1
2012
Welcome Back Carlos Beltran!
An article by 
In less than ten hours, former Mets center fielder Carlos Beltran will make his first return to Citi Field since being traded to the Giants for Zack Wheeler almost eleven months ago.
Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Today, asked and answered the cosmic question that Mets fans will always be haunted by whenever they think of Carlos Beltran: What if Beltran had hit that Wainwright curve?
But had he hit it … had he gotten a ninth hit in that NLCS …well then … His swing to win the pennant would have joined the ranks of Ron Swoboda’s catch and Mookie Wilson’s run.
There’s no doubt that if Beltran had swung and made contact with that curve, his place in New York baseball immortality would have been etched in stone. That singular moment would have been one for the ages and would have defined his career.
But the fact that it didn’t turn out that way was by no means a blemish on what was a tremendous MVP campaign in 2006, an incredible post-season as well, and an overall memorable and solid career as a Met. Had he been healthy for all seven years of that deal he signed in the winter of 2004, many of the team’s long-held franchise records would have come crashing down and even with many games missed due to those bum knees, many of those Mets records still were eclipsed by No. 15.
Andy McCullough of the Star-Ledger wrote a poignant article this morning that takes took a look at the evolution of how Beltran came to be an ex-Met and the multi-faceted points of views from all the parties involved including Beltran, John Ricco, J.P. Ricciardi, Scott Boras, Zack Wheeler, Brian Sabean and of course Sandy Alderson. It was a very well written essay on how it all went down. My favorite part of it was this excerpt:
Later that evening, about an hour before first pitch at Great American Ball Park, Beltran slipped into the visitors’ clubhouse to say his goodbyes. On his way out, headed to meet his new teammates on the road in Philadelphia, he bumped into John Ricco.
Ricco considered himself one of the last links to Minaya’s front office, the group that Beltran coined the “New Mets.” In the subsequent years, those lofty heights appeared close enough to touch, yet still out of the franchise’s reach. That day, Ricco thanked Beltran for all he gave in his time as a Met.
“There was a lot that happened over the years,” Ricco said. “And we went through a lot of highs and lows.” He added, “A guy comes in, signs as a free agent, gives us six-and-a-half years of his prime. That’s part of a trade that sometimes gets lost, that there is a human element. And I wanted to thank him for that.”
How often do we forget that “human element” whenever we watch a game? We get so caught up in the drama that we sometimes lose touch with the fact these are people with the same feelings and emotions as you and I.
There were some tough times for Beltran while he was here gracing us with his magnificence as a player and his irrefutable class as a human being. The relationship between Beltran and management was never quite what it should have been and oftentimes it appeared as if they went out of their way to make things more tumultuous for Beltran than they had to be.
And while his relationship with the fans was rocky at times too, you wouldn’t have known it by the many charitable things he did for this city while he was here. He never once uttered a single bad word against the fans and the city during his final years, despite some of the venom he had to see, hear and read through the various media outlets. He always maintained the highest level of class, integrity and dignity throughout all the many highs and lows of his tenure with the Mets.
It’s not often that the Mets have been blessed with the magnitude of a player as great as Beltran was. And it may be a long time before another free agent as preeminent as him will ever come along again.
I won’t be at the game tonight, but if I were able to go, you could certainly bet that I would be among the many appreciative Mets fans that will standing and applauding Beltran for all that he gave to this team and for putting the New York Mets back on the map after those dark Art Howe years in 2003 and 2004.
He will forever be known as the greatest center fielder the Mets have ever had, and one of the most complete players that ever donned a Mets uniform.
Thanks for the memories, Carlos.
About the Author: Joe DeCaro
I'm a lifelong Mets fan who loves writing and talking about the Amazins' 24/7. From the Miracle in 1969 to the magic of 1986, and even the near misses in '73 and '00, I've experienced it all - the highs and the lows. I started Mets Merized Online in 2005 to feed my addiction. Follow me on Twitter @metsmerized.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 24 | 18 | .571 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 20 | .535 | 1.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 23 | .465 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 16 | 24 | .400 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 32 | .256 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
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Any “Mets fan” who boos Carlos Beltran tonight deserves to be stuck in an infinite loop of the 1992 season.
