By David Rubin
As a frequent sufferer of kidney stones, I truly identified with this episode of the NBC sitcom, "Friends" when Joey tries valiantly to believe that his ailment is caused by anything BUT a kidney stone (to see a clip, click here).
As a Met fan, the Wilpons' trials and tribulations have left a dull, aching pain in my back, much like the pain felt by the onset of yet another stone. Only this one can't simply be purged by water, cranberry juice and some Percoset. Nor can we simply choose to believe it's anything but what it is - time for the third ownership change in the team's history.
I've been in the restaurant/club business for more years then I'd care to remember. One place I worked at was besieged with creditors, seemingly coming out of the woodwork faster then drinks could be poured on a busy night. Taxes weren't paid, checks written had bounced, and everyone came by with their hands held out and wanting something, whether deserved or not.
Capital came in, but left even faster as they were always short on funds yet ever ready to purchase goods and services they weren't able to pay for at current terms. A "cash infusion" from "willing investors" was always just around the corner ... and long-term employees had to learn to do without; ultimately, that meant doing without their jobs.
I bring this up because, I'M sad to say, the current state of the Mets is hauntingly familiar to me and I know what the eventual outcome will be - moreso, what it HAS to be, in order for the team to ever be relevant again. The Wilpons MUST sell the team, take their losses and their lumps, and recede gracefully (if possible) into the ether. It's certainly not going to be a quiet departure, and it probably won't be a quick one, but inevitably, it has to happen if the organization is ever going to regain its place amongst the elite teams that the fanbase both craves and so richly deserves.
I attended my first Met game in person in 1968, in late June, as Nolan Ryan outlasted the LA Dodgers. That Met team would go on to post a 73-89 record, finishing some 24 games behind the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals, ahead of only the Houston Astros in the standings. That, however, was a huge improvement for the team, under the tutelage of one Gil Hodges, formerly the superstar first baseman for the (then) Brooklyn Dodgers. This was a team in their seventh year of existence and one that was finally showing signs of life, with a starting rotation led by wunderkind Tom Seaver, star-in-the-making Jerry Koosman and the wild and wooly Ryan. It was easy to forgive losing at the team's inception; by '68, expectations were increased, largely due to the presence of Hodges and that young pitching staff. It was impossible to predict the incredible year that would follow, but the building blocks were firmly in place and the teams' fanbase was still excitable and loud, not yet jaded by the years of losing and mismanagement that would follow.
Flash ahead to 1977; we've all recently either read, heard or wrote about the trade of Tom Seaver (re-visited on the heals of the franchise-changing departure of Jose Reyes) that broke the proverbial camel's back in June of that year, so I won't revisit it here. Let it be said, though, that this move was most probably the beginning of the end of the Joan Payson/Lorinda de Roulet ownership regime, even if de Roulet still owned the team for another three years. Payson had died two years prior and the team was run by M. Donald Grant, a name loathed by Met fans for decades afterwards. Grant was horribly out of place and behind the times and his moves, often motivated by a lethal combination of pride, jealousy and cheapness, brought the team to a staggering point of irrelevance in a market now completely dominated again by the cross-town Yankees.
Grant was finally relieved of his duties prior to the 1979 season, but it was too late for ownership, as Shea Stadium was a proverbial ghost town and the team a mere afterthought in the standings. Most of their prospects (think Lee Mazzilli, Steve Henderson, etc) never reached anywhere close to expectations. As someone who still frequented Shea through those years, it was easy to purchase "cheap" seats and hand any usher (all very willing) a five-spot to move down to the best seats in the house.
(Side note: I've always wondered if this practice was encouraged by the team in some way in order to make the lower levels seem more full on television, although I'd be slow to give them even that much credit for being in tune with anything that was happening to the team during this period.)
The only conceivable thing for the well-intentioned de Roulet to do was sell the team and, in 1980, that is exactly what they did. A group led by publishing scion Nelson Doubleday and upstart real estate developer Fred Wilpon beat out over 20 interested parties to take over the orange and blue.
Perhaps the best move they ever made was their first - bringing longtime baseball executive Frank Cashen to the team and installing him as executive vice-president and general manager. Cashen received major recommendations from the Commissioner's Office, where he had worked for three years after a ten-year stint running the extremely successful Baltimore Orioles. For the first time since the late-60's (under the "White Rat" Whitey Herzog), a true baseball man would be the caretaker of this down-in-the-dumps organization, which by then had exactly one thing going for it - the town in which they played!
We all know how this part of the story turned out - within five years of taking over, Cashen had rebuilt the entire organization, from the minors to the majors, creating a perennial contender who won it all in 1986 and came close again in 1988. They had taken the town from the Yanks once more, and Met fans had come out of the woodwork, making it hip to wear royal blue hats with orange "NY's" on them once again.
The team HAD to be sold, and it was. It needed a top-caliber baseball man to run things, and it got one. The organization needed relevance again, in a town that had grown jaded, and it was, indeed, relevant once more. Most of all, it needed players to root for, and in Dwight Gooden. Darryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Wally Backman and Howard Johnson, they had it in spades.
