 |
Out of Left Field |
|
Opening Day |
 ART HOWE ...smiling through |
Our first game this season:
Ill winds at Shea stadium?
By STAN ISAACS
of TheColumnists.com
Opening day for most baseball teams was Monday, March
31. In a sense opening day for the rest of us is the day we go
to our first game of the season. For me it was the Cubs at Mets
game the first Thursday of the season.
The teams had split the first two games of the series. I thought
that was pretty good for the Mets, who I fear are in for a disastrous
season. While many of the pundits were picking the Mets third
in the five-team eastern division, I tended to agree with the
joke of late-night comedian Conan O’Brien. He said:
“The Air Force
has dropped 100,000 leaflets on the Iraqui army telling them
they have no chance of winning. Then today the Air Force did
the same for the New York Mets.”
At Shea Stadium, I was particularly interested in meeting Art
Howe, the new Mets manager. It seemed to me that Howe was quoted
hardly at all in the spring training dispatches. I wondered:
did he make himself that unavailable to the press?
Howe was standing to the right of the batting cage watching the
Mets hitting. He occasionally chatted with a player coming out
of the cage. He talked to a few newspapermen who stood alongside.
Waiting for him, I walked over to the Cubs’ dugout. New
manager Dusty Baker was chatting with more than a half-dozen
reporters, most of them holding small tape recorders in his face.
The talk was about knockdown pitches thrown to hitters who had
showboated after hitting home runs.
Baker, missing the toothpick he usually manipulates in his mouth,
said, “Players get away with showboating today that they
couldn’t in the old days. When I first came up, Henry Aaron
told me, ‘If you hit a homer off Bob Gibson, don’t
run around the bases too fast--or too slow. Don’t show your
feelings until you get down in the tunnel under the dugout. If
he throws at you the next time up, don’t try to fight him.
He was a Golden Gloves boxer.”
By this time the Mets had finished batting practice and Howe
had retired to his office in the Mets clubhouse. He was alone
when I approached. I introduced myself as a former Newsday reporter
and current www.thecolumnists.com ace. We shook hands.
Immediately, I noticed the bare walls of the office. Gone were
the many collectibles, photos, signed baseballs and the like
of former manager Bobby Valentine. Howe said, “I’ll
soon be putting up family pictures and such. Mike Piazza has
been needling me, saying he’ll give me some pictures of
himself.”
Howe is 56. He had an undistinguished big-league career as a
first and third-baseman. He had success as a manager at Houston
and Oakland before coming to the Mets. His outstanding feature,
probably, is his baldness. He wears No. 18, the number he wore
as a player. He is soft-spoken, a chuckler, who is of the supportive
school of managers. He plays down controversy and does not coin
phrases.
He said he had rented a house in the Whitestone section of Queens.
This was a smart move because it leaves him less than 15 minutes
from Shea Stadium. Two of his three grown children are with him,
he said.
“My son Matt is a ball player in the minor leagues. He hurt
his size 13 foot last year and is waiting at home for a bone
match so that he can get a graft. I would like to see it done
the sooner the better so he can decide one way or the other to
be a ball player or not.”
His younger daughter, Gretchen, worked in the Oakland A’s
front office.
“She found that boring, so she started taking dramatic lessons.
She loved it. She’s come to New York with us because she
hopes she can break into theater.”
And his oldest daughter, Stephanie, had just given birth to his
first grandchild back in Houston who he said he “won’t
get to see until August when the Mets make their only trip to
Houston.”
Just outside Howe’s office the ever-present Mets general
manager, Steve Phillips, was talking with a group of reporters.
Phillips is a presence around the clubhouse more than any general
manager. He and Valentine didn’t get along, and it surprised
many that Valentine was fired and that Phillips remains with
the Mets, though the team that failed last year was essentially
the group he put together.
The Mets clubhouse sparkles in black and orange. Folding chairs
with the Mets logo on a white cushion are at each locker.
It is always interesting at the beginning of a season to see
the lineup of lockers. What is essentially a pitchers’ side
of the room has the lockers of Steve Trachsel; significant newcomer
Tom Glavine; veteran relief pitcher David Weathers; sentimental
favorite David Cone, who is making a comeback with the Mets;
the injured veteran, John Franco; veteran Al Leiter; and the
one non-pitcher, catcher Mike Piazza, the team’s dominant
player.
One sign in the clubhouse caught my attention. Outside the lounge
and gathering place where the players spend most of their time,
the sign says, “No media beyond this point.”
The before-the-game activity for outriders consists of eating
(for a $7.50 tab) and gabbing with colleagues in the media press
room. Ralph Kiner, the likeable slugger and longtime Mets announcer,
accepted congratulations for the upcoming unveiling of a statue
at the Pittsburgh ball park. Kiner explained that, “It isn’t
quite a statue. It’s a cast of my hands, called ‘The
Hands of a Hitter’ ” He smiled.
Much of the excitement of the series revolved around Sammy Sosa’s
pursuit of his 500th career home run. The night before, Sosa
came up with two men on base and the Cubs behind 4-1. He hit
a tremendous high drive, which looked so much like a home run,
he did his patented little skip leaving home plate. But he hit
the ball so high, it was caught up by a strong wind and settled
into the left fielder’s glove.
On the bench before the game Dusty Baker said, “Sammy is
usually right when he goes into that little skip. I’ll bet
there won’t be another time all year when he is wrong about
a home run.”
The excitement of this day involved Sosa and another try for
No. 500. He came up in the third inning with the Cubs ahead 2-1
and the bases loaded. A mix of cheers (Cubs and neutral fans)
and boos (Mets fans) greeted him. He swung and missed Trachsel’s
first pitch, then took two balls. With each pitch, it seemed
more and more like the perfect setting for No. 500. But it wasn’t
to be. He hit a disputed infield single: the replay showed he
was tagged out by first baseman Jay Bell. It scored a run, but
it wasn’t No. 500.
The Cubs won, 6-3. Sosa had three runs-batted in. “That
is the most important thing to me,” he said.
Art Howe was 1-2 as a Mets manager at this point. I hope the
comedian’s joke isn’t all
too true.
©2003 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to either "The Editors" or Stan Isaacs . To send an
email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |