Terry Collins, who’s as old school as rabbit ears on a television, wouldn’t betray the sanctity of his office, so what follows is a fair approximation of the conversations that took place with Ike Davis and Ruben Tejada at Citi Field Tuesday night, following the Mets’ dramatic 2-1 comeback win over the Yankees:
“Ike?”
“Yes, Skip?’’
“Ruben?”
“Yes, Skip?”
“If you don’t play better, you’re going to Las Vegas.”
Tejada: “OK.”
Davis: “Got it.”
“And fellas?”
Together: “Yeah, Skip?”
“That means now. As in immediately.”
And see? That’s all it takes. You pay a visit to the woodshed, you talk sternly to these kids — they crave discipline, you know — and suddenly they play better. Suddenly Tejada is leading off a game with a frozen rope and scoring a couple of beats later on a double. Suddenly Davis is taking a couple of fastballs the other way, lashing a two-run single and adding another clean safety.
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You would’ve thought this would all have worked out better in past years when, for instance, the threat of demotion would have included a one-way ticket to somewhere like Buffalo or Norfolk (fine cities, both, but never to be confused with Bugsy Siegel’s old stomping ground, let’s be honest).
But, no: Davis and Tejada came out during this 9-4 Mets victory last night, and they gave the Mets precincts of the crowd of 43,681 something to chirp about. They looked aggressive and they looked alert, and if Tejada did exhibit one troubling brain freeze in the sixth, holding on to a ball with a seven-run lead instead of throwing it to first base, he also dove a couple of times.
Hard to remember two 20somethings who looked so averse to hitting The Strip.
Maybe they were told that whatever’s sent to Vegas stays in Vegas.
Maybe this was the start of something for both of them, a wake-up call that will resonate the rest of the year, or maybe it was an aberration, or the laws of probability bending back into their favor for a night, or …
“Don’t know,” Collins had said before the game, shrugging his shoulders, acknowledging (as any reasonable person would) that you can never predict the human spirit when it’s pushed to the brink. Later, it was learned that it was Collins, more than anyone, who helped forestall their demotions, providing an 11th-hour stay.
So what we’re left with is this: a couple of down-on-their-luck players who looked decidedly less down-in-the-mouth after this victory, the first time the Mets have won four in a row, probably the first time in their lives that Davis and Tejada had each been forced to put their careers on the table and told: Let it ride.
“I have to do my job,” Tejada said.
“I’ve been upset all year. I don’t like playing bad,” Davis said.
“If we’re going to have a chance to win baseball games,” Collins said, “then Ike Davis needs to be in the middle of this lineup.”
The late Bob Murphy always said “baseball is a game of redeeming features,” and he was right, but it is also a game of relentless challenge. Davis’ entire season has been a study in seeing if one nice game ever breeds another; Tejada’s has been a study of what can happen when a young player grows too comfortable too quickly, and the hard lessons continued last night when he hurt his quad late in the game chasing a foul ball.
In other words, this was a nice start, a nice way to avoid being sent out to the desert, in exile, like Fredo Corleone. Because once you disappear into the desert? Freddy can tell you. You can get stepped over.