It’s been about two weeks since Jose Reyes left for greener pastures by bolting the Mets franchise for the beaches of Miami and of course a lucrative $106 million dollar contract.
Some Mets fans are not over his departure. Some may never get over it. The pain of losing a crowd-pleasing home-grown player can’t be digested easily.
Believe me, I know.
In this piece I’m going to channel my inner Charlie Hangley and go on the narrative of a Mets’ fan devastated by the loss of another home-grown superstar.
Of course I am talking about Darryl Strawberry.
As a kid who was born in the Bronx (while moving to the burbs at age three) growing up in a baseball-crazed family with two older brothers who are Yankees’ fans, I tended to gravitate to the Mets instead because they were on the upswing in the mid-80’s while I was in my formative years (I’m 37 now).
The Mets were a young, captivating and animated bunch, but no one stood out more to me than Strawberry. He had star appeal. His imposing presence and stature captured the heart of this young fan.
Not to mention the production Strawberry gave the Mets, which was awe-inspiring.
In his eight years with the Mets, Strawberry hit 252 home runs and drove in 733 runs. Don’t forget that Strawberry was also consistently a 30-30 threat while amassing 191 stolen bases with the club. He was the complete package. What fan wouldn’t be enamored with that kind of production?
I was smitten with Strawberry.
In his time with the Mets I think I collected every baseball card, poster, sticker, Starting Lineup doll, magazine cover and other memorabilia I could get my hands on. As I type this piece, to the right of me on my desk is two Strawberry action figures, his three main rookie cards (Topps, Fleer and Donruss) and a commemorative coin.
To say I idolized Strawberry would be a gross understatement.
Back in 1990 there were rumblings that Strawberry was unhappy with Mets management that they were not offering him a fair deal.
Sound familiar?
On November 8, 1990 Strawberry did just what Reyes did and sign with a team in the Dodgers (his hometown no less) that wanted him more. In one fell swoop, Strawberry switched coasts, grabbed his paycheck and broke this fan’s heart.
Sad to say, I didn’t blame Strawberry, nor did I blame Reyes for taking the money and run. With that said, I have a confession to make.
In my despondency and love for Strawberry, I decided to follow him instead of the Mets.
I know that is blasphemous. But as a kid so attached to your idol, the team was secondary to the player. Shortly after Strawberry broke down, I switched my allegiance back to the Mets.
In any case, I know what’s it’s like to lose a player that cherished the hearts of fanbase. I get the discontent many Mets fans have with the way management treated Reyes. I don’t blame fans, especially young ones (say under the age of 26), who feel betrayed by the franchise these days.
What I learned through the years, and just growing up in general, is that one player does not make a team. Of course that’s easier to say in hindsight, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
The moral of this story is to forgive fans if they are a little more than angry at the way Reyes and the Mets divorced. Sometimes it just takes time to heal wounds of losing a home-grown superstar talent.
From personal experience, I can attest it isn’t easy.
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When Tom Seaver left, it never occured to me to stop rooting for the Mets.
And I think it would have made more sense to abandon ship back then, especially compared to now. All of the Reyes fans can pick him up for their fantasy league team and still pull for him while remaining Mets fans.
Excellent post. I was 17 at the time (and 38 now) so I remember Strawberry’s departure well too. It was tough but the team moved on.
One difference though: I doubt the Alderson-led front office will make a knee-jerk response by signing a Vince Coleman or go on to assemble the 1993 team (aka “The Worst Team Money Can Buy”). This front office seems more like the early Frank Cashen years, which is a good sign.
As someone who remembers when Daryl Strawberry first came up, and the glory years for the Metsies that followed not long after, and the bitterness of the unraveling which eventually followed that, and Daryl’s departure for LA and the horror of the early 90’s for the Mets, I can appreciate what’s being said in this article. But there’s one thing written in it that begs for a response:
“I get the discontent many Mets fans have with the way management treated Reyes. I don’t blame fans, especially young ones (say under the age of 26), who feel betrayed by the franchise these days.”
I don’t get this. What were the Mets supposed to do – get into a bidding war with the Marlins? Reyes wanted to test the market and wasn’t interested in negotiating a deal with the Mets before doing that. Miami is spending money like the Pentagon, as in the case of Albert Pujols where they apparently made an offer that was more than the money the Angels agreed to pay out. There was no way the Mets were going to out-bid the Fish. Should they have tried, just to show Jose that they loved him?
Even if the Metsies weren’t in the financial mess they are, would any reasonable fan really want to see them continue doing what they did during the Minaya administration? Wasn’t the wreckage the team is trying to crawl out of now at least partially caused by that Yankee Ball, back loaded, sky’s-the-limit contract approach the Mets followed in the mid-2000’s? How many Jason Bay/Jason Werth/Carl Crawford-type deals will it take before the era of ruinous contracts in baseball comes to an end?
I’m sorry to see Reyes go, but I’m glad the Mets didn’t give him the kind of contract he was able to get from the Marlins. If there are fans so loyal to Reyes that they want to jump ship and switch to his new team, they should do it. My guess is they’ll be back in a year or two.
Don’t get me wrong, I did NOT want the Mets to get in a bidding war.
I’m just talking about the bottom line and that Reyes and the Mets are no longer together irregardless of any economic factors.
I’m just talking about the fans losing a beloved figure, nothing more, nothing less.
If you have read my other work I agree with the model Sandy is instilling. I agree that there should be no more wasteful spending and should build from within. So I agree with you on that front.
Hey, didn’t mean to make the reply personal. I’ve read some comments elsewhere where fans trash talked the front office, saying they should have done more, offered more money, more years, whatever it took to keep Reyes in a Met uniform. Those two lines in your story just offered a convenient opportunity to vent about that.
Gotcha,
No offense taken but I understand where you are coming from.
I was a Sunday plan holder in 1990 and Staw was carrying the team into July. I thought at the time that the Mets should make an offer to sign him and if it was refused, then trade him and get something back. 21 years later Reyes is tearing up the league but refuses to negotiate. Baseball is a business, and assets should not be lost without a return. If a player is offered a contract and refuses , then how committed is the player to the team? If a team offers less than what the player can reasonably get on the open market, how committed is the team to the player? At this point, the player-team bond is broken, and the team should look to get a return on the player. I thought in July 2011 the Mets were positioning themselves to sign Reyes (he told them he wanted 100M, which indeed turned out to be market value) and should have realized 100M was necessary. Many of my pro Reyes posts were based on this assumption, and quite frankly, I would have gone in a different direction if I knew the Mets didn’t have the money or desire. The parallels to Straw and Reyes are really a lesson to the fan that baseball is a business.
Good point. And with Pujols leaving ST. Louis the lesson learned is don’t get too attached to players. It’s a cutthroat business.