Mets owner Fred Wilpon to do? Given that hiring a voodoo priest to put a hex on the Yankees isn’t a practical solution, Wilpon is really left with only one alternative: hire someone with a real head for the game. And no, I’m not talking about Pete Rose, either.
Whatever the reason, it is probably best that he remain mute. For if Mr. Met could speak, he might release a bansheelike wail that lasts through the day and well into the night, long after the lights at Shea Stadium had stopped illuminating the latest crime committed in the name of baseball….
If you were to get inside Mr. Met’s head - there’s plenty of legroom - you would see memories that would have you howling as well. Just four years ago, the Mets won the National League pennant, earning the right to be thrashed by the Yankees in the 2000 World Series. But it seemed that the Mets had channeled the spirits of championship seasons past and would again be challenging the Yankees for the attention, if not the universal affection, of this city’s baseball fans.
Wait till next year, shouted the gesticulating white-gloved hands of Mr. Met, who could take pride in knowing that as far as team mascots, he owned this town. That’s MISTER Met to you, George….
Up in the Bronx, the Yankees are once again strutting toward the playoffs, led by a grinning shortstop whose teeth seem preternaturally white. And in Queens, the Mets are once again losing, led by a pitcher whose front teeth were knocked out in a traffic accident while en route to Shea.
There is suffering, and then there is Mets fans’ suffering. New York is not usually a city that suffering losing well, but for some reason Mets fans are immune. Like Cubs fans, they support their team in the good times and the bad. Though the Mets are a bad team playing in a crappy stadium, they still manage to draw well.
This weekend, for example, he will light up a lucky someone’s birthday party in Brooklyn. And last week he arrived by limousine to a gaudy Midtown affair, although he had to sit on the vehicle’s floor so that his head could fit.
Last, Mr. Met has charisma. He enchants those children who do not cry at the sight of him. And when he invited retirees to walk the base paths after a recent game, Mr. Howard says, “there was a bottleneck at first base of senior citizens wanting their picture taken with Mr. Met.”
Mr. Met, the perfect manager for this organization: smiling on the outside, howling on the inside.
Who better to help drag this franchise out of the miasma of mediocrity that someone who has been with the team through the good and the (really) bad? Why not Mr. Met? Hey, if a talented and respected manager like Art Howe can’t turn the Mets around, what does Fred Wilpon have to lose? Come on, Fred, give the guy with the colossal cranium a chance.
With Mr. Met at the helm, will New Yorkers be less focused on the Mets’ continuing slide into the morass of mediocrity? Without a doubt; even New Yorkers appreciate a good distraction.
OK, Fred, now that we’ve settled that question, how about building your team a decent stadium?
