THE scene that summed up the Mets’ spring training:
While warming up in the middle of the second inning of an exhibition game against the Rangers at The Ballpark in Arlington, first baseman Mo Vaughn tossed a baseball so far over Roberto Alomar’s head the ball landed in left field.
The ballboy, whose job it was to warm up Roger Cedeno, hollered to the left fielder and pointed at the baseball. Cedeno retrieved it, turned his back to the infield and started to pull the ball out of his glove to play catch with the ballboy. The kid stopped him and pointed to Alomar, who was standing with arms raised, calling for the infielders’ ball. Cedeno tossed the ball back in to the infield.
That inning, on a potential double-play grounder to Vaughn, the first baseman threw the ball over the head of shortstop Rey Ordonez, which put runners on first and second. Ivan Rodriguez brought home those runners with a three-run homer, and the Mets lost by two.
All spring, the Mets looked worse on the field than on paper. Certainly, the names are impressive, the backs of their baseball cards packed with bold numbers, their trophy cases filled with baseballs signed by fellow All-Stars, their bank accounts bursting.
It’s always dangerous to read too much into spring training, especially for a team full of veterans who aren’t fighting for jobs and forever are fighting to stave off boredom in meaningless games.
It’s also dangerous to read too little into the causes of their 12-19-1 record in exhibition games. They didn’t treat the baseball with care, committing 40 errors, compared to 27 for the opposition. They didn’t mesh as a team.
The beauty of Bobby Valentine’s Mets teams through the years has been their ability to be the team that usually plays the better baseball – even on days when they didn’t have the better players. Throughout this spring, the opposite was true. The majority of the time, they had the better players and the opposition played the better baseball.
Beginning today, the games have meaning. Seeing the traditional Opening Day bunting, the freshly planted flowers decorating the ballpark and the buzz of the crowd will ignite the adrenaline within the Mets, and ought to make them play far crisper baseball than they did in Florida and Texas.
Even if they continue to kick the baseball around for the next few days, they could get away with it. If the Pirates don’t finish with baseball’s worst record, Lloyd McLendon will receive consideration for National League Manager of the Year honors.
If ever a team opened a season with a must-sweep series, the Mets are that team.
Ron Villone, signed to a minor-league contract by the Pirates on Feb. 12, is the Opening Day starter. The five-man rotation has all of 68 major-league victories. The Mets have three wins in their gloves right off the bat. All they must do is squeeze the leather, not drop the ball and it’s a sweep of the Pirates, then off to Atlanta for the usual high-intensity Turner Field series.
The fortunes of the Mets’ first two opponents are easier to forecast than those of the Mets. The Braves project as a first-place team in the East, the Pirates a last-place team in the Central. The intriguing Mets could finish anywhere from first to fourth in the division.
“It takes a team a while to jell,” Mike Piazza said. “I think by the All-Star break we’ll have a pretty good idea of what kind of a team we’re going to be. I think that will be a good barometer.”
Maybe so, but if the Mets lose today’s opener, that certainly can’t be construed as anything but a bad sign.
Turn up the heat. The baseball season is upon us.