GARY SHEFFIELD’S rant aside, Omar Minaya had it right.
Like it or not, there are two distinct Baseball New Yorks – the upper-crust neighborhood in the Bronx where championships are demanded, and the shadow operation in Queens where .500 is somehow interpreted as a sign of an imminent coup.
When people talk about baseball players adjusting to New York, let’s face it, they mean adjusting to the Yankees. Really: Can anyone imagine patience would be preached and rationalizations would be accepted for Carlos Beltran if the center fielder were batting .265 with nine homers and 38 RBIs on center stage at this stage of the season rather than on stage east?
This isn’t a knock on the Mets. Rather, it’s recognition of the dictatorial rule of this marquee-oriented city the Yankees have established and enforced over the last decade. It also isn’t to suggest the curse of sharing interlocking ZIP codes with the Empire can’t be reversed. It can. But only by winning.
It’s fine that the Mets are building, but even in the midst of the construction project, Minaya needs to acknowledge they’re in a win-now situation in a win-now city for a can-get playoff spot. Twin jewels David Wright and Jose Reyes will only get better, and so, obviously, will Beltran. But there’s no guarantee that Pedro Martinez will ever be as dominating as a Met as right now in 2005. Tom Glavine has more to offer over this season’s final three months than he will next year. Mike Piazza will be somewhere else next season. And this is clearly the year of Cliff Floyd’s life.
The opportunity to win something doesn’t come around every year and neither does the opportunity to ride an arm and an aura as magical as Pedro’s. Though they slipped to 38-39 after last night’s 6-3 loss to the Phillies, the Mets remain viable playoff contenders-and will become that much more credible as soon as the stubborn pitching decision-makers accept reality and replace Kaz (Walking Small) Ishii with Aaron Heilman in the rotation.
Which is why Minaya’s instincts as reported yesterday by Post columnist Joel Sherman to bring big-bang hitter Gary Sheffield to Shea in a deal that would have sent Mike Cameron across the Triboro in the other direction, were as acute as they get.
That one is apparently past-tense now, given Sheffield’s vehement warning yesterday to the Mets not to trade for him. We’d suggest that if Sheffield loves the Bronx so much, he might want to actually run hard after a fly ball every here and there. But then, that’s not Minaya’s problem, is it?
We’d never advocate something so foolhardy as the trade of Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano last July 30 when the team was already well into its death rattle. But Cameron for Sheffield was not that. Minaya should follow his heart and continue to try and muscle up for a run without disrupting either his team’s core or development program.
“If we’re healthy we can be a contending team,” the GM said before the game. “My feeling is that if you have the opportunity to get to the playoffs, you owe it to your players and fans to do your best to get there, depending on where you are at the time.
“I think right now we’re in competition for something, but it’s too early to tell what’s going to happen down the road.”
But it isn’t too early. It can’t be when, as early as next year, it might be too late for Pedro. It isn’t too early for the Mets to seek win-now players as they operate on the periphery of the Yankees’ win-always Baseball New York.