Mike Vaccaro

Mike Vaccaro

MLB

Mets fans can handle Harvey grief, but won’t accept lost ‘14

You can understand what was going through the kid’s mind, of course, because if you are a Mets fan you were right there with him, in lockstep, taking a full tour through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief.

Is that taking it too far, calling it grief? Matt Harvey didn’t die, after all. And his career isn’t over. If anything, if all goes well in Dr. James Andrews’ operating room in the next few weeks and then in rehab in the months thereafter, he should return from Tommy John surgery as fully equipped as ever, his right elbow tightly wound, his path to the stars still awaiting.

But, yes: For now, for today, grief fits because baseball is a daily commitment, a perpetual investment, and the 2014 Mets just took a hit, just suffered a genuine loss. So did baseball, which loses a bright young star for a full season that he — and the sport — will never get back, same as it’ll never get back 2011 for Stephen Strasburg, or 2013 for Derek Jeter, or 1994 for Chipper Jones.

So we know this all started with denial, for Harvey and for his fans, because, honestly, how could baseball be this cruel? How could it grant Harvey this fleeting taste of stardom and all its perks — how could it grant Mets fans a glimpse of something so exciting, so extraordinary — and then yank it away?

Anger followed, as anger does. We didn’t see Harvey’s fury, though we can imagine it, we can summon the rage that must have filled him as the diagnosis became real, as the tear in his ulnar collateral ligament became visible on the MRI film, because as a fan you felt it too: Of course this happened to us … um, him. Of course it did.

Bargaining was next, and that we could see. That’s what the visit to Roy Halladay was about and the talk about how Adam Wainwright waited and Harvey’s unwillingness to invite the scalpel to his elbow right away. That’s when Mets fans pointed out a 90 percent success rate wasn’t what it was cracked up to be — would you board a plane if there was only a 90 percent chance of it landing? You could tell what Harvey was thinking because your Met-fan friends were right there, too: Hey, maybe the kid’s just that tough. Maybe he can do this. Maybe, maybe, maybe …

(And then this …)

(And then silence …)

(And then recognizing you can’t just blink it away with your eyes like Jeannie or with your nose like Samantha Stephens or with a wave of wizardry like Harry Potter, because scalpels are more effective than magic wands, a terrible truth …)

That’s depression.

This is acceptance. This is stage five. This is understanding, at dawn’s early light, that what’s best for Matt Harvey is what’s best for the Mets, and what’s best for Harvey is to mend what’s torn, to get him off an operating table and into a rehab program and out the other side, the other side being Opening Day 2015.

For Harvey, that point was no doubt reached as it was always going to be: with the best doctor, Andrews, telling him what was best for his arm and with the best agent, Scott Boras, reminding him what was best for his bankroll. They were always going to keep Harvey from doing silly things like testing his arm in the Arizona Fall League and relying on hope and good intentions.

For Mets fans? That’s more complicated. They have a promise from Fred Wilpon and another from Sandy Alderson the team will be upgraded, the product improved, and those were promises made independent of Harvey’s availability. That better still be so. Because if not, Mets fans won’t breezily accept another trip through the Kubler-Ross model. They’ll proceed directly to anger.

And stay there.