ATLANTA – There were some bitter feelings at the end of the Mets-Braves classic series last night at Turner Field. Turk Wendell ripped into Brian Jordan for his hard slide into Mike Piazza on a force play at home in the sixth inning, when Jordan was out by several feet and tripped Piazza. Then Jordan ripped back.
“I think that really fired up Mike more than anything else,” Wendell said of Jordan’s slide. Piazza then hit a two-run homer in the seventh that tied the game at seven. The Mets lost in 11 innings, 10-9.
Jordan got on base when hit in the right hand by Wendell to lead off the inning. “It was very unprofessional,” Wendell said of Jordan’s slide. “He might have been bitter about getting hit, but he has to be more intelligent baseball smarts-wise to know I’m not going to hit a guy to lead off an inning in a situation like that where our team has just scored three runs. My objective is to get three outs as quickly as I can so we can get back up to the plate. To take it any farther than that is totally unprofessional.”
Jordan wasn’t happy with Wendell’s view of the situation.
“I was trying to break up a double play,” Jordan said. “Wendell’s an idiot if he thinks that was a cheap shot or if he thinks some one is not going to pay for him hitting me. He’s out of his mind. Somebody is going to pay for drilling me. If it’s breaking up a double play at second or breaking up a double play at home, Piazza just happened to be the guy you take out. If he thinks it was a cheap shot, he needs to come talk to me.”
Wendell said the Mets showed more heart than anyone expected, coming back from 5-0 and 7-3 deficits. “The odds were so far against us to make it this far,” he said. “We did defy a lot of odds. I think we made believers out of a lot people,” Wendell said of the Mets effort. “A lot of people quit on us, fans, reporters, even some players, but we never quit on ourselves.”
And Wendell said he wasn’t disappointed there was no Subway Series this year. “I never looked for that,” he said, always the honest one. “The only thing I cared about was just beating the Braves. I didn’t look any farther into the future as to play the Yankees. I truthfully would have rather played the Red Sox. I’m a Red Sox fan. I’m disappointed they lost.”