Mets make playoff push behind Latin-heavy roster

Back in the first decade of the 21st Century, much was made of the multi-culturalism of the Mets. Sports Illustrated ran a cover story in 2007 titled: “Mix Master: The Unlikely Story of How Omar Minaya Created the Melting-Pot Mets.” Flash forward to 2016 and you don’t hear a peep about that sort of thing. Was too much made of it in the aughts or is not enough being made of it now?

The active roster for the current club has 39 members, because of the crazy September rules. Of those 39 players, 13 are Latin players born outside of the U.S. Here’s the rundown of where they come from:

Asdrubal Cabrera – Venezuela
Yoenis Cespedes – Cuba
Bartolo Colon – Dominican Republic
Alejandro De Aza – Dominican Republic
Jeurys Familia – Dominican Republic
Wilmer Flores – Venezuela
Juan Lagares – Dominican Republic
Rafael Montero – Dominican Republic
Jose Reyes – Dominican Republic
Rene Rivera – Puerto Rico
Hansel Robles – Dominican Republic
Fernando Salas – Mexico
Gabriel Ynoa – Dominican Republic

That’s 33% of the roster. And if a non-Mets fan was looking at the list of names, he’d probably include T.J. Rivera without recognizing that he was born in the Bronx. If 33% were U.S.-born blacks, there would be a lot of fanfare being made. Instead, it’s barely mentioned.

There were many things that made the “Melting-Pot Mets” a bigger deal in the aughts. First was that the Mets were being run by Omar Minaya, MLB’s first Hispanic GM. And one of Minaya’s first big decisions was to cut ties with popular veteran Al Leiter, who seemingly had an in with Jeff Wilpon, to pursue and ultimately sign Pedro Martinez. Plus there was the hiring of Willie Randolph, the club’s first African-American manager. That’s a lot of “browning” of the roster, both in the dugout and upstairs.

And you can’t ignore “Los Mets,” the marketing idea that was taken by some outraged xenophobists to have a completely different meaning. Beginning in 2007, the Mets would have an annual “Hispanic Heritage Night” and part of the festivities included the team wearing uniform tops that read “Los Mets.” It was meant to show pride and diversity – the team also held “Irish Heritage Night” and “Japanese Heritage Night” and even “LGBT Pride Night” – yet the uproar around the article “Los” pushed it over the top for many.

The Mets wore the “Los Mets” once a year thru the 2014 season.

And now the team’s first three hitters come from the Dominican, Venezuela and Cuba and no one bats an eye. The fans in the stands serenade the leadoff hitter with chants of his first name. The second hitter is adored for his sure-handed fielding and ability to hit the long ball. And fans fret that the third hitter will opt out of his contract and move on to greener pastures. Somehow it seems so very different.

As for the current 33% Latino makeup of the roster, for a comparison here are numbers from Opening Day rosters in MLB:

Fox News Latino did the math and found out that 24.2 percent players on this year’s MLB rosters are foreign-born players from Latin American countries.

Would it make a bigger impact if Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins weren’t Caucasian? Or is this simply a case of yesterday’s news? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Right now the only thing that’s on people’s minds is that the Mets have won 19 of their last 26 games and are tied for the Wild Card lead.

And if Ynoa leads the Mets to a win today, he’ll be everyone’s new favorite, regardless of where he came from. That feels like progress to me. Let’s have a taco truck on every corner and a World Series trophy and not give either a second thought.