It was impossible to miss the sense of triumphalism in the Mets’ ballpark Saturday night, when Javy Baez made his debut – and clubbed a two-run homer that eventually helped the Mets win. We deserve this – so New York. The Mets’ fans celebrated this show of Steve Cohen’s money as the flashy rent-a-star for our times -- swing for the seats, strike out every-hour-on-the-hour, all condoned by the new analytics. But woven into the new math of baseball is the wholesale transfers of stars – the Cubs’ absolute gutting of players who won the World Series just the other day, or maybe it was 2016. The Nats' dispersal of players who won a World Series in 2019. Is there no loyalty, no sense of continuity, that lets stars grow old gracefully with their teams? Of course not. The players deserve their freedom. Curt Flood suffered for all of them, fighting for free agency, whether they know who he was, or not. You think the Brooklyn Boys of Summer would have stayed together if they had free agency? Imagine Duke Snider going for the big bucks and aiming for the right-field seats in Yankee Stadium before Roger Maris could. Word has just come to me that the Yankees have done it again -- bringing in Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo. It's an old habit: In 2012, I did a riff on late-season Yankee acquisitions over the years, with copious help and taunting from the late-great Yankee fan, Big Al, RIP. https://www.georgevecsey.com/home/the-yankees-always-get-somebody As a Mets’ fan – finally outed after decades of trying to disguise it as a sports columnist – I am queasy about the Mets’ move because I have been enjoying the Mets’ rickety hold on first place this season. I never believed the U.S. was getting back to “normal” with the murderous Covid, because I had a sour faith in the grits-for-brains mentality of the Red State no-vaccination crowd. (Did you see the Florida governor who scorns masks for school children because he wants to see the smile on his own child? Where do we get these people?) So, if you have to hunker at home, the Mets have been a nervous pleasure, with a shifting roster of office temps. Who will ever forget Patrick Mazeika, with his ZZ Top beard, a fill-in catcher, specializing in game-winning squibbers, getting his shirt ripped off in the new walk-off celebration? Who will forget Kevin Pillar surviving a pitch in the face, coming back quickly to patch holes in the Mets’ lineup? Patchwork players like Villar and Guillorme and Peraza and Drury helped the Mets stay in first place for roughly three months. The least of it has been the expensive addition of Francisco Lindor, with his .228 batting average, who appointed himself Leader-for-Life, interrupting pitcher-catcher confabs on the mound, inserting himself into every photo op, and now, upgrading his job status, apparently urging the Mets’ fill-in general manager that his pal Javy Baez would be a great addition. Maybe this is Lindor's best contribution to the Mets. But there is a school of thought that the Mets’ brain trust would have been better off finding a front-line pitcher to temporarily replace Jacob deGrom, who now has an endangered Koufaxian aura to him. But they went for the pyrotechnics. One Mets wing of my family paid for seats in Queens Saturday night and watched Baez (a) whack a home run and (b) do his on-the-field post-game interview with apparent joy at being in New York for the day and maybe even the long term. Is Baez a rent-a-star for this season, or will Steve Cohen pay the freight for a long-term contract, like Mike Piazza, who came…and stayed….and became a Mets icon? Or could Baez be like the magnificent Cespedes infusion in 2015? That was fun, too. I fret because Baez imperils my particular favorite Met player, Jeff McNeil, who seems terminally undervalued by the Mets’ front office. McNeil seemed to drink the Analytic Kool-Aid early this season, trying to launch Alonso-style homers, but lately McNeil has gone back to hitting the ball to all fields, with game-winning hits and a recent 16-game hitting streak – oh, and some flashy plays at second base in recent days. When Lindor’s oblique injury heals, he will claim shortstop and his pal Baez will apparently get second base. This leaves Jeff McNeil exactly where? Displacing the slumping Michael Conforto in right field (from which he unleashed a game-saving throw the other night?) What I’m saying is: old fans like me like old-style ball players, particularly the earnest Mets who have been a lot of fun this summer. But Baez certainly made a good debut Saturday night.
bruce
8/1/2021 03:20:17 pm
george,
Ed Martin
8/1/2021 04:14:28 pm
Bruce and GV Friends know Peggy and I have had one foot in Canada, every year, pre-covid, and found ourselves “rooting” for Candians in the Vancouver Olympics.
