8
2010
Beltran Responds To Criticism Over Walter Reed Trip
An article by 
Update 5:00 PM
Beltran responded after Wednesday’s 3-2 rubber-game win against the Nationals to why he did not join his teammates during the visit to Walter Reed. Beltran had a prior commitment in which he is helping to build a new school in Puerto Rico according to Adam Rubin, and he had already made a previous visit to a military hospital earlier in the season.
“I don’t know who is creating this issue. This offseason I went to visit the veteran hospital in New York. It’s not that I’m against it. I actually went with Fred Wilpon. … And I wanted to go, but I had my own things to do.”
Also, Luis Castillo said he was too squeamish to attend, and Oliver Perez said he doesn’t have to respond to non-baseball issues.
Original Post 10:30 AM
Yesterday, when the Mets made time to go visit Walter Reed Army Medical Center, three players were prominently missing; Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo.
The Mets planned the non-mandatory trip to honor and thank our brave and wounded service men and women who have made huge sacrifices to defend our liberty.
As Anthony McCarron of the Daily News writes,
The event also offered some perspective on the Mets’ relationship with the three most prominent players who skipped the non-mandatory event – Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo. All three have had issues with the Mets recently.
I would have liked to have seen every Mets player attend the non-mandatory event, but I do caution everyone from singling out Castillo, Beltran and Perez simply because it appears there were other Mets who didn’t attend as well and were not mentioned in the article.
I always have a problem with stories like this especially when the words “the three most prominent players” are used to single out a chosen few.
Prominent based on what?
Also, the Mets simply could have made the event mandatory and therefore eliminated the possibility of a negative news story stemming from what was supposed to be a positive event.
I’m not trying to downplay the circumstances, but if you are going to write about players who did not attend this non-mandatory function, wouldn’t the right thing be to name all of them?
These types of stories always seem to find a way of evolving into something ugly that has nothing to do with baseball, but instead gives platforms to those who may want to make unfair and irrelevant cases based on character or even worse things. I’m not looking forward to listening to the talking heads later today.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
Went to my first Mets game, a Mayors Trophy game at Shea, in '73. We beat the Yankees 8-4 and I was hooked. I marched in two Banner Day parades, and before the Grand Slam single, there was the "Hendu Can Do" grand slam - I was there. I've collected Mets memorabilia all my life and started Mets Merized Online to feed my addiction.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 26 | 17 | .605 | - |
| Nationals | 25 | 17 | .595 | 0.5 |
| Marlins | 23 | 19 | .548 | 2.5 |
| Mets | 22 | 20 | .524 | 3.5 |
| Phillies | 21 | 22 | .488 | 5.0 |
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Write Your Own Mets Post
What’s this a fair and reasonable opinion posted on a blog?
Let’s have three cheers for a voice of reason and three more for our recovering vets.
Leave it to the media to bring this junk up. Lets not write about the ones who did go, lets have some fun and write about those who didnt.
Well, two are “prominent” because they suck.
Seriously, only Beltran is prominent. Why didn’t the reporter make any effort to ascertain why they didn’t attend?
In the abstract, it is the right thing to do, but none of us have any real idea why certain players didn’t make the visit.
I’m not about to judge them based on this [lack of] information.
In the end, it’s non-newsworthy.
those guys are not even american, why should they care about walter reed?
Well you didn’t care what happened to the Sterling Enterprise employees who lost money to Madoff…many were Americans. Commentor heal thy self too?
again, i care about baseball, i dont involve myself in sterling and madoff, thats for you guys to care about.
You obviously found time to care about this NON baseball issue. Not consistant are we?
well joe spector, the odd thing is that i get to define what i care about. and i dont give a damn if every player on the mets refuses to go to the vets hospital.
Last I checked, PR is a part of the U.S.A.
The DOminican and Mexico…not so much.
true enough, beltran is an american citizen.
Agree, papers should of had whole story and not just singled out the under performing vets.
Must be a slow news day, what no Bernazard punching or berating someone?
Good article Joe cause I was checking out some responses on another site and the hate, anti-U.S., anti vets spews came out along with other “informed” bias against these players. Like you said some will use this as a platform to attack everyone.
