PORT ST. LUCIE — Manager Jerry Manuel believes.
You can take that however you want to. You can take it with a grain of salt. You can take it with enough salt to cover a city pretzel. You can scoff: Of course he has to believe, because if he doesn’t, who will? You can mutter: He had better believe, because he has less job security than Gov. David Paterson.
That’s fine. That’s fair. He chooses to believe anyway.
“I really believe that if you can endure, if you can remain positive, and hopeful, eventually that kind of faith is going to pay off,” Manuel was saying early yesterday morning, inside his Spartan office at Tradition Field. “Eventually, the kind of hardships you absorb are going to make you a championship team. And if they don’t?”
Manuel laughs one of his throaty, bass-octave laughs before answering his own question.
“If they don’t … well, maybe you didn’t have the kind of character to be a championship team in the first place, you know?”
***
Outside, just before 7 in the morning, the rain already has begun to fall, and it won’t be long before Manuel and a chunk of his team will load a couple of buses, make the 2-hour, 45-minute trek across the state to Fort Myers, then be told by the Twins that their exhibition game is cancelled. Back on the buses, they will go for the 185-minute trip home, and if that doesn’t perfectly summarize life around the Mets right now, what does?
But you aren’t going to get Manuel to cop to any of that. You won’t get him to shake his head and wring his hands. Sneer all you want, but he is an acolyte of horn-rimmed eyeglasses with rose-colored tint. Extra time on a bus is extra time to read, or reflect. Jose Reyes gets a prognosis of full rest for two to eight weeks? That’s a chance to see what Ruben Tejada can do. It’s a chance for Reyes to get healthy. It’s a chance for other Mets components to step forward and fill the void.
There is no pity allowed in this office. Not for an opponent. Certainly not for himself.
“The team has to see you as immovable,” Manuel says. “When you sit in this chair, no matter what has happened to your team, you can’t ever complain about this guy being out, or that guy. You have to ask your coaches: ‘What can we do to win this game today?’ That’s your biggest job.”
The manager knows what an easy target he became last year with his daily pronouncements of “treading water,” and “waiting for the cavalry to arrive,” and in retrospect he knows that probably was a mistake. But he also was working under the impression that Reyes and Carlos Beltran would return in time to make a serious impact on the pennant race and the Mets’ fortunes. He says if he knew that would turn out to be a pipe dream, he would have kept the slogans to himself.
“That was the most difficult part,” he says. “For the longest time last year, I always thought it was realistic that those guys would return. I always had that hope. And when they didn’t, it made a lot of what we did — and maybe what I’d been saying — worse.”
Manuel waited a long time to get a job as a major league manager, and when he did — with the White Sox — he won a division title, became embroiled in a regrettable war of words and power with Frank Thomas, and ultimately discovered what managers and coaches have been taught for years when they find themselves in such disputes: The power is with the player.
You don’t always get a second chance. Manuel got a second chance. He took over from Willie Randolph midway through the 2008 season, inspired and cajoled the Mets into first place by September, then saw his wretched bullpen and thin lineup sabotage the final weeks. It earned him a two-year contract. Year 1 of that deal was a blur of calamity.
He understands, better than anyone, that nobody can afford a sequel in Year 2. Least of all himself. Because there will be no third chance if this one ends badly.
“You ask me why I’m so positive, and it’s honestly because I think we’re in better shape to absorb setbacks than we were last year,” he says. “I think we have players who were two years away last year and couldn’t help us yet, and those guys look like they could help us this year if we need it. The good thing about working in a big market is, you always have enough toys to compete.”
He sits back in his chair, and he smiles.
“You just hope,” he says, “that you’re the one who’s playing with the toys in June and July. And not somebody else playing with your toys.”
***
“I think,” general manger Omar Minaya says, “that when you look at the job Jerry’s done, he should be lauded for keeping everyone together last year. It could have been much worse, believe me.”
You can take that however you want to. You can take it with a grain of salt. You can take it with enough salt to cover your H&H bagel. You can scoff: Of course Omar has to believe, because if he doesn’t, who will? You can mutter: He had better believe, because he has less job security than … well, than Jerry Manuel.
Here’s the thing, though: If you are a Mets fan, if you suffered through October 2006 and the twin Septembers of 2007 and 2008 and all of last year, how else would you want your manager to be? Would you want him to have the same reaction you likely (and understandably) had when you heard the Reyes news, something approximating: “We’re bleeped?”
Or do you want this:
“I’ve been in baseball a long time, and if you spend enough time around it you know that the breaks of the game are supposed to even out over time,” he says. “And I think we’re due for a couple of breaks to even things out, don’t you?”
The grin widens.
“I’d say we’re overdue.”
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com