Jack Flynn - Blanky

It’s not every day that you find out that one of your colleagues has been hired to fill a prominent role in the New York Mets organization.

You can imagine my surprise when, on Monday afternoon, I learned that Ed Blankmeyer had been tapped to manage the Brooklyn Cyclones for the 2020 season. 

Blankmeyer is an institution in New York City baseball, one who I believe will do great things with a short-season ball club filled with new professionals. Of course, the casual baseball fan would be forgiven if you weren’t as familiar with him as I happen to be.

Blankmeyer has been managing the St. John’s University baseball team since 1996, when a lanky long-haired college student was still strolling the Queens campus in lime green Converse and writing frightening verse in the sports section of the student newspaper. 

In the 24 years to follow, that kid cut his hair (which then promptly turned gray!), ditched the Cons for two-tone wingtips and went from being a St. John’s student to a St. John’s employee. (What, you didn’t realize that most of the contributors to Mack’s Mets have day jobs!?)

Through it all, Blankmeyer has been here. Under his guidance, St. John’s has become a force in the Big East Conference, and is now recognized in college baseball circles as one of the better Northeast programs in the country. His departure from St. John’s is a shocking one, especially to those of us who thought he’d retire as a Johnnie.

I am not going to recite his impressive list of accomplishments here; others can flesh out the bullet points from the media guide. I’d rather speak briefly about the person who has been tasked with leading young men at St. John’s for over a quarter-century.

An Ed Blankmeyer-managed team will demonstrate solid fundamentals on the field. Those who do not will find themselves sitting on the bench watching his teammates doing things the right way. Too many players in recent years have graduated from the Mets’ farm system with a poor grasp of fundamentals, a trend especially torturous to older fans who expect players to know how to bunt, steal and hit to the opposite field. A year with Ed Blankmeyer is going to change that.

The players on an Ed Blankmeyer-managed team will conduct themselves professionally off the field as well. In the 17-plus years that we have both worked at St. John’s, I’ve had very few professional interactions with Blankmeyer. That is a testament to the high expectations he sets for his players, both on the field and off of it. He has little tolerance for off-the-field shenanigans, and his players are going to very quickly learn the concept of acting like a professional even when they are away from the park.

Ed Blankmeyer is going to be missed on the corner of Union Turnpike and Utopia Parkway. This summer, they’re going to love him on Surf Avenue.