TACOMA, Wash. — Wally Backman no longer is a reclamation project or the subject of a baseball rubbernecking endeavor. As manager of the Las Vegas 51s, baseball’s most challenging Triple-A affiliate, he’s an accomplished baseball man in his fourth year back as a Mets employee.
He has won back his full resume.
“I think I’ve served my time,” Backman told The Post yesterday, before his club took on Tacoma at Cheney Stadium. “I guess I’ve been in prison for a while.”
Yeah, he’s still the colorful Backman, with a devilish sense of humor. But as he has climbed the ladder of the Mets’ hierarchy — starting with Class A Brooklyn in 2010 and moving up to Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Buffalo before the affiliate’s move west — he has displayed his trademark intensity without finding the trouble that torpedoed his ambitions almost 10 years ago now.
Whether he’ll be the next Mets manager, a resolution that would thrill a significant segment of the team’s fans, remains a shaky bet. At the least, however, Backman deserves a job on someone’s major-league coaching staff in 2014.
“I’m just like the players,” he said. “I’m like the [Matt] Harveys and the [Zack] Wheelers that have one thing in mind, and that’s getting back in the big leagues. But I do try to keep my focus right where I’m at right now.”
As well he should. He’s not going to have Wheeler for too much longer. The right-hander started last night for Las Vegas, and he’ll probably make one more start for Backman before debuting with the Mets in their June 18 doubleheader at Atlanta. Catcher Travis d’Arnaud should be back this season, however, and other highly regarded young pitchers like Rafael Montero and Cory Mazzoni could climb to Vegas by season’s end.
The 51s play in a dilapidated stadium, Cashman Field, with worn-out facilities, an unforgiving dry infield and brutal heat in which easy fly outs can blossom into home runs. They also play in a city that views sin and vice as reasons to come visit, which is not ideal for professional athletes.
To deal with the latter, Backman had Mets vice president of security Rob Kasdon fly into Vegas at the start of the season and discuss the city’s traps and downfalls. So far, so good in that department. To cope with the actual baseball obstacles, Backman makes sure to communicate regularly with his players and keep up their spirits.
“The pitching side of it is probably the hardest side of it, because you find guys pitching away from contact,” Backman said. “They’re trying to make the perfect pitch. What we’ve tried to tell our guys is, every walk is two runs. Especially in Vegas, because pop-ups can go out.
“As poorly as some of the guys have pitched early in the year, some of the guys have really stepped up. … You see the good and the bad. It’ll show you the makeup of the player.”
Backman now has managed in nine minor-league seasons for official affiliates, plus three more in independent ball that came during his de facto banishment from organized Major League Baseball — after the Diamondbacks hired him to manage for the 2004 season, only to fire him within the week when details of his past emerged — including arrests for a domestic dispute and a DUI. Maybe you’ve seen the video clips from that time, from the reality television show “Playing for Peanuts” — myriad tantrums during his 2007 run with the South Georgia Peanuts.
On one hand, those clips underline the passion for which many Mets fans love him. On the other … Backman doesn’t want those highlights to define him.
“I think the thing that really stands out in most people’s eyes is that YouTube stuff,” Backman said. “Because they think that I’m this high-antic guy managing. I’m not that guy. I’m ahead of the game. I’m innings ahead of the game. My whole deal is running the pitchers. If you can run your bullpen, you should be able to manage and help be a part of winning games. That’s what I concern myself with.
“I think I’m still the same guy. I’m going to stick up for my players, I’m going to fight for my players. I may not throw the bats and the balls on the field anymore and stuff like that. If that’s calming down, I guess that’s calming down. But I’ve definitely got the players’ backs. If they get thrown out, I’m probably going with them 90 percent of the time. Right or wrong.”
It would be right, this coming winter, for Backman’s name to be in the major-league mix once again, as either manager or coach. Like Harvey and, shortly, Wheeler, he has earned his parole.