Reviews

Poor Mets, Stuck With Jeff (.363) McNeil

5/10/2019

Shades of Wee Willie Keeler and 1897

As a rabid fan of only one team – in all sports – I admit I find a perverse pleasure in watching the Mets suffer with Jeff McNeil in the lineup.

This poor franchise has tried hard to marginalize him but in their drunk-stumbling-across-Queens-Boulevard-safely manner, they are stuck with him on the daily batting card.

As of Saturday morning, this late bloomer was batting .363 for the wobbly Mets. They keep stocking infielders and outfielders – Jed Lowrie's fabled arrival seems to be delayed; he’s never hit .300 in his life – while McNeil keeps defying the launch-arc wisdom that the stat wizards in the back room have foisted on managers and players.

The Mets showed a glimmer of hope early in the season when some of the hitters seemed to be listening to the old-school batting coach, Chili Davis, who told them it was really physically possible to flick the bat and make contact with the ball and put it where the fielders ain't (homage to Wee Willie Keeler. Look him up, kids.)

Lately the lads have been locked into their launch-arc stroke but McNeil keeps putting the ball in play in Wee-Willie territory.

The other day, Howie Rose, the Queens boy who has been calling games on the radio for centuries now, was rhapsodizing about McNeil, saying – on the air! – that McNeil is a “throwback” who is more of a credit to the real game than the launch-arc flailers. Good on Howie.

McNeil took a long time to make it through the Mets’ farm system. That happens. But when a guy hits .329 in 63 games in 2018, does he have to be treated like a supersub deep into the new season?

Not only that, but my friend Jerry, who played second base in the minors, tells me that McNeil was quite fine at second base late last season. Then the Mets got Robinson Cano, after his juiced-up years.

Maybe the Mets are still evolving under the strange combination of Brodie Van Wagonen, the reforming agent learning the general manager business, and Mickey Callaway, who comes off in New York as The New Art Howe. (I miss Terry Collins.)

Bear in mind, I am not around the team, don’t know the people or the gossip, but I watch and listen to a lot of Mets games and occasionally look at the web or read the tabloids so I can find the daily news on the Mets. This is essentially a fan’s rant.

Keep slapping the ball where they ain’t, Jeff McNeil.

Wee Willie Keeler

bruce

5/10/2019 11:30:34 am

george,

g'day.

as i read your piece, i wondered how long it took you to become a true mets fan after the dodgers left for LA.

there were a few years between the departure and the mets' arrival.

plus, of course, you started to make your living as a sports reporter around the same time which rendered you officially objective.

i am still puzzled by the cano pickup tho i don't follow the mets in any serious way.

i do keep an eye on the AAA team in taranna. don't lose any sleep if they win or lose, but i'm aware.

i was a yuge yankees' fan as a kid. mostly because of mantle and a few others.....always liked boyer, richardson and ford. yogi was mostly a left fielder before i was old enough to appreciate.

the only baseball player i loved almost as much as mantle was koufax.

bruce

George Vecsey

5/10/2019 05:38:19 pm

Bruce, I rooted for the Dodgers from afar...When the Mets were formed, it was a kick to have the Dodgers and Giants coming to town, but also the Cardinals and Pirates and Reds, the grand old river National League towns.
I got closer to the LA Dodgers in the early 80s when I did a book about Bob Welch and his alcohol rehab, and I got to know Al Campanis and Tom LaSorda and Billy DeLury, road secretary, and that great man, Don Newcombe, and other Dodger officials, plus players like Dusty Baker and Rick Honeycutt and Steve Garvey...plus Peter O'Malley, a decent guy. Spending a lot of time in LA helped me make peace with the departure.....GV

bruce

5/10/2019 05:44:20 pm

george

incrementally, eh....

just emailed using my other account.

still getting 'no can do' return with my Hotmail one.

bruce

Josh Rubin

5/10/2019 11:32:00 am

Yes, I agree with everything you said. McNeil is the first bona fide (potential) .300+ hitter the Mets have had since (you know what I'm going to say) Murphy. Even with a bunch of .255 hitters who swing for the fences, someone has to get on base before he can be driven home.

George Vecsey

5/10/2019 05:42:52 pm

Josh: Players are not encouraged to think about getting on base. Salaries and playing time are based on home runs. They strike out, they shrug and go back to the dugout. No sense that they could have made contact with 2 strikes. Teams endorse it....Don't blame ESPN highlights., It's the"baseball people" making real scouts irrelevant.
As for Murphy, I was tired of his overthinking on defense...when he had that great half season, I did not see it as a long-term upgrade. Who knew he would come back and murder the Mets..in the same division! GV

Roy Edelsack

5/11/2019 05:01:39 pm

My attorney grew up in Queens with Howie Rose and he told me the young Howie used to do play-by-play of their punch ball games.

"Goldberg lines a single and that brings up the hard hitting Moskowitz. 'Mosky' grounds one through the hole for another single. That brings up Goldberg again. Invisible man on second."

George

5/11/2019 06:27:14 pm

Roy: wonderful. Invisible man. I had forgotten.

Edwin Martin

5/12/2019 03:35:04 pm

Old guy memories. We played dirt court, basketball every day, and often “broadcast” the game ala Marty Glickman, “especially, Good! Like Nedick’s.”

Re Mets, after 57, and living in three or four different state, when Koufax and Drysdale finished pitching my allegiance to the Dodgers, really to those two, diminished, but I had no other allegiance when we moved to Long Island. My becoming a Mets fan was not without stress, we were sitting in the box with Fred Wilpon, a benefactor of the Center for disabilities I called home, for a LA-Mets game. I was terrified, I would root for the Dodgers, but a young Met pitcher (name lost) was pitching a shutout and I found myself, happily, rooting for him. Conversion complete!

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Poor Mets, Stuck With Jeff (.363) McNeil

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