The Mets Upgraded Themselves. Why Can’t We All?

7/8/2016

Prodigal Son and Folk Hero/ Take Your Minds off The Troubles

(NB: The following was written before the Mets had triple bad news on Friday. Well, I said it was frivolous. GV.)

It seems frivolous to be talking about the freaking Mets with all this other stuff going on in the world, but that’s where I am, mostly to preserve my own sanity.

It is very reassuring to watch a prodigal son, José Reyes, and a folk hero, Wilmer Flores, duel for playing time.

Everybody loves a prodigal son (unless, of course, Reyes has lost his edge) and everybody loves a grown man who cries.

“The Ballad of Weeping Wilmer,” David Vecsey wrote in a text message.
Write it, I said. Maybe he still will.

The Mets may have upgraded themselves once again in mid-season, by bringing in Reyes and apparently stimulating Flores to take better hacks.

Upgrades. Everybody needs a Yoenis Céspedes to come along, like last year.

Now that I think about it, the Mets have upgraded their infield defense in at least three of the four positions since last season – Asdrubal Cabrera (where has this guy been?) doesn’t look spectacular at shortstop, but…he is…and clearly a great teammate in the dugout, too.

Neal Walker is consummately professional at second base. And James Loney is so smooth at first base, making plays unseen since Keith Hernandez. When Lucas Duda is healthy, I still want Loney at first base.

With all due respect to Daniel Murphy, the newest Met-killer, having a great year for the Nationals, it had really grown tiresome watching him improvise near second base. Entire games can turn on a ground ball being handled competently. And it is possible that Reyes at third base could be an upgrade to the impaired David Wright.

Have you ever seen a club upgrade at least three quarters of the infield like that?

Then there is Wilmer Flores, who cried last year when he was almost traded, and was in a slump a few weeks ago, but now he is hacking – The Peepul’s Cherce, as we once called Dixie Walker in Brooklyn.

As David Vecsey pointed out, Flores forms a trio of legendary No. 4s in Met history, along with Ron Swoboda and Lenny Dykstra. Don’t forget blast-from-the-past Duke Snider, passing through in 1963.

Weeping Wilmer, energized, is not exactly like Céspedes arriving last summer as proof the Mets were spending money, were serious. But we all need upgrades.

If the Mets could spring for Céspedes before the deadline, other upgrades are possible.

Before it is too late -- for all of us -- the Republicans could pull a yooge deal at their convention and bring in a rational and accomplished candidate, Michael Bloomberg.
And the Democrats could bring in a charismatic and courant candidate, Elizabeth Warren.

Think Céspedes. Think big. Think upgrades.

Hansen Alexander

7/8/2016 08:05:57 pm

George, however reassuring the Mets upgrade is, it is hard to compare it to upgrading presidential candidates. When government is deadlocked and can do little, you are not going to create national reputations and are left with a more or less empty stable of candidates, unlike baseball, a remarkable sport that outlives everything and produces legends after legends, generation after generation. Which we kind of take for granted, and perhaps should not. I am not a prophet by any means, but this year has felt more and more like 1968 in its violence, and it seems unlikely to cool down any time soon. This summer could see a lot worse with likely angry confrontations between the supporters of the contending candidates, particularly with Trump using motorcycle gang members for "security." To me, that's a riot waiting to happen, perhaps with deaths. Since everything else seems to lead to deaths. And I will be almost surprised if some or more assassins did NOT take a shot at one, or even both presidential candidates.We are, in my opinion, paying the price of tolerating the racism of code words for a generation. It has emboldened the bigots. That is the psychology of it all, in my view.

George Vecsey

7/8/2016 09:00:39 pm

Hansen: one of my favorite copy editors would ask, "Are you being....facetious?"
I know. But that's where my mind went.
BTW, you are the second person today to mention 1968. Terrible times.
This year the Bernie people
Remind me of 1968.
Be well. GV

Hansen Alexander

7/9/2016 02:54:06 pm

Yes, the Sanders campaign reminds me a lot of Eugene McCarthy's campaign, and if you take into consideration a lot more super delegates in those days and a lot less primaries, who knows what McCarthy's numbers could have been? Facetious? George, you have spent your life knowing the distinctions between facetious and factful, understatement and over statement, sarcasm and satire. I would say a combination of overstatement and understatement, with a few facts thrown in. I assume you didn't recognize that because you expect irony all the time from me. But this brings to mind that I do miss those uses of overstatement and understatement, in addition to more description, that is not part of your retirement musings. I know you are just banging out thoughts and not columns; I'm saying I just miss the old stuff.