Ha! Nice. Very original.
The BEST CF we ever had.
I think highly of Beltran and always will. However, I disagree about the called third strike with two outs and the bases loaded…it will forever be a blemish on his career as a Met. Because the counterfactual is that he would have been immortalized, to me–and I’m sure to others–I will never remember him as a Mets hero, like an Agee, Jones, Clendenon, Seaver, Koosman, McGraw, Piazza, etc. Thus the blemish.
But I do wish him well, er, except against us.
Here’s to hoping he goes 0-12 over the next three games.
Taking everything into consideration I will be surprised if Beltran is booed. He conducted himself very classy last year from the start with him agreeing to move to RF and not signing with a division rival doesn’t hurt as well.
Hopefully there is a good crowd tonight and he gets a Piazza-like Thanks for everything.
Beltran won’t get booed the way Reyes did…
Largely because he didn’t leave on his own accord!
There are a few here who wanted to scrap the entire team after 2008 but they fail to understand that nothing asbout 2009 and 2010 or even 2011 would have changed at all!
we still wpould have had none of them here to win games in those 2 years and the Kids you might have gotten would just barely be ready to play today!
Considering how many Kids we have that ARE playing this year what would you have gotten?
Bullpen CF and C out of it?
Beltran earned every penny of his contract! People focus too much on the curveball and year of time he missed and not all the runs scored and driven in that he did not!
Better question might be, instead of looking at an unhittable hook with 2 strikes, what if he have swung at one of the 2 FBs he took for called Ks, when Wainright looked like he was unravelling and just laying it in to try and get a strike? Those were the pitches he should have ripped to try and end it.
Well Stick I agree with what you said…
But as we have debated here quite often, Maybe he was trying to work the Pitcher? LOL
In that situation I can understand taking one FB since he was having control issues….
But ahnjytime I see a player take a fastball down the pipe I want to run up and slap them upside the head!
If you don’t like that pitch as “Your Pitch to Hit” then you have no business waiting for a pitch to hit at all because it doesn’t exist!
I am betting Beltran was looking for the curve and hoping he hung one but he didn’t hang it he threw a nasty one instead.
That season and that series was lost long before that curve got thrown if you ask me!
We lost it the second Martinez came up lame at the end of the season
We lost that series when Shawn Green failed to catch Scott Spiezios triple that should’ve been caught in front of the bullpen fence but Green leaped for a ball that hit him on the wrist of his glove. He didn’t have to leap all he had to do was reach up and snag that ball. He catches that ball we win that series in 5 or 6 games max. El Duque was ready to pitch game 1 of the WS so who knows.
that was a killer. A guy missing a catch is more cut and dried than a batter not coming through, but Valentin not sticking the knife in (was that the 7th? bases loaded) is what even kept the Cards alive. Could have ended the came right there plating a couple of runs.
there are a ton of things you can point to that were way more costly than that Curveball…
Just because Beltran didn’t (or couldn’t) make up for them doesn’t mean he should wear the goat !
You have to give the Pitcher some credit for making that pitch!
A standing round of applause is due for him tonight.
Beltran should get a standing ovation tonight. No question. I know I’ll cheer for him. I’ve cheered for him since the day he signed with the Mets. I was one of those fans who NEVER turned on him after the ’05 season, after the called 3rd strike to Wainwright (even though there are a lot of dumbasses forgetting the fact that him and another unappreciated Met, Carlos Delgado, carried us throughout that entire playoff run), and especially after the Mets management rushed him back and Beltran wound up getting knee surgery before Spring Training a few years ago, with Omar and them throwing him under the bus and “fans” here saying bullshit like “I never was a Carlos Beltran fan anyway…” that is, until his last season here. I loved Beltran when he was here and I appreciated everything he’s done, and he’s done it with class. I don’t know how he managed to do, but Carlos….thank you. Gracias.
On a side note, ain’t it funny how, as of this post, SNY is playing a Mets Classics of the August 2006 game Vs the Cards in which Beltran hit that walkoff HR?
I don’t know how he managed to do it*