When the Mets hired Terry Collins to be their manager before this season, he said he had learned from his last stint in the majors with the Angels — which ended in September 1999 after his players turned on him.
“I have a completely different approach to things,” Collins said of his attitude this season as compared to a dozen years ago. “I enjoy watching this team play. I enjoy being around these players a lot. It’s fun. They’re a good bunch of guys . . . not that they weren’t in Anaheim. I don’t mean that.”
Now, he makes an effort to talk to players like Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Jose Reyes — and not just the younger ones.
“If I had taken that approach in 1999, it might have worked better,” Collins said. “When you talk to our veteran players — which we had some of in Anaheim — they will say some things that years ago they would not have said. I didn’t think you needed to talk to the [Tim] Salmons, [Darin] Erstads, some of those guys. That’s not true. You need an open line of communication with everyone.”
And he still remembers Sept. 3, 1999, when he resigned under “mutual consent.”
“My last day in Anaheim was a very emotional time for me,” Collins said. “I loved it out there. . . . [But] in 1999, things fell apart due to lots of things.”
Francisco Rodriguez, the Angels’ former closer, was not as interested as his manager in reminiscing.
“That’s just another team,” Rodriguez said.
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Collins again refused to put any kind of timeline on Johan Santana‘s return from shoulder surgery.
“I think we’re putting a little too much pressure on Johan [and] when he’s gonna come back,” Collins said. “Look, it’s up to Johan and when his arm and everything else dictates. To sit here and talk about it, it’s too big a deal.”
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Mookie Wilson and Ron Darling signed an enormous card before last night’s game for former teammate Gary Carter, who is undergoing treatment for inoperable brain cancer.
According to a post from his daughter on a website, the Hall of Famer went to the emergency room on Thursday night with shooting pains in his back and was diagnosed with bronchitis, but has returned home.
Additional reporting
by Brian Lewis