George Vecsey

7/9/2016 10:14:33 pm

Hansen, thanks. A lot of the fun of writing the column was getting to new places and seeing live events and writing on deadline. The blog is something else. I miss the immediacy -- and also being at major or minor events. Glad I'm not working.....basta ya, as we say -- but it was fun being someplace and describing it. GV

Brian Savin

7/9/2016 09:35:35 am

Even reading about the trials and tribulations of a favorite sports team offers needed relief these days! As a social species we accomplish much through teamwork, and that's why leadership is important. So, Sandy Alderson for President -- and Terry Collins is an even better Joe Biden!

Saw the old musical, Fiorello, last night. Cast heading to Off Broadway in a few weeks. See it if you can! When they got to the song, "A Little Tin Box" my mind's eye saw Bill and Hillary explaining how they amassed a fortune and a "foundation" on public salary.

That song has one of the greatest choral lines in Broadway history, and still so apt: "Up your Honor, bit by bit!"

And another, from "Politics and Poker:...."We got-to-pick a can-di-date for [President] this year"!

George Vecsey

7/9/2016 09:54:08 am

Brian, you sound like somebody I know.

I remember the song:
"My little tin box/My little tin box,
"Will protect you from life's cruel shocks."

What ARE they going to do with Clinton?
I would say, fix him up, keep him happy and sated -- and offstage.
For the next four years, I hope.

GV

Ed Martin

7/9/2016 11:40:27 am

Years ago President Clinton sat in with the band on Martha's Vinyard at a party for press sec. Didi Myers, (Bruce Martin, percussion). The "Pres" played his tenor on a Blues, and held his own on a more complicated tune. I understand the military spends over $400 million on bands, (about three times the total expenditure for the National Endowment for the Arts). SOOO---The Commander in Chief should get him a gig in the Army and have the band stationed, indefinitely in Wassilla, AK. (Poetic justice, location.)

George Vecsey

7/9/2016 12:49:13 pm

Ed; I met him in South Africa. 2010. He told a bunch of World Cup writers all about soccer.
Wassilla is a good idea.
Any girls up there?

Brian Savin

7/9/2016 09:06:23 pm

I see zero difference between that presumptively loving couple. Joined at the hip in disgusting discredit.

Ed Martin

7/9/2016 10:12:47 pm

Brian, here's a couple of footnotes. Life has twists and turns dep't.

When President, Clinton attended the Big Seven/Eight international finance meetings. Friends of mine at OECD, told me impressed everyone as he was the only national head who could sit at the table with sufficient knowledge, all the other nations had the Finance Ministers discussing the issues.

Mrs Cinton was doing pro bono work for Marian Wright a civil right worker in MS fighting child poverty and malnutrition. She is head of the Children's Defense Fund and a Mac Arthur Foundation "Genius" Award winner. ( Marian Wright Edelman.) Also, Bruce told me she came into the kitchen at the Didi Myers party and chatted with him and the band, leaving a positive impression. As fate would have it I met her in a DC receiving line a few weeks later, and I mentioned their meeting. She said, "is your son the drummer? What a nice guy."

My story about Trump would turn your your stomach, but is consistent with his worst behavior reports.

Brian Savin

7/10/2016 12:23:04 am

Ed, don't go there. I know too much detail. I leave it at this. I would never vote for either of them.

Don McGee link

7/11/2016 03:13:35 pm

Hi George,

Love the idea of the upgrades. Have to like how they are hanging in there despite all the injuries. Keep it close and get into the playoffs.

A minor quibble: please hope David and you remember Rusty Staub - another Mets favorite who wore the number 4. I can still see him crashing into the right field wall. Always gave it his all.

Best,

Don

George Vecsey

7/12/2016 08:17:32 am

Don, i know Rusty since he was a baby on the Houston Colts.
I forgot he wore No. 4 right after Rocky...on his second tour (when I was back in Sports, around the Mets a lot), he wore No. 10.
Mea culpa. He was, and is, an epic Met.
Hope all is well with you, George

Joshua Rubin

7/11/2016 03:23:34 pm

Back to baseball. I am home sick today but jusy finished this weeks nyt acrostic. Baseball themed with some nice wordplay, esoterica (i won't say what oddly named pitch is an answer to a clue) and a philosophical observation from one of baseball's more philosophically inclined players.

George Vecsey

7/12/2016 08:19:11 am

Josh, thanks for letting people know. I am impressed that you do them at all, much less finish. Be well, 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

The Mets Upgraded Themselves. Why Can’t We All?

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