As the Mets said, they had no direct involvement in what “happened in Houston,” but everything they did touch has dysfunction written all over it…again!
The Mets are stupid, naive, or they are lying through their teeth. Brodie Van Wagenen had told us we are expected to believe it never dawned on him to ask Carlos Beltran about his complicity in the sign-stealing enterprise when he was with the Astros.
Or maybe it’s that Van Wagenen needs a crash course in baseball history, and precisely how the Arizona Diamondbacks became entangled with another scoundrel, Wally Backman in 2004.
And how Backman’s (much like Beltran) wanted that manager’s job so severely he “forgot” to mention he had a pending DWI case, filed for bankruptcy, and was indicted for assaulting his wife and one of her friends in 2001 at their home in Oregon.
And how the truth always comes out, which it did four days after the D’Backs hired Backman, forcing the team to fire him before he (like Beltran) ever managed a game.
Stupid D’Backs. Stupid Mets.
Beltran And Lies Of Omission
Beltran and his devious behavior during the interview process demonstrate he was thinking only about himself, and not the already troubled franchise that was about to put their team in his hands. He never lied, but he never told the truth either.
“You never asked me about that.” Lies of omission, and perhaps the worst kind of deception because you know the person sitting across from you (Van Wagenen) trusts you and wants you to manage the Mets as much as you do.
Ultimately, though, it’s the Mets who shot themselves in the foot again by overreaching and trying to separate from the ordinary hiring of well-known but mostly run-of-the-mill managers.
Mets: Too Eager To Please
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The Mets did it once with Mickey Callaway, a pitching coach with no experience managing at any level, let alone a major league team. How’d that work out?
Then, as Yogi Berra would say, it’s deja vu all over again, and the Mets repeat by hiring Beltran.
And much like with Callaway, the Mets swooned over Beltran’s positive outlook about the team’s future – remember – this was a time when almost no one jumped at the chance to join the Mets franchise, choosing instead to jump ship as Joe Girardi did.
The Mets had their man in Beltran, and they knew it as far back as October 13 when he told the New York Post that the Mets are the only team he is interested in managing.
With a touch of irony in the same story, Beltran added, “If I can make players’ careers better by impacting them the right way, why not?” Mmm…
The Mets entirely bought into all the rah rah sis boom bah stuff, and now they are paying handsomely for being asleep at the wheel.
The Mets were not hiring a ticket seller at Gate 4. Beltran was a high profile hire in which a single question must and always is asked during the interview process. “Is there anything we need to know that might be a problem down the road, either for you or the Mets”?
Mets: Doomed By “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
It’s an open-ended question, and it puts the onus on the seller, not the buyer. At the very least, the Mets needed to pose the question before Beltran. If they did, everything changes, and the Mets are off the hook.
Like many fans, I suspect, I don’t know who to be angrier at, Beltran or the Mets. As the days pass, though, it’s the Mets and their fumbling the ball again that frustrates the most.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Remember that one as the way our military chose to deal with gay and lesbian soldiers?
Ignore the issue; that way, they can pretend it isn’t there. That was our military, and these are the New York Mets – again.
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