Part 2: Parallels & The Future - coming soon!!
As a Met fan, the Wilpons' trials and tribulations have left a dull, aching pain in my back, much like the pain felt by the onset of yet another stone. Only this one can't simply be purged by water, cranberry juice and some Percoset. Nor can we simply choose to believe it's anything but what it is - time for the third ownership change in the team's history.
I've been in the restaurant/club business for more years then I'd care to remember. One place I worked at was besieged with creditors, seemingly coming out of the woodwork faster then drinks could be poured on a busy night. Taxes weren't paid, checks written had bounced, and everyone came by with their hands held out and wanting something, whether deserved or not.
Capital came in, but left even faster as they were always short on funds yet ever ready to purchase goods and services they weren't able to pay for at current terms. A "cash infusion" from "willing investors" was always just around the corner ... and long-term employees had to learn to do without; ultimately, that meant doing without their jobs.
I bring this up because, I'M sad to say, the current state of the Mets is hauntingly familiar to me and I know what the eventual outcome will be - moreso, what it HAS to be, in order for the team to ever be relevant again. The Wilpons MUST sell the team, take their losses and their lumps, and recede gracefully (if possible) into the ether. It's certainly not going to be a quiet departure, and it probably won't be a quick one, but inevitably, it has to happen if the organization is ever going to regain its place amongst the elite teams that the fanbase both craves and so richly deserves.
------################------
I attended my first Met game in person in 1968, in late June, as Nolan Ryan outlasted the LA Dodgers. That Met team would go on to post a 73-89 record, finishing some 24 games behind the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals, ahead of only the Houston Astros in the standings. That, however, was a huge improvement for the team, under the tutelage of one Gil Hodges, formerly the superstar first baseman for the (then) Brooklyn Dodgers. This was a team in their seventh year of existence and one that was finally showing signs of life, with a starting rotation led by wunderkind Tom Seaver, star-in-the-making Jerry Koosman and the wild and wooly Ryan. It was easy to forgive losing at the team's inception; by '68, expectations were increased, largely due to the presence of Hodges and that young pitching staff. It was impossible to predict the incredible year that would follow, but the building blocks were firmly in place and the teams' fanbase was still excitable and loud, not yet jaded by the years of losing and mismanagement that would follow.
Flash ahead to 1977; we've all recently either read, heard or wrote about the trade of Tom Seaver (re-visited on the heals of the franchise-changing departure of Jose Reyes) that broke the proverbial camel's back in June of that year, so I won't revisit it here. Let it be said, though, that this move was most probably the beginning of the end of the Joan Payson/Lorinda de Roulet ownership regime, even if de Roulet still owned the team for another three years. Payson had died two years prior and the team was run by M. Donald Grant, a name loathed by Met fans for decades afterwards. Grant was horribly out of place and behind the times and his moves, often motivated by a lethal combination of pride, jealousy and cheapness, brought the team to a staggering point of irrelevance in a market now completely dominated again by the cross-town Yankees.
Grant was finally relieved of his duties prior to the 1979 season, but it was too late for ownership, as Shea Stadium was a proverbial ghost town and the team a mere afterthought in the standings. Most of their prospects (think Lee Mazzilli, Steve Henderson, etc) never reached anywhere close to expectations. As someone who still frequented Shea through those years, it was easy to purchase "cheap" seats and hand any usher (all very willing) a five-spot to move down to the best seats in the house.
(Side note: I've always wondered if this practice was encouraged by the team in some way in order to make the lower levels seem more full on television, although I'd be slow to give them even that much credit for being in tune with anything that was happening to the team during this period.)
The only conceivable thing for the well-intentioned de Roulet to do was sell the team and, in 1980, that is exactly what they did. A group led by publishing scion Nelson Doubleday and upstart real estate developer Fred Wilpon beat out over 20 interested parties to take over the orange and blue.
Perhaps the best move they ever made was their first - bringing longtime baseball executive Frank Cashen to the team and installing him as executive vice-president and general manager. Cashen received major recommendations from the Commissioner's Office, where he had worked for three years after a ten-year stint running the extremely successful Baltimore Orioles. For the first time since the late-60's (under the "White Rat" Whitey Herzog), a true baseball man would be the caretaker of this down-in-the-dumps organization, which by then had exactly one thing going for it - the town in which they played!
We all know how this part of the story turned out - within five years of taking over, Cashen had rebuilt the entire organization, from the minors to the majors, creating a perennial contender who won it all in 1986 and came close again in 1988. They had taken the town from the Yanks once more, and Met fans had come out of the woodwork, making it hip to wear royal blue hats with orange "NY's" on them once again.
The team HAD to be sold, and it was. It needed a top-caliber baseball man to run things, and it got one. The organization needed relevance again, in a town that had grown jaded, and it was, indeed, relevant once more. Most of all, it needed players to root for, and in Dwight Gooden. Darryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Wally Backman and Howard Johnson, they had it in spades.
Part 2: Parallels & The Future - coming soon!!
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