Mets Opener: Mendoza Called Céspedes on His Error

4/4/2016

Yoenis Cespedes, Kansas City, 2016

Jennifer Mendoza, Athens, 2004

As soon as the ball clanged out of Yoenis Céspedes’ glove, I texted another Met fan: “I’m sick of Cespedes.”

The $27.5-million man (just this season) loafed after an easy out to left field, not wanting to expend too much energy in the first inning of opening day.
It must be nice to be that cool.

Fortunately, somebody in the booth was ready to call it for the attitude error that it was: Jessica Mendoza, who has become an essential part of ESPN broadcasts.

“I’m an outfielder,” she said, not needing to mention she was a star on the USA 2004 Olympic champion softball team in Athens.

Mendoza said it made her mad to watch outfielders drift toward a ball without bothering to catch up with it and protect themselves by raising their bare hand as insurance. She was old-school. Purist. And absolutely right.

Both Céspedes and Mendoza were picking up where they left off last season – he with his maddening nonchalance, she with her player-and-fan knowledge of the game, particularly hitting mechanics.

Mendoza leaped into public awareness last season when Curt Schilling made yet another stupid comment and was off the air. She fit seamlessly and has been paired with Dan Shulman and Aaron Boone, the third-generation major-leaguer, who treats her with collegial respect, calling her “Jess” and asking her opinion. There is none of that clubhouse male buffoonery that mars most MLB-NFL-NBA network broadcasts.

Generally, I am not amused when network coverage intrudes on the Mets and Yankees, preferring to get heightened insights from people who cover the club regularly rather than get filled in the morning of the broadcast.

I was mad that Gary and Keith and Ron were not available to me Sunday night. But Shulman and Boone and Mendoza did not posture and bluster.

I am not surprised about Mendoza, who gave me a terrific interview in 2004 in Athens just before the Games began, when softball was facing its eventual and unfair exclusion. She provided a thoughtful glimpse of the athletes’ village and talked about her own sport. I found the link here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/sports/sports-of-the-times-some-athletes-are-thrilled-to-compete-at-the-games.html

We in New York have had another female broadcaster – Suzyn Waldman, the long-time Yankee radio color announcer, working the clubhouse and paying attention to the game as complement to John Sterling’s shtick. Waldman and Mendoza know the game.

On my own, I figured out that David Wright (with his bad back) looked shaky at third and facing fastballs. And I could see how the Mets had upgraded defensively with Asdrubal Cábrera at short and Neil Walker at second. That will save a game or three. No more cringing every time a ball goes near Daniel Murphy.

Now I cringe when a ball goes near Céspedes in left field.

It’s a new baseball season. Life begins.

Peter Kennedy link

4/4/2016 02:02:22 pm

Indeed, life begins anew, George, even with the snow presently falling over New England. Agree with your Cespedes and Mendoza observations. And I worry, too, about David Wright. He did not look comfortable out there, especially at the plate. It's like his body cannot keep up with his competitive spirit any more. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about this, but there was just something in his eyes after that 9th inning whiff. I did not see the usual DW boyish grit. Play ball.

George Vecsey

4/5/2016 08:36:44 am

Peter, I agree, although we both know it's dangerous to read deep meaning into one game or a few facial tics. Still,we and Wright know the deal....and baseball is a game of finely-tuned movements and split seconds i.e. Hosmer's Dash.
Hope we are wrong. (I've been known to be.)
GV

bruce

4/4/2016 11:15:33 pm

George,

in general I prefer the local crews.

however, too often they become too close to the team and lose sight of the fact they're supposed to be serving the viewers not making excuses for bonehead plays.

happens with national crews too, but not as much I don't think.

what's more amazing is that they often think we're watching on radio. you can SEE the error or lack of effort instantly not later on the sports news.

Shulman, who is from Toronto, has turned into one of better multi sport play by play guys. beats hell out of joe buck who drives me crazy.

bruce

George Vecsey

4/5/2016 08:45:01 am

Bruce, thanks. Shulman is smooth, no shticks, referred to being at the Jays' first game. Never knew he was from Toronto. Usually I can hear the "oot" -- like in Alan Thicke, doing those US income-tax commercials.
I went to a game at the old stadium, first year, vs. Orioles. We took one of those red trolleys, as I recall.
Best
GV

GV

bruce

4/5/2016 09:08:02 am

george,

maybe the oot was hammered out of him.

tim ryan, john saunders, jd (now john) roberts, morley safer, peter jennings, keith morrison and robert macneil are some other canadians that come to mind in the electronic media. morrison is matthew perry's stepfather. his wife was one of trudeau senior's press people.

