Get ready for this to stick, because this expression has until now only seemed only to apply to our hated crosstown rivals.
A Real Met.
For years, even Mets fans like me would engage ourselves in the debate of whether various performers for the evil empire possessed those intangible, mystical qualities that characterized them as real Yankees. Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, Posada, Bernie Williams – for sure. A-Rod, Clemens, Giambi – not so much.
But after years on the back side of the desert, it was the tears shed by the legend-in-his-own-time Wilmer Flores that laid the foundation for defining what a real Met is. With Captain America coming in right behind.
And now Matt Harvey has – as unwittingly as Wilmer – helped sharpen this definition. You think that one finger salute in the image was actually intended for Mets fans?
We should all admit that we are insecure enough – and have enough of an inferiority complex about being the second team in the first city – that a real Met is, in our minds, simply someone who really wants to be on this team. Who ascribes real value to the uniform and the franchise. Who wittingly or unwittingly does or says something that screams “I love this team. I really want to be a part of it.”
The Captain has defined Met for Life, but the polar opposite bookends of Flores and Harvey have built the brand. There are certainly many on this and past Mets teams who have enjoyed or even loved being a Met, but were never in a position to affirm that beyond the usual Nuke LaLoosh/Chico Escuela platitudes. But Wilmer found himself in just such a position. And the fact that he did it without preconception makes his tears that much more profound. Zach Wheeler’s plea not to be traded was not far behind.
Let’s face it. For the years following the collapse(s) and subsequent decline, being a Mets fan was something you might utter under your breath, and then only when someone asked you. The shame or embarrassment was enough to cause you to fly under the radar.
And it was equally true that being a Met held little meaning for the players.
Wilmer was the catalyst for changing all of that, now in league with the returning captain. And it wasn’t just the tears and the fist pump. Flores’ walk-off homer on the last day of July and David’s go ahead single on Monday – both in critical games against the team picked by 100% of the chattering class to win the division – may well stand as defining moments of a memorable campaign.
This is so revealing of the attitude of the Mets fan. We embrace the lovable and the overachievers – Turk Wendell, Benny Agbayani, Timo Perez et al. And of course we love our Seavers and Goodens and Piazzas. But here is what we don’t love: the guys who are only out for themselves.
We’re not Yankee fans who essentially don’t care about the serial cheating and lying of A-Rod – just his numbers.
For those of you old enough to remember, rewind to Oliver Perez, Tony Fernandez and Richie Hebner. Guys who either didn’t want to play here, and so played at half-speed, or in the case of Ollie, when given a very public opportunity to choose the team over himself by accepting a demotion in the midst of a miserable season after he was gifted a huge contract, put himself above the team.
Matt Harvey and Ollie Perez don’t belong in the same conversation, but now they are.
Many have suspected this narcissism, and we all should have known after the ESPN Dark Knight documentary when Harvey said of the Mets, “This is the team I’m playing for…right now.” We were willing to overlook that because of our excitement at having him back.
But now, the theory that Harvey is all about himself has become a reality at a time when the spotlight – not just locally, but nationally – is on his team.
What Harvey has done – or allowed – is, in a word, inexcusable. Waiting until September, immediately before the team’s biggest series – and his biggest start – of the year, he creates a circus sideshow with perhaps the most inept, ill-conceived press conference we have ever witnessed. And then proceeds to cloud the issue further even as he backpedals and attempts to clarify while being roasted on a spit in the court of public opinion.
And oh, the hypocrisy of it all. Mr. “I can’t wait to pitch in the post-season.” Mr. “give me the ball.” Mr. “I hate this skipping starts and six man rotation business so much I’m going to speak up against the team for doing so.” Ptui.
But there was another revealing moment this season that few if any seemed to notice. Remember when Syndergaard hit that homer to dead center? When Thor reached the dugout, there was jubilation all around…except for Harvey. deGrom was pumped, everyone was smiling and laughing and high-fiving and fist-pumping. Except Harvey. He had a sour expression with that unmistakable look of pure envy. Go back and look at the replay from May 27.
Harvey’s attitude is completely unacceptable to a fan base that now has in Wilmer and David (and Zack) the definition of exactly what a real Met is.
I wanted to write this before Harvey’s last/next-to-last/almost-the-last/whatever start in DC tonight so as to be unaffected one way or another by his performance. Because the fact that Matt Harvey has proven he is not a Real Met deserves to stand by itself, unsullied by the results on any single game.
As hell has no fury like a Mets fan scorned, it is hard to disagree with the delicious proposition of exiling the faux Dark Knight to Colorado for a boatload of talent, including CarGo, so that he can continue thinking only about himself and lament, along with the greed-infested Mr. Boras, the lost dream of a huge payday in 2019, as his ERA soars like the altitude in Denver…and no one cares anymore.