Last I checked this is a free country and you have freedom of association and are we going to keep an eye on every place they go, don’t go, should go, officially go, team related functions to go, sheesh.
You weren’t kidding, the vitriol is already out there and spreading fast. The only reason those three should be grouped together is to say we need to move them before the 2011 season, but not for their no-shows, simply because the team needs a facelift.
well, to be fair, you guys lambasted castillo for improper facial expressions after a game winning hit, so physician, heal thyself.
Nowhere near as much as you did Francoeur for simply existing. Oh ye hypocrite, remove the beam from thine eye.
right but the difference is my criticism of frenchy was based purely on performance, not facial expressions of participation in off the field events. yunno the crap that morons care about.
martin, you’re prevaricating again. Where are the numbers which support your contention he’s one of the historically worst in RF?
why dont you show me a right fielder that has thousands of AB with a OPS+ around 90? again, all the rest were sent down when they had those sort of numbers. i dunno how many times i will have to explain this.
i will give you a starting point:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/onbase_plus_slugging_career.shtml
those are ONLY players with over 3000 AB, there are a thousand of them, going back to the 1910′s or so. remember, only players with over 3 thousand AB make that list, only players who are “good” enough to have long careers. of the 999 on the list, francouer is 993, only 7 players worse, and many of them played in the 1920s
of course frenchy is the worst active player on the entire list. like i said, historically bad. pay the F attention when i talk.
Martin, you made the claim. I think you can’t prove it was anything more than your opinion. Case closed.
not sure what you just read. i showed you that frenchy had the worst OPS of all active players with over 3000 AB, and is one of the worst of all time for OPS. not sure why you cant understadn what that means.
read that again, “worst OPS of all active players with over 3000 AB”.
now read it again. yunno which active player is worse and has played as muh. not one single player. are you beginning to understand?
I said, “Case closed.” Don’t you get it?
Your original, over-the-top claim was that Frenchy was historically the worst. I knew then that it was just a fan’s opinion acting as knowledge. You haven’t proved anything relative to your claim. So until you do, you’re just another opinion. Zip your keyboard until you can back up what you say.
You seem to like insinuating yourself into threads. Get real.
i said historically bad, he is. in fact all of the guys worse than him that have over 3000 AB all have better OPS+ because they played during times when there was less offense. so they were actually better than frenchy was, adjusted for era/league.
when you are the worst active player and have been for over three thousand AB, you are historically bad.
again, not one single active player is worse than frenchy. and really hardly even any players from history because players with similar stats played during the dead ball era.
consider the facts presented. i win.
also your quote of me is a lie. i said he was historically bad, which he is. i didnt say the “worst”, although one could make an argument. try to lie less.
again, all these numebrs are even more shocking when i point out that frenchy is at the bottom of the all time OPS list of ALL players, not just RF. my orignial claim was only about RF, which simply means i wasa more right than even i realized.
feel free to reply by not making a point that has anything to do with numbers or baseball at all.
To set the records straight, you said:
“francouer was not just bad. he was possibly the worst regular right fielder in history”
“he isnt just the worst regular RF in the league, but one of the worst of all time”
Martin this closes the case. You have said much, with little more added than if I had a broken record.
do you know what the difference between saying something is something and saying something is “possibly” something? i suspect you do, amigo!
everything i said was true, and backed up by the numbers i linked. not sure why you continue to be confused. i can repeat if you like:
i linked a chart above, of the OPS numbers of over a thousand players who have more than 3 thousand AB. of all these players, frenchy was THE ABSOLUTE WORST active player, and only 7 players were worse than him overall, none of which are modern era players, and i am pretty sure all have an OPS+ higher than his, meaning they were better than he is relative to their contemporaries.
not sure what part of that you dont understand. basically the exact evidence i claimed was there was in fact true.
Des… your crazy.
I will say it. Frenchy is one of the worst players in all of baseball. He seems like a nice guy and all. But it is hard to find a worse hitter then him in the game. His defense is slightly above average.
I read that yesterdays pitcher Dillon Gee didnt go either somewhere.
Why does everything have to revert back to Francoeur? Arent you guys sick of taking about him? He aint even a Met anymore, come on.
