PORT ST. LUCIE – I really came here intending to try. I really came to this Mets camp wanting to believe all the – well, is it propaganda or promotion? – I had been reading and hearing about from across the state in Tampa.
This is Camp Happy and Positive. Camp All for One and One for All. Camp You Know Who Isn’t Here and Every Day is Christmas.
I certainly got my eyes and ears full of the – is it propaganda or promotion? – yesterday on my first day in Art Howe’s House of Boredom. But, well, I am going to have to see this all work before I dive headlong into the notion that Roger Cedeno is a center fielder, Ty Wigginton is a third baseman, and this is all going to be one, big, happy Wilpon family outing.
And by work, I don’t mean in February and March, but from April to September or, gulp, October.
“I know all the glass-is-half-empty comments concerning us,” GM Steve Phillips said. “We have to work to make it the half-glass-full, and we think we will.”
This is, of course, Phillips’ job, especially at this time of year. Heck, I was reading stuff in the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times that actually made the Devil Rays sound like a team rather than what they are: A mess that will have a great season if it doesn’t lose in triple-digits.
The Mets certainly are different. They have talent, but they had plenty of talent last year. Now, it should be reported they also seem to be working hard on the pride and poise and professionalism stuff that escaped them in 2002.
It is just, well, haven’t we heard this all before? Hasn’t Fred Wilpon said stuff about character really mattering before, or am I disoriented from a firecracker going off in my ear? Hasn’t Phillips told us all before that his players are in shape? I recall something from last spring that Mo Vaughn was big-boned. That Edgardo Alfonzo was a mesomorph. That really was Phillips’ word. That the whole team was phat, not fat.
There was plenty of talk that the rotation was deep enough, that all the strikeouts in the lineup would be compensated for by high on-base percentages, and that the clubhouse had more character than a foxhole in a John Wayne movie.
Well, we know now for sure that it all was propaganda. Even Phillips says these days that he noticed some folks not in shape, but who can blame a general manager for trying to paint the prettiest picture. The Mets keep insisting their clubhouse wasn’t filled with politicians and poison. But they sure have spent a lot of time and money in the offseason bringing in players they say are loaded with leadership and professionalism. If the clubhouse was fine, why would they need those qualities?
“I don’t know how many teams have gone last to first, but attitude has to be the first change,” said recent import Graeme Lloyd, who won two World Series as a Yankee. “And the attitude in here has been great. No one wants to talk about last year.”
Why would they? Anyway, they spent the offseason explaining last year: It was Bobby Valentine’s fault.
He’s gone. In comes Howe, whose answers come in short and dull and shorter and duller. This is supposed to be the perfect antidote: the quiet of Howe following the storm of Valentine. Remember how much Giants players loved lax Ray Handley rather than stressful Bill Parcells in training camp 1991.
OK, Howe is a lot more accomplished than Handley, and Valentine was no Parcells. But the warning is: Beware of players’ happiness. They often don’t know what is best for them or the team.
Look, this all might work. Maybe Howe really is the second coming of Joe Torre. Maybe those Mets who embarrassed themselves last year really are on a mission this season. Maybe the introduction of champions Tom Glavine and Mike Stanton really will bring a missing seriousness to the proceedings.
It’s just, this is the time of year for delusions, for best-case scenarios. And I have been in Mets camp before and bought the hype, heard this same – is it propaganda or promotion?
This time I am going to have to see it from April on to believe any of it.