Roy Edelsack

4/5/2016 03:24:03 pm

Baseball irony. This is Vin Scully's last year broadcasting Dodgers games but a large portion of the Los Angeles area won't get to see him due to a cableTV dispute that just entered its second year. Meanwhile, as an MLB Premium subscriber, I get all of the Dodger games here in New Jersey but I don't get Yankees games as I'm a Comcast subscriber whose provider is currently in a dispute with the YES network. So Los Angeles can't watch the Dodgers (but can watch the Yankees) and New Jersey can't watch the Yankees (but can watch the Dodgers).

Well, as John Sterling says, "That's baseball."

George Vecsey

4/5/2016 06:57:46 pm

That's baseball...that's economics.
LA gave O'Malley Chavez Ravine.
NYC helped Yanks build the Big Theme Park in the Bronx.
So they could sell cable rights and make more money.
What a world.
GV

bruce

4/5/2016 08:50:04 pm

george,

obviously you've made a mistake.

the owners are all capitalists who would never NEVER dream of taking guvmint handouts for stadia. that would be, i hate to even see the word on the printed page, socialism.....

check your research and see where you made such a titanic mistake.

bruce

George Vecsey

4/6/2016 08:17:39 am

Bruce, my late friend and mentor, Stan Isaacs of Newsday, wrote a column titled "Out of Left Field," which explained his politics and personality.
Stan had an expression, "Socialism at the top," to describe the business tactics of club owners. Stan's point was, club owners hate any talk of collective action for the masses but love getting free stadiums and land and tax breaks and infrastructure from the people.
Stan would love Bernie Sanders, a fellow Brooklynite.
best
GV

bruce

4/6/2016 08:33:32 am

george,

it's been a pet sports peeve of mine for a long time.

collusion didn't help my thoughts of owners either.

bruce

George Vecsey

4/6/2016 09:08:46 am

Peter Ueberroth, as commissioner, told them what they needed to do. His position was, who told the dopes to talk about it?
Good point.
GV

bruce

4/6/2016 09:17:43 am

george,

about the best thing you can say is that they're hypocrites.

it's one reason why i don't whine about athletes making too much money. they do, but it's supposedly a freeish market. supposed to be a capital culture....

bruce

bruce

George Vecsey

4/6/2016 12:23:51 pm

I never worry about players making too much money.
The money must be there, or ownership would not be paying it.
Many players will be dead broke before any owners are.
GV

bruce

4/6/2016 12:39:05 pm

George,

my feelings exactly.

owners screwed the players for decades. there was a story that before NHL expansion the owners colluded with the gordie howe rule. whenever a player went to the GM--pre agent/union--to talk about salary, the GM would ask if the sap in front of him was better than howe. of course, the answer was no. they kept howe's salary down to keep everybody's down. he only found out when bobby baun joined the red wings and told him he was making more $ than howe was. not sure of this, but I think howe was third, but perhaps second, on the wings. howe never forgave them for lying to him.

Alan Rubin link

4/6/2016 03:57:54 pm

An excellent book on how the owners manipulate the players is “Dollar Sign on the Muscle: The World of Baseball” by David Kerrane.

I read it many years ago and was fascinated, but not surprised, by the callousness of the owners. Branch Rickey would release prospects when they were on the road to avoid paying transportation home.

Just began reading Andrew Jennings’ “The Dirty Game: Uncovering the Scandal at FIFA” for a course that I’m teaching. I had been advised by a NYT soccer journalist other than George that Havelange was the godfather of FIFA’s corruption.

Havelange received his training from the Brazilian mafia when he was the head of IOC.

Regardless of the sport or institution, it is the dangerous combination of Power, greed and control.

George Vecsey

4/6/2016 08:05:26 pm

Alan, several old Brooklyn Dodgers said Rickey would leave a copy of Jackie Robinson's contract loose on his desk, when they came in to talk salary. As one player told me, "I figured, 'Geez, Jackie only makes $XX,XXX?' How can I ask for more?"
Of course, the contract was a dummy.
Ralph Branca still hates Rickey for working him so hard Ralph blew out his arm, and then Rickey cut his salary.
Harder to do, since Marvin Miller.
GV

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Mets Opener: Mendoza Called Céspedes on His Error

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