Our NY Mets broadcast team is, in my estimation, by far the most interesting and engaging television crew in the majors. On any given night you may receive a clinic on the splitter from Ron Darling, incredible tidbits of trivia from Gary, and the always unique and entertaining perspective of the incorrigible Keith Hernandez. During the first game of the Braves series for instance the conversation inevitably turned to Matt Harvey’s shortened but brilliant start against the Yankees who mounted a disastrous comeback against the Mets bullpen. Darling went on to reference a fascinating article by Dirk Hayhurst – an ex player turned author and broadcaster — on the Matt Harvey innings limit situation. Hayhurst brought up a really interesting question that a reporter had once asked him when he was a player,
“Would you rather have a three-year-long career in the big leagues, breaking records and leaving your mark on the game, only for your arm to explode and never play again at the end of it? Or would you take an average career lasting ten healthy but yawningly mediocre years, which would undoubtedly disappear into the annals of history?”
He considered his answer a no-brainer, he’d opt for the 10 years. This surprised the reporter who responded with disgust and told him he was playing for the wrong reasons. Hayhurst put the question to his teammates and according to him, to a man, every one of them opted for the longer unspectacular career.
Hayhurst makes some good points. 10 years puts you on 10 teams with ten shots at a post season bonus, but more importantly it gets you a full pension and at least one “life changing” contract. Basically it sets you up for life.
Hayhurst elaborates: “Ten years of living the dream you hatched when you were a kid. Best of all, when you retire—in your thirties—you’re set for life and you can still shampoo your head with your throwing arm!”
When Keith and Ron got hold of this they were clearly perturbed. Both quickly articulated that in their time just about every player would have opted for the brief but glorious career, reminding me, somewhat morbidly, of Kurt Cobain’s Neil Young inspired suicide note, “better to burn out, than fade away.”
It makes you wonder, Is Harvey playing for the right reasons? Is the media focus on one player distracting from the accomplishments of the team as a whole? Is Harvey’s ostensible turn towards self-preservation eroding the team’s rolling playoffs-or-bust momentum? It isn’t lost on Mets fans that the team has appeared lethargic and uninspired since the Yankee series. Hayhurst concludes the piece with the following:
“For every Derek Jeter this game creates, there are dozens of players who through no fault of their own are disliked and reviled simply because they failed to live up to unrealistic expectations they had no part in creating. Fans are selfish, the media is fickle, and reputations come and go.”
It’s a strong argument to be sure. If Harvey blows his elbow out in some selfless act of heroic over-the-limit sacrifice for the sake of a championship or a playoff push, the fans would forever be grateful, but Harvey would have pitched himself out of a “set for life” payday. We all have fond memories of Mike Baxter but I don’t think any of us are willing to put his kids through college.
Ron and Keith’s dismay at players looking out for themselves is somewhat disingenuous. Both were paid rather well in their time and both had long productive careers, which begs the question, had they lacked the top-shelf talent to rest comfortably on the assumption that they could make a lengthy go of it, would they have thought differently? Would they have thought differently if more money was involved? Keith made just over $15 million dollars and Ron made just under $18 million over the course of their careers respectively. Harvey stands to make more than either of those figures in a single season once his arbitration years run out.
It’s easy to alter perceptions after the fact, framing yourself as a seeker of glory, an athlete dying young with laurels and whatnot, but if Ron and Keith really had to decide back when they were first or second year players I wonder whether they’d really choose the shorter career … on the other hand there is the indisputable fact that both Keith and Ron were ferocious competitors who appeared to embody the win at all costs mentality. One could just as easily argue that it was precisely their hell or high water attitude that allowed them to be integral members of the last Mets team to bring home a world title.
The notion that there are “winning players” who make invaluable contributions to winning clubs is a popular adage — players who leave it all on the field sacrificing body and mind for the sake of winning. As fans we cheer these selfless combatants who don’t shy from walls and barrel head first into the fray. We look at guys like Mike Trout admiring his abandon, all the while wondering whether he’ll be around in a few years. A body can only run into so many walls and arms have only so many bullets … in the end every player has to confront his mortality, some sooner, some later.
Harvey is a competitor, he has a fearsome will on the mound that allows him to dominate and which compels him to push harder and longer, but he’s not stupid. Nobody’s going to pass a hat around Citi Field in the event his elbow explodes, and unlike the young and the reckless likes of Harper (who himself was advised to tone it down) and Trout, Harvey has already experienced a major health setback early in his career. In addition, pitchers walk a far more precarious line when it comes to career ending injuries, always one awkward pitch from a catastrophic end.
Sure the whole innings limit fiasco could have been handled differently, the participants could have hammered out a plan in a back room early in the season without so much as a whisper of controversy. The Mets contend their due diligence on the matter is unassailable, that they made every attempt to safeguard Harvey’s well-being, and the at times profanity laden veracity of these claims from the Mets GM himself (not to mention the forays into a six man rotation) only adds credence to this. So maybe Matt was yanked around a bit by an agent who has always been too quick to resort to the media splash, maybe there were “hard and soft” layers of interpretation that were never rendered concrete because Boras and Alderson detest each other’s company … But lets hold off on putting Matt Harvey on the wrong side of some sort of Mets code of honor because he did some soul searching and realized he could lose everything.
If the team mistook his actions for selfishness it’s their own fault and it’s hypocritical as well because I am all but certain just about every player in that clubhouse would make the same decision. Ron and Keith can have their glory after the fact — they deserve it, they brought home the very biggest of prizes. Maybe they didn’t care as much about long careers back then, maybe they hearken to a devil-may-care youth when they felt invulnerable, who knows … but for every player who enjoyed a long prosperous career there are countless who lit up the baseball skies for a moment only to end up back in Dad’s hardware store in Topeka.
Lets not begrudge Matt Harvey for being mindful of this sobering baseball reality.
