It’s early in Spring Training and surely too soon to draw
any definitive conclusions but early impressions of Mickey Callaway are indeed
positive. Granted, it’s his first ever
camp and he’s seemingly giddy with the newness of it all. Thus far, however, he’s showing people he’s a
man of his word.
To wit, take a look at the recent situation with Dom Smith and his tardiness upon arrival to camp. One of the biggest themes after communication coming from the new skipper is accountability. It’s come up so often during his press interactions that it was beginning to sound like common refrains from managers of the past like, “We battled” or “We’ve got to get him going.”
Unlike the grumpy and stubborn Bill Belichick, Callaway did
not feel it was more important to make his point than to win the game. Callaway had Smith back in the lineup after
the one day of disciplinary action. Smith
looked like the smooth fielding and offensive producing player we’d heard about
while in the minor leagues.
I watched a bit of Saturday’s game and saw something
different when Callaway sprinted out to give a merciful hook to Kevin McGowan
who was just having a very bad day. He
realized that it was more important to stop the bleeding as there would be
other games, but he also let McGowan get some work in and try to power through
it. He wasn’t “Captain Hook” like we’ve
seen in the recent past.
My only possibly negative reaction to Callaway thus far is
he seems a little too enamored of being in front of the cameras and the microphones. There’s nothing wrong with connecting to the
media and standing tall in the face of both success and adversity, but it’s
quite another thing to get caught up in your own new-found celebrity
status. Hopefully, like the novelty of
the first spring training fully in charge he will learn to not make himself the
center of every story. Then again, Bobby
Valentine did that as well and he was a winner both with the Mets and for his
career.
It was truly heartwarming to see the games this weekend
after the long, cold winter of what-if and will-they-or-won’t-they. The season is still quite a ways off and many
hard decisions will have to be made between now and then. Hopefully Callaway lives up to his advance
billing and indeed gets his players to believe in him. That change alone should help propel the Mets
back into contention.
4 comments:
Callaway gets an A grade from me so far.
Soon he will be tweeting :)
Unless Gonzalez flopped,Smith was so unlikely to make the club in April to start the season...they want a playoff-caliber team from Day 1, and not a 1B starter who could have growing pains, which can turn some wins into losses. Work hard, Mr. Smith, your time will come.
I agree with your assessment.
I have not seen or heard anything negative about this guy, especially the cameramen assigned to follow him.
Big day on the site today.
4 home grown posts.
I'll give you another positive about Callaway (and Dave Eiland). Did Rafael Montero look like the Collisn/Warthen pitcher yesterday? 2 IP, 4 Ks, no hits, no walks. It's amazing what can be accomplished when you actually indicate you believe in a player.
It's Montero Time.
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