Can’t believe this story has legs in the first place. This is also no excuse for Beltran, Castillo and Ollie to skip out of a team event at Walter Reed Memorial hospital where our troops are recovering from war wounds and they need something of a morale boost. I hope the Wilpons will jettison the three fools after this season.
No one was under any obligation to be there. It wasn’t mandatory, and “I didn’t feel like it” is a perfectly acceptable excuse, if that’s even why they skipped it.
“I didn’t feel like it”, certainly is NOT an acceptable excuse. These brave men and woman risked their lives for this country. A little appreciation from the three jokers would have gone a long way. They should be deeply ashamed of themselves. I wish them nothing but the worst in life.
It wasn’t mandatory which means they didn’t have to go.
They are paid to play baseball .
Washing DC is a big town . They could have gone to one of the Museums , Jazz clubs or soup kitchens.
Maybe they went to picnic with their families.
There are many other things to do better than visiting a hospital in life.
Get a life before calling them names.
DC is a hotbed of jazz clubs. There’s some really good ones, too.
Thank you for the update. All acceptable reasons not to go.
“Oliver Perez said he doesn’t have to respond to non-baseball issues.”
Ollie is my man. He is saying what it is.
I mean, why should he respond to what he doesn’t have to do?
Beltran is even better. He believed in it , so he did it in NY . But he didn’t advertize about it.
Castillo was squeamish. OK.
3 fools?
Too bad nobody went to one those hot jazzclubs there.
The Walter Reed story just shows how far the sports media have gotten away from reporting on and analyzing the team’s perforance, and have instead turned it into Page Six of the NY Post. Are they going to start reporting on whether Luis Castillo spoke to his mother in an improper tone of voice? It just seems like the reporter’s effort to pile on and embarrass a few players he does not like.
A generation ago it was considered a good and generous thing for ballplayers to visit injured vets or sick children in the hospital. Now you get called out by the national media if you *don’t* do it on one occasion.
It’s really none of our business whether they go, or what their reasons are for not going. The more I think about it, the more it seems completely small-minded and unprofessional for the reporter to have gotten into it at all.
It is not reporters.
It is the raving dogs who is looking for tasty bones like that to crunch.
In olden days reporters didn’t write this kind of garbage because fans didn’t care. Fans had better things to do than looking for the players who didn’t attend a hospital and pounce on them.
It is truly disgusting.
Great comment, I agree. We live in a society where journalism likes to tear down heroes rather than completely and accurately report the facts. Why did the original story neglect to mention Dillon Gee didnt attend? Also, I’m really tired of all the negative non baseball stuff that has permeated the Mets the last two seasons. It’s so exhausting rooting for this team lately.
Sorry but I was replying to acoustic, the comment above mine.
who are you saying is a “hero”? Beltran? Selfish Ollie? Over the Hill Luis? The heroes my dear are the poor broken men and woman laying in the hospital beds.
I’ll bet Kevin Burkhardt was there. Let’s fire Omar Minaya and hire Kevin Burkhardt as the new Mets GM. He seems to brighten up everyone’s day and really gets to the root of the issues. Good PR talent and fast learner too.
U have to be related to Burkhaqrdt!If this man brightens up your day I can only imagine how sad your life must be! Kevin is a boring boot licking waste of tv time. He talks the company line & will do anything to keep his paycheck.U want to make him a GM. U MUST BE JOKING …I HOPE?????I guess the Grant Roberts stogies are making the rounds again.
This shouldn’t even be a story. First of all, it’s unfair to single out certain players. Second, Carlos had a real excuse, a prior commitment which he explained. Third, it wasn’t mandatory.
R.A. Dickey and David Wright stand tall as human beings for their vocal support for the Mets visit.
Dickey got “a very needed perspective on not only your life but what it takes to preserve your life” when some players visited wounded military personnel at the Walter Reed.
“It was a very humbling experience,” Dickey said. “It made me very grateful. One guy got a Purple Heart for a brain trauma injury in Iraq and got another after volunteering for a tour in Afghanistan and an improvised explosive device blew up his body and took his arms and legs. He said as soon as he was fitted for (prosthetics), he wanted to go back.
“Oh, my gosh, that’s a different breed of human being, to be able to do something like that and want to do it.”
