LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: GM Sandy Alderson is focused on improving the Mets, but his thoughts are never far from the memory of his father, John, who was killed when he was struck by a car in St. Petersburg, Fla., in November 2010. (AP)
What we have seen the past few days is the whimsical side of the general manager of the Mets, the sense of humor Sandy Alderson employs — that, you suspect, most Mets employees must employ these days — to make it through workdays that soon will include more tales of gloom and doom in courtrooms and on ballfields.
Alderson’s tweeting has been a master stroke, an ability to assert on the one hand he certainly understands the daily anxieties caring about the Mets entails, while on the other proving at the end of the day, as serious a business as baseball seems, it still is a game, and still supposed to be fun.
And it isn’t only on Twitter that Alderson reveals his glib side (for the record, the account is @MetsGM and my personal favorite, to date, is this: “Will have to drive carefully on trip; Mets only reimburse for gas at a downhill rate. Will try to coast all the way to FL”). Told the other day that what the Mets really could use this year was a baseball version of Jeremy Lin, Alderson chuckled and paused a beat.
“Couldn’t everybody?” he said.
Alderson never said the task of rebuilding the Mets was going to be easy, or all that much fun. He never has promised any kind of magic bullet to aid in the franchise’s rehab. His first year was mostly favorable, even if he wound up bearing the public burden of the team’s unwillingness to fully engage in a sweepstakes to retain Jose Reyes.
But it also was a year he endured with a heavy heart, a twinge of sadness that remains in his heart as he prepares to open his second spring training in charge of the team’s delicate present and uncertain future. Alderson was named the Mets GM on Oct. 28, 2010. Fifteen days later, his father, John, was crossing a street in St. Petersburg, Fla., just before midnight when he was struck by a Jeep.
John Alderson — 87 years old, an Air Force pilot for 33 years, a veteran of Vietnam, Korea and World War II — died a half-hour later, early in the morning of Nov. 14. He was wearing a Mets cap on his head, and a 1989 World Series ring on his finger, which his son won as GM of the A’s.
“Anyone who loses a parent knows the effect it has on you, no matter the circumstances,” Alderson said recently, his voice softening as the memories of his dad returned quickly. “He was 87 but he was youthful and he was sharp and he was so looking forward to this adventure with the Mets. And to lose him as we did …”
He coughed.
“If you’ve lost a parent, you know what I’m talking about.”
Alderson is quick to point out the loss wasn’t his alone, that John Alderson was very close to Sandy’s wife, Linda, and to his other children, that his absence remains a cavity in all their lives.
But so much of the man Sandy became was because of his father. While Sandy was a ROTC undergrad at Dartmouth in the ’60s, he visited his father and rode shotgun as he flew test operations. Sandy served in Vietnam himself.
John took Sandy to his first baseball games, a doubleheader at Comiskey Park when Sandy was 8. Later, stationed in Japan, father and son saw the Yankees on an exhibition tour, a favor Sandy would repay years later when he was working for MLB and the Yankees went there to open the 2004 season and he took his dad along with him.
“He would have been there in spring training,” Sandy said. “He would have been around a lot during the year. We would have talked constantly.”
A year later, the father’s absence still pains the son. But the memories sustain him.
“You’re comforted by knowing how full a life he had in 87 years,” Sandy said. Another spring training awaits. Another season. Another adventure.
“He would have enjoyed all of it,” Sandy Alderson said.
Whack Back at Vac
Rich Resnick: I, and so many others, are deeply saddened by the passing of Gary Carter. I was there that October night in 1986. All the expectations and hopes of a city were in Gary’s hands that night as he stepped up to the plate. As always, he did not disappoint us. Thanks for remembering him in such a beautiful way.
Vac: The best thing I ever heard anyone say about Carter was from Ron Darling last summer: “Kid was everything you ever want your sports heroes to be, and about 50 percent more on top of it.”
@BobbyGiaccio: Lin backwards = Nil … which is kind of fitting because he’s the opposite of nothing. He’s really something.
@MikeVacc: I hope Linsanity lasts forever. Honestly. I really do.
Joe Lhotan: On your list of great New York City point guards in Friday’s paper, no mention of Mark Jackson, third all-time in assists?
Vac: Really, the sublime NYC class of ’83 of Jackson (Loughlin/ St. John’s), Pearl Washington (Boys & Girls / Syracuse), Kenny Smith (Molloy / UNC) and Kenny Hutchinson (Ben Franklin/ Arkansas) — to say nothing of honorable mention Billy Donovan (St. Agnes / Providence) — should have a permanent display in the city’s basketball hall of fame.
Chris Bogner: I attended my first Rangers game in about 25 years a couple of weeks ago (they shut out the Jets, 3-0) with the King in the nets, and I felt like a kid again. Larry Brooks recently wrote that the Rangers could very well be the next team to ride up the Canyon of Heroes. I get goosebumps just thinking about that. I remember crying when they won in ’94. I can’t wait to cry again!
Vac: Linsanity aside, this is as great a story as we could ask for, right in our backyard. And if you can’t root for a guy like Henrik Lundqvist — you’re either unfeeling or you’re an Islanders / Devils fan.
Vac’s Whacks
One thing the last few weeks have done is make those of us who thought we saw something real in Landry Field
s last year realize we weren’t completely fooled. Everyone is worried about how Jeremy Lin will react to Carmelo Anthony’s return? It’s the Fields-Melo dynamic I will be studying, because Fields is the one who has been a different player sharing the court with ol’ No. 7.
* If you ever have been a fan of any hockey team that has endured the playoff gauntlet you understand that no matter how giddy Rangers fans are now — and should be — there is an underlying ache in the gizzard that will be there until they get at least one playoff series under their belts. Just the nature of the beast.
* I would have sat through a 10-hour Grammy telecast if the payoff was that “Abbey Road” climax at the finish, with Bruce Springsteen, Joe Walsh and Dave Grohl looking like they were having the time of their lives trying to out-solo and out-guitar-face Sir Paul McCartney during the extended freelance part of “The End.”
* I’ve been saying for years that the Mets need to retire No. 17. I’m starting to wonder if the Knicks might beat them to it.