I took the time to call out Sandy Alderson last week for letting great pitching go to waste, even after he picked up Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson, so I need to say he has stepped up with the acquisition of Tyler Clippard and—after making me (and all of franctic Metdom) insane by not pulling the trigger on Carlos Gomez due to concerns about the former Met’s hip—picked up the slugger the Mets have been needing since Carlos Delgado’s hip gave out on him a few weeks after Citi Field opened.
Having gone over the moon—and yes, that is Keith Moon singing Beach Boys in our title link—for American League stars Carlos Bearga and Roberto Alomar and being proved very wrong, I won’t say too much. Yoenis Cespedes (I spelled it right the first time without looking!) has impressed me with the way he plays ever since I saw him three straight nights in Oakland when I was there gathering quotes and intel for Swinging ’73 during his rookie season in 2012. Cuban refugee athletes seem to be a volatile group on the whole because they have been through so much more than I think I could endure. Just to get to this country they have to leave behind family and friends, escape by tricking a totalitarian government, and then embrace the kind of decadent lifestyle Cuban handlers always preached against. And then there is the curve ball, not mention the language barrier.
I “studied” French for four years in high school and never mastered much beyond a few weeks speaking coherently in Luxembourg when everything clicked—but that was so long ago Davey Johnson had yet to manage his first game and I am now not sure exactly what the “Je Me Souviens” Quebecois license plates say that fly by me on the New York Turnpike. Oh, I remember, but I have not been to a foreign country—besides said Canada—in 20 years, but speaking for all Americans who couldn’t spell “chat” if you spotted them the C and the A (how about the H to keep it sporting for the kitties out there?), I welcome Cespedes to the Mets lineup. Because we all speak offense. And conversation has been stilted.
I do not know if the Mets have traded the next John Smoltz in the past week, but I will say at this point I am happy to be rooting in the present. The Mets, and all of us, have been living so long in the past and the future, it’s just good to be here right now—even if we can’t take heartbreak. You’d think we’d be good at that emotion by now. Don’t cry, Wilmer. You walk off stud—we always loved you! We have seen the future. And Keith Moon says everything will turn out all right.