Here is the problem that continues to dog the Mets now, that will dog them from now until there is either a new ownership group or a new mindset surrounding the old ownership:
Their own fans don’t trust them as far as they can throw them.
As negotiations with David Wright and R.A. Dickey continue to meander, it was revealed this week the cheapest opening day ticket for April 1, when the Mets host the Padres, will be $63. If that sounds absurdly expensive, it should: Two days later, when those same teams play the second game of the season at Citi Field, those $63 “promenade reserved” tickets can be had for $15.
If this sounds absurdly tone-deaf … well, of course it is. Because it goes to the very dichotomy that will forever haunt the Mets: On the one hand, they want to play the big-market bully whenever it benefits them. That means charging Broadway-level prices for Opening Day, for Yankees games, for high-profile games. That means remembering the dateline for their games remains “New York,” and paying for the privilege.
But on the other, they want to squeeze themselves into a shell, camouflaging their own spending habits behind terms like “fiscally sound” and “responsible.” The Wilpons keep insisting they are not a team in financial ruin, they are stronger now than they were two years ago, that it is unfair to label them unnecessarily thrifty. And insist the budget they are imposing for themselves is good for them, for their future.
And for you.
The Mets want it both ways, and squeeze the last ligaments of their credibility to the very breaking point. Which is why so much of who the Mets are, and what they will be — and what they can ever expect their own fans to think them to be, under the present regime — will be determined in the coming weeks and months in how they deal with one player: David Wright.
Let’s table Dickey for a second. Yes, it would be nice if Dickey could pitch Opening Day, be recognized for his Cy Young, partially justify those $63 cheap seats (and the $460 high-end ones). But even the most tortured Mets fan, seeing this through the prism of the big picture, must realize if the Mets can turn one 38-year-old pitcher with one dominant season into an array of useful players, it is at least a debatable point.
Wright is a different story. He is the face of the franchise. He is, at worst, the third-most accomplished player in team history (behind Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza) and could well be No. 2. Put it this way: If you translate the Mets to the Yankees, Seaver is the Mets’ Babe Ruth, Piazza their DiMaggio. That means Wright is either their Gehrig or Mantle, relatively speaking.
Now, iconic players get traded, all over baseball. Sometimes the deals make sense, sometimes they don’t. But in the Mets’ case, Wright represents something else: Much of their record book, 90 percent of the remaining good will after four straight wretched seasons. A smarter team, one with more civic credibility, could make a case, if necessary, that cutting bait on Wright is the smart call.
The Mets don’t have that kind of credibility. They will be charging $63 for Uecker Seats on Opening Day, have yet to offer proof they understand just how disgusted their fan base is. There is little wiggle room here. If you are the Mets and want to act like a varsity New York club, you sign Wright, you make him the franchise face forever, and you worry about the ramifications later on. Even if they are costly.
Or else be done with this, once and forever, and let those ramifications be someone else’s worry.
Whack Back at Vac
Alan Hirschberg: Here’s why the Jets can play so poorly after what they always tell us were great practice weeks: They practice only among themselves. On game days, they have to face teams with real NFL talent.
Vac: As the defeated lawyer always says on TV: “No questions, Your Honor.”
metnjet: It is time for the writers to call on Woody Johnson to hire Bill Polian.
Vac: Consider me one writer who would be all for this.
@charlesfiori: Look it up: Nov. 21, 1971, Rangers beat the California Golden Seals, 12-1, at the Garden. Gilles Meloche gets pulled, crying after giving up nine. I was there.
@MikeVacc: File this one under the subject, “Memories stirred up when a basketball player launches 138 shots in one game.”
Tom O’Donnell: Just my opinion, but if Gyp Rosetti ever attempted in Port Newark what he’s done in Tabor Heights, Tony Soprano would have upped and moved his operation to Iowa.
Vac: And the operation probably would’ve been moved without Gyp, too.
Vac’s Whacks
I’m amazed more coaches don’t completely lose it in public the way Morehead State’s Sean Woods did the other night. And am even more amazed the punishment for doing so, still, in 2012, isn’t a little more harsh than a one-game suspension.
* Not for the first time, not for the last, we turn to the New York Football Giants this evening and ask them to restore a little sanity, a little dignity to New York’s athletic reputation.
* Saw “Lincoln” the other day, loved it, loved Daniel Day-Lewis, loved Sally Field, and Tommy Lee Jones, and even James Spader, and love the quintessentially American fact that an actor such as the great Bruce McGill can play both D-Day (Belushi’s wing man in “Animal House”) and Edwin M. Stanton in the same career.
* I’m not sure that Grinnell College-Faith Baptist basketball game was as big a mismatch as the Donald Fehr–Gary Bettman negotiation.