Thanks, R.A. and David. Patriots are always welcome.
that’s all well and good that they speak of this visit so heroically but a vet called mike princessa today and said that he was in walter reade for two years, 2007 and 2008. what he said was a little bit surprising: the guys who didn’t come either year were beltran, WRIGHT and REYES!!!!! he was sure of it because he spent so much time there. i love wright but the holier than thou attitude about this only seems to apply to others, not himself
REPLY
I don’t know the particulars in this instance but I’ve been concerned over the years that the Mets have Wright running all over the place during the off season. It’s likely he was out of town or some place else the Mets wanted him to be. Anyway, the Wright most fans know is always trying to do too much.
no disrespect to any of them, but it was TWO years in a row so it’s unlikely that he was out of town. all of the other team members were there. i just thought it was interesting although, as you say, if he wasn’t there, there was probably a reason. i think it’s just that he is so vocal right now about how it’s your duty and on and on that seems to be a bit hypocritical.
Accusing David of ever being anything but gung ho is a rare view of David. Usually the criticism is that he is too much a corporate man and too much a goody goody too shoes.
i agree. it’s a very strange view of david, and there is probably a good reason for his absence. but STILL.
Ok. The time has come to dump these 3 idiots and get players in here who wanna play for us and not for themselves. First dump Jerry and then hire Wally, then dump these 3 stooges. Put Bay in Left, Pagan in Center, Tejada at second and make a splash and sign Jayson Werth to play right.
These 3 are not team players and do not care about visting places for the less fortunate and also they do not care about the fans. They just simply SUCK!!
Right on!!! Cuz you totally know these guys personally and are not just talking out of your a**!!!!
My opinion man and I am not talking out of my ass, get your facts straight.
Don’t clump them all together, did you not READ the entire article. Beltran went on his own with NO PRESS, NO PRAISE………
This is just stupid to even be discussing.
When I say no praise – that is how is should be. You don’t do good things just to be recognized for them. You do good because it’s the right thing to do.
A voice of reason in the darkness! Who ever did not go the hell with them who ever did go good 4 u.People who go should go out of the goodness of their hearts not 4 praise.Only this Met organization can make a trip to a Vet hospital a media circus!No leadership from the top,no common sense from the top only crying about money when the Wilpons do talk…hey Freddye Wilpon WHERE THE HELL ARE U ?
Hey how about you Frenchy apologists and detractors take your stuff to another site, this was about Beltran, who I do remember going to a NY Veterans Hospital, and NY writers once again not researching an article just to start a hate fest.
Must be a slow news day for Mets topics in NY papers.
well at least the frenchy argument is actually about baseball, not off the field nonsense.
Are you paying ANY attention? Do you know what this tread is actually about?
If it is not one that interests you, move on, not everything is about Frenchy or yourself.
Very sad that so many Met fans would jump on the hate train without waiting for any facts to come out. Kudos to Dickey for commenting on his own feelings and refusing to get involved in what others did or didn’t do. Shame on David Wright for destroying any smeblance of a clubhouse]. He threw his team mates under th bus. He has done more to destropy the Met clubhouse than anyone with his inablilty to shut up ever. Its his way or you suck way… Excpet of course for the one time he should have sold his teammate out and instad he told the world he had KRODs back after he bueat up an old man. David SHUT UP.
Players have private lives and it is called private for a reason. End of story.
If Wright hit with men on base the way he preaches, the man would be in line for the Triple Crown. Nice to notice some fans see right through the media and the RACISTS they cater to with a KKK-like article. Are we @ an Ole Miss college football game circa the 1950′s? Sometimes I wonder about Met fans when I read some of their moronic responses.
I have been ranting and raving for months now about how the Mets have handled # 46, Oliver Perez….Now he doesn’t respond or take part in non baseball issues?
His attitude sucks and I am once again calling for fans to voice their displeasure that this guy is still on this team. I won’t get crazy and start with ethnic slurs (although I would like to) but this guy is a spoiled brat. It is a shame that the team is not in a spring training dorm where the resat of the guys could sneak up on him while he is sleeping and pummel him like the soldiers did to Private Pyle in the movie Full Metal Jacket. If I was on this team I would personally kick his Ass!
ALAN- Ollie would beat you senseless. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Does anyone here really believe any of our wounded heroes at Walter Reed wanted to meet Oliver Perez?!?