Shortly, early January will give New York baseball fans cause to celebrate the very best of times.
Mike Piazza looks good for Hall of Fame induction next year. Don Mattingly, Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner are viable candidates for the Expansion Era ballot that will get honored in 2017. Mariano Rivera will cruise through on his first ride in 2019 and then Derek Jeter in 2020.
For now, though, we find ourselves in a bit of a Big Apple blue period, even as Cooperstown buzzes. While the greater baseball world celebrated Tuesday’s announcement of four inductees, the largest class on the writers’ ballot since 1955, the quartet’s New York experiences evoked memories of hopes unfulfilled, broken-down bodies and scenarios that never came to be.
Before we fully celebrate 1996-2001 (and 2009) in the Bronx and 1999-2000 in Flushing, in other words, we find ourselves revisiting city baseball from 2002-08 — a period of big spending (yes, even by the Mets back in those days) and smallish results.
“It wasn’t the exciting Randy that people had witnessed against the Yankees, maybe in my Seattle days or in 2001,” Randy Johnson said Wednesday, at a Manhattan news conference for the new Hall class, of his two years in pinstripes. “But I still gave everything that I had.”
Johnson, after tormenting the Yankees while an employee of the Mariners and Diamondbacks (in the 2001 World Series) pitched for the Yankees in 2005 and 2006, his age-41 and 42 seasons. He earned $32 million, and then the Yankees threw in another $2 million for 2007 after trading him back to Arizona. Pedro Martinez pitched for the Mets from 2005 through 2008 and earned $53 million.
So that’s a combined $87 million for a combined … zero postseason victories. Martinez never even made a playoff start for the Mets. Johnson started two American League Division Series games, one each in 2005 and 2006, and gave up a total of 10 runs in 8 2/3 innings, though he did pitch well in relief in 2005 ALDS Game 5.
And then there’s Johnson’s and Martinez’s Hall classmate John Smoltz, whom the Yankees recruited during his 2001 free agency, offering him very good money to start, only to see him stick with the Braves to close.
“This is going to sound really crazy: It was so tempting and so exciting, but I never wanted it to be like, ‘I’m going there just to get rings,’” Smoltz told me at the news conference. “I wanted to go there because the experience and the whole mindset of getting a chance to get a ring was there, no different than it was in Atlanta.
“And I tell you, it was so close that, to this day, Gene Michael, every time I see him, goes, ‘I can’t believe you did not sign that contract.’”
Think the Yankees would’ve fared better in the playoffs of 2002-04, at minimum, with Smoltz in their rotation? Me too.
It speaks volumes about the disparate personalities of Martinez and Johnson that the Mets released a statement from COO Jeff Wilpon Tuesday congratulating Martinez and likely will honor him at Citi Field in 2015, whereas the Yankees didn’t even publicly salute Johnson.
Martinez, after shocking the baseball world by bolting the Red Sox for the Mets, brought his characteristic, sky-high level of energy to the team and its fan base. He enjoyed a 2005 honeymoon, capitalizing on the switch from the killer AL East by putting up a 2.82 ERA in 217 innings.
That proved to be pretty much it, though. When he gave into his right shoulder pain in September 2006, undergoing surgery, he had compiled a career-worst 4.48 ERA. He pitched only at the tail end of 2007 and then 109 innings in 2008, putting together an awful 5.61 ERA; he couldn’t stop the team’s collapse either season. It was telling that, when a reporter asked Pedro for his Mets memories, he responded mostly with thoughts about his role in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry.
Nevertheless, Mets fans surely will roar for him this summer because of the fun he provided for a short period.
Johnson, on the other hand, often came off as withdrawn and surly during his Yankees time, so his stellar ’05 season (a 3.79 ERA in 225 2/3 innings) wasn’t appreciated as much. In 2006, he pitched through a herniated disc in his back, the result being a garish 5.00 ERA.
Five-plus years removed from his career, Johnson presented a far more engaging personality. As he recalled spending time with Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra and Reggie Jackson, he said, “Pitching in New York is where I wanted to come. …I had no remorse coming here. I enjoyed every part of it.”
This Hall class evokes few enjoyable memories for Big Apple baseball. But happier thoughts lurk nearby.