MLB

Mets manager deals card cutoff

PORT ST. LUCIE — Mets manager Terry Collins consulted with his veteran players yesterday and decided a change is in the cards.

A day after telling The Post card games in the Mets clubhouse may have been a problem last year, Collins instituted a rule that bans card playing within one hour of the first pitch. The issue came to the forefront in Pittsburgh last August when former hitting coach Howard Johnson went ballistic and challenged players to put as much energy into game preparation as playing cards.

“I asked some of the guys about [card playing],” Collins said. “I said, ‘Tell me about what happened,’ and they did, so I said, ‘You have to understand there’s a time you’ve got to relax and there’s going to be a time we shut it off and get ready to play.’ They said, ‘Yeah, that’s the way it should be.’ ”

Jason Bay said card playing did not interfere with players’ game preparation last season.

“When things aren’t going well people look for other things that could be factors, and when you see a lot of guys playing cards, that’s an obvious one to go after,” Bay said. “But I don’t think from a players’ perspective it was an issue. But I can understand why somebody would think so.”

Bay said it will be up to the players to enforce the new rule on card playing.

“It will be an hour before the game [cutoff], but a lot of that falls on us,” Bay said. “[Collins] is not going to walk around with a stopwatch. It’s not about taking people down. It’s about being serious about it and taking it serious.”