bruce
8/1/2021 05:48:02 pm
ed,
ahron horowitz
8/1/2021 06:21:29 pm
george-your comments read like the thoughts bouning around my head the last 2 days.also told my wife today about sandy k haveing to leave at age 32.all the best,ahron
bruce
8/1/2021 07:31:48 pm
ahron,
George
8/2/2021 09:21:26 am
Ahron, I began to compare deGrom with Koufax this year, seeing how excellent he was. I was a young reporter and got to talk to Koufax in his best years -- but time sped by so fast that I never sat in front of the TV and watched him, pitch by pitch, the way I do now with de Grom.
bruce
8/2/2021 09:56:12 am
george....i was 16 when koufax retired. rarely saw him pitch because it wasn't possible in those days. game of the week on nbc was it. world series mostly. one of those rare birds who transcended his team--unless you were so rabid you hated everybody who didn't play for your team. guy named hal patterson was the same in CFL. he was about the same age at koufax.
Andy Tansey
8/1/2021 09:30:12 pm
I've always gone more with the heart than the head, in favor of keeping home-grown lifers rather than trading up. My most fervent period as a fan was when I was about 10, and I'd've preferred the Yankees to keep the likes of Danny Cater, Horace Clark, Gene Michael, Celerino Sanchez, Ron Blomberg, etc. They also had the likes of Roy White, Thurman Munson and Mel Stottlemyre, then too. A friend said just the other day that Giancarlo Stanton can go to the plate, take three strikes and still get paid. Maybe I was made to be a Mets fan, but I can't, I just can't.
George
8/2/2021 09:26:51 am
Andy, I had covered the Yankees inthe 60s...and was friendly with a lot of them -- Bill Robinson, Ruben Amaro, Steve Hamilton, White and Clarke. NO free agency in those days. A reporter would see a few pitchers huddled in the clubhouse and they were clearly upset: "So and so just died," they would say. "Died" meant being released or farmed out. A fan always remembers the players from childhood. GV
Altenir Silva
8/1/2021 10:16:03 pm
Dear George,
bruce
8/2/2021 09:58:06 am
george,
George Vecsey
8/2/2021 10:12:14 am
Bruce, I hope that you, a true citizen of the True North Strong and Free, got up at 4 AM and watched Canada's 1-0 victory over the US. 8/2/2021 02:01:13 pm
It is interesting to watch the steady rise of the USMNT (men) under Berhalter. He has been developing the program at all levels so that they now have a good mix of youth and experience.
bruce
8/2/2021 10:24:14 am
george,
Ed
8/2/2021 10:54:32 am
Je me souviens.
bruce
8/2/2021 11:15:48 am
ed,
Edwin W Martin Jr
8/2/2021 12:26:50 pm
Bruce, you are right, and I must say, one joys is my Quebecois friends, with French roots, are not supporters of breaking with the rest of Canada. Each referendum has failed. It is understandable that the feeling of being treated as second-class citizens, still hurts, but dissolution is not the right course. Canada has gone far to find peaceable kingdom. Meanwhile, I look forward to having my once-a-year Poutine, if and when….
bruce
8/2/2021 12:49:19 pm
ed....many supporters of separatism are dying off. lots of boomers like moi.
Joshua Rubin
8/2/2021 01:20:34 pm
That 2015 Mets team was one of my all time faves, both the spit, gum, and toilet paper version that started the season and stayed afloat on guts and pitching, and then the surprising juggernaut that emerged with just the addition of Cespedes. Plus Murphsanity (you know how I felt about letting him walk after the season). Teams are the most fun when they are something more than their parts. We'll see if the latest deals adds, or merely subtracts by addition.
bruce
8/2/2021 02:18:32 pm
alan, 8/2/2021 04:09:12 pm
Bruce. Where is your national loyalty and pride. I would like to see Sinclair complete her career on a high note.
bruce
8/2/2021 04:25:57 pm
alan, 8/2/2021 02:24:27 pm
Josh is right about intangibles and team chemistry. Many things came together during the Summer of 73, but Tug McGraw's"Ya Gotta Believe" was definitely a catalyst.
bruce
8/2/2021 02:46:25 pm
alan,
ahron horowitz
8/2/2021 03:15:15 pm
joshua-the parts of the 2015 team was great.then when cespedas came we had the thrill of watching willie mays for 3 months.
Ed
8/3/2021 01:34:34 pm
Altenir! Brazil in the finals!
Altenir Silva
8/3/2021 08:36:58 pm
Dear Ed, Comments are closed.
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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 Categories
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