It felt so fitting, in a “Woebegone Mets” sort of way, that a meaningful player from Mets history gained election into the Hall of Fame this week and the New York reaction was … mostly a mix of apathy and aggravation, right?
Even at a Thursday news conference in Manhattan, less than 24 hours after he received his life-altering news of his election into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Tom Glavine made clear he, too, is not totally at peace with his five-year stay in Flushing. That ties back to the way his relationship concluded, a brutal final start that surely produced a boon for the psychology industry in the Tri-State area.
“Look, I’ve still got people hating on me on Twitter and everywhere else over that game,” Glavine said. “Like I’ve said to people, for what was otherwise a lot of fun for five years, that was not the way I wanted things to end here. It certainly is not something that I’m proud of or certainly not the way I wanted to end my time here as a Met.
“I wish that people could get past that a little bit and look at some of the other good things that I did, but I understand that there’s still some anger from some people out there.”
Yes, it’s a perfectly Metsian slant to this year’s announcement: They employed Glavine at the wrong time, following his illustrious prime with the Braves. They had the wrong Maddux brother, with Mike (now the Rangers’ highly regarded pitching coach) pitching for them in 1993 and 1994. They even carried the wrong Frank Thomas, the outfielder/infielder on their inaugural 1962 club.
Glavine shares some Mets vibes with new Yankee Carlos Beltran. Both signed with the Mets as free agents when their first choices (the Yankees for Beltran, the Braves for Glavine) didn’t work out. Both are remembered by Mets fans, unfairly, for one bad moment. Beltran looked at Adam Wainwright’s nasty curveball to end the Mets’ 2006 run, while Glavine lasted just one-third of an inning, allowing seven runs to the Marlins, to secure the team’s historic plummet in the final regular-season game of 2007.
“There were balls hit in play that were dropping in front of everybody,” Omar Minaya, then the Mets general manager, recalled in a telephone interview Thursday. “If I had to do it all over again, I’d want Tom to have the ball again.”
There’s some truth to Minaya’s recollection, as Glavine allowed just one hard-hit ball in that nightmare inning. However, Glavine dug a deeper hole for himself with his postgame comments.
“I’m not devastated,” he said that day. “I’m disappointed, but devastation is for much greater things in life.”
With time, I appreciate Glavine’s proper perspective, but not everyone does.
Whereas the Beltran-hating among Mets fans, is sheer stupidity, the Glavine-bashing does underline some frustration. The left-hander transformed suddenly from a Braves stud in 2002 to something noticeably less once he joined the Mets. He recovered after a terrible first season (4.52 ERA) to be above-average from 2004-06 (3.60, 3.53 and 3.82) and pitched well in the 2006 postseason, his lone Mets October.
“I thought he was somewhere between a two and a three,” said Minaya, who took over the Mets’ baseball operations after the 2004 season. “But whenever he went to the mound, you felt like you had a number one going out there.”
Then came the ’07 meltdown, and he returned to the rival Braves to end his career. And here we are over six years later, the wounds not fully healed.
“I had a blast playing here,” Glavine said. “The fans are very passionate about their teams, which is always fun to be a part of. And I won my 300th game there [in 2007], so that’s always going to [be] a special memory for me. I totally enjoyed it here.”
Only Tom Seaver wears a Mets logo on his Hall of Fame plaque. The other legends with Mets ties, including Roberto Alomar, Rickey Henderson and Willie Mays, tend to generate as much cringing as smiling in Flushing.
Add Glavine to that list of Mets Cooperstown curiosities, a list that makes you further appreciate why Mets fans want to really enjoy this time of year with good news for Mike Piazza.