The New York Times had an interesting article this past Sunday about the Mets handling of Jose Reyes’ injury. October 5, 2009, the day after the last game of the 2009 season, a season in which for the third straight year the Mets failed to make the post season Jeff Wilpon and the Mets had a media blitz, talking about what went wrong in 2009, what to expect in 2010 and the injuries that occurred this season. Jeff Wilpon, Omar Minaya and Dave Howard that day went on WFAN to talk with Mike Francesa as part of this media blitz. When talking about the injuries Jeff Wilpon said to Mike:
“most of the injuries happened while the team was on the road and that the team relied too heavily on other team doctors”
Jeff Wilpon also mentioned that the Dodgers team doctors had made the original diagnosis that Jose Reyes had a calf injury. The Dodgers were not happy about this and felt that Wilpon was wrong when he made that statement, they released a statement of their own saying that:
“the Mets have official documentation showing that the correct diagnosis of Mr. Reyes was made here in Los Angeles in May.”
According to the Dodgers, Dr. Neal ElAttrache examined Reyes and concluded that Jose Reyes did have a partly torn accessory hamstring tendon. The Mets decided to have Jose play in one game during that series in which he lasted only a couple of innings, he ran to first, came up lame and did not play another game for the Mets for 2009.
The Times asked the Mets to respond to Dr. ElAttrache’s diagnosis Mets public relations guru Jay Horrowitz said:
“The Mets and Dodgers doctors have spoken.”
This is so typical of this team. The Mets have shown this whole season that they refuse to take responsibility for anything that they do wrong, always trying to blame it on someone else. We saw that earlier this season when Omar Minaya had to fire his friend Tony Bernazard he tried to discredit Adam Rubin, saying Rubin wanted a job with the Mets and once again Jeff Wilpon is now blaming the Dodgers and their medical team in the mishandling of Jose Reyes’ injury.
Word going around is that the Dodgers are not happy about the Mets making these false statements and now there is a rift between the Dodgers and Mets. I’m not surprised in the least, I wonder how the Mets will try to spin this latest mistake, they will probably embarrass themselves and most Met fans I’m sure.
