This is where it would be helpful to have a fresh supply of common sense, for everyone. The Mets are an easy target. We know that. It’s splendid for them, and for the people who care about them, that they have broken from the gate clean.
And still they can’t win for losing.
In recent days, we have learned the Mets are planning a video tribute to Jose Reyes when he makes his return to Flushing Tuesday, and also paying some kind of homage — the breadth of it gets smaller the more we hear about it — for Chipper Jones when he says good-bye to Queens later this year.
Part of the problem is this: Mets fans, many of them, don’t trust the men who run their team. There’s good reason for that: Much of what the team has done in recent years invites a jaundiced, cynical eye. The Mets are trying to do right here. And they have gotten it half right.
The Chipper part. We’ll get to that in a bit.
Reyes? Look, we can have a whole separate debate on the Mets’ decision not to tread into deep water in the bidding to retain him, and another on what his true legacy as a Met should be. But here are two things the Mets should consider:
1. He left. Maybe any of us would have. But he was the one who decided not to negotiate last year. And he was the one who left the bad-taste nugget of bunting for a base hit in Game 162, then sprinting for the Grand Central before a full inning was even played.
Slice it any way you want: Ultimately, he left. Willingly. If not gleefully.
2. He hits leadoff, so there is the chance for a wonderfully organic moment: If the fans want to cheer him, they can do so as loud and as long as they want. Same if they want to boo. Or ignore him. When Rangers fans rained love down on Eddie Giacomin back in the day, it was a spontaneous display. That’s what this homecoming deserves.
Chipper? Look, there’s no escaping this: He killed the Mets his whole career. He named his kid Shea. He broke more hearts and spirits than any other opponent. You know who else did that to a New York team generations ago? Stan Musial. You know who gave Musial his nickname, “The Man?” Dodgers fans who saw him pound the Bums day after day and grew to admire him even as he destroyed them. And late in the 1962 season, the Mets, New York’s National League heirs, gave Musial a full-blown “day” at the Polo Grounds.
The Mets did the same thing for Hank Aaron in 1974. The thing that nearly made Lou Gehrig break down during his famous speech was a gift that the Giants — the Yankees’ bitter rivals — gave him. There was always a place for saluting a rival in the game, in a kinder, gentler time.
Nobody expects the Mets to shower Jones with gifts; that would inspire rioting. But to ignore the place Jones has in their history is equally absurd. Let New York tell Chipper publicly what it’s been pleading privately for years: Good luck as you head for the door.
And don’t let it hit you on the way out.