Blogging Mets

Jews have a certain obsession with finding out if other people are Jewish. I once read a good explanation as to why this is so: unlike other minority groups (like blacks or Asians, for example), you can’t tell if someone is Jewish just by looking at them. Hence asking the question: I wonder if he or she is Jewish? As a baseball fan and a Jew, I was no doubt thrilled when I received as a Christmas gift (oh, the irony) the book “The Baseball Talmud,” with the tagline ” The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players” by Howard Megdal.

Of course, when it comes to baseball, the answer to that question is virtually always “no.” The  book points out that as of July 25, 2008, of the 16,696 who have played in the major leagues, “fewer than 160 of them were Jewish.” Why Megdal gave us the exactly number of MLB players but couldn’t tell us the exact number of Jews is baffling.

It wasn’t the only thing baffling in this book, which ultimately left me disappointed. For one thing, Megdal relies on sabermetrics, which regular readers of this site know I hate.

As his tagline indicates, Megdal organized the book by position. I have no problem with that. But he listed everyplayer at every position, giving each a short statistical biography. Do I care that some guy named Bill Starr who played in the 1930s was the 15th best Jewish catcher? By the way, he ranked just ahead of Bob Berman, the only fellow with that excellent surname to play in the majors.

What I think he should have done was give a more in-depth biography of just the top five at each position, giving us an idea of who that player was instead of just giving us his numbers. It would have been nice to know how it felt to be a Jew in the big leagues, whether they faced discrimination or the taunts of intolerant players and fans. Then he could have just listed the rest with their stats.

The other problem, which was not Megdal’s fault, is that Jews have not really made much of an impact on the game. At the beginning of the book, Megdal ranked the Top 10 Jewish players of all time. The list slides precipitously downhill after you get past the top two (Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax). I mean, former Met Shawn Green is number four, and he was an average ballplayer at best.

Maybe there just wasn’t a book here at all. Given the limited material, I think strong, emotional biographies of the players were needed to make the book interesting. Unfortunately, Megdal did not choose that route.

Willie Mays is a towering figure in baseball — arguably the best player ever. Yet up until recently there was no definitive biography of the man, in part because the very private Mays would never cooperate on one. But now there is James Hirsch’s “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.” Hirsch was able to convince Mays, who notoriously distrusts reporters, to open up to him. Well, that is a relative term, because even while Mays is opening up, he never reveals too much of himself. Still, the book paints a vivid picture of Mays that we’ve never seen before.

As a Mets fan, I was most interested in his time with the Mets. The team acquired Mays a month into the 1972 season, but if Joan Payson had had her way, Mays would have been an original Met. Payson was part owner of the New York Giants — the only member of the board to oppose the move to San Francisco in 1958. She loved Mays, and vowed to bring him back to New York somehow.

The opportunity came in 1962 when Payson became the owner of the new Mets franchise. She had to sell her interest in the Giants, so she offered her share of the team (valued at $680,000) to Giants owner Horace Stoneham in exchange for Mays. Stoneham, flush with cash in those early years following the move West, said no.

Ten years later, however, San Francisco was less than enamored with the Giants — attendance was plummeting and Stoneham was going broke.  He could no longer afford Mays’ $165,000 a year salary, so he came crawling to the Mets. Stoneham, who a year early turned down Payson’s offer of $1 million for Mays, now wanted players — specifically infielder Teddy Martinez, and either Jon Matlack or Jim McAndrew.

M. Donald Grant knew Mays was all-but washed-up, and was not about to trade away useful players. In the end, minor league pitcher Charlie Williams and a reported $100,000 were sent to Frisco for Mays. Stoneham later insisted that he never got any money for Mays. Either way, Mays was back in New York.

One other interesting tidbit about the trade — in addition to the two-year deal paying Mays the aforementioned $165,000 per year, the Mets also agreed to pay Mays $50,000 per year for ten years upon his retirement. Stoneham was trying to work out a similar deal with Mays before the trade, and Stoneham, who always looked out for Mays, wanted to make sure he would be taken care of.

The book details Mays’ struggles during his injury-plagued two seasons with the Mets. It also talks about Mays’ troubles with Mets manager Yogi Berra. Mays was used to getting special treatment with the Giants — Berra was not used to giving anyone such treatment. Years later, when talking about his troubles with George Steinbrenner interfering with the Yankees while he was their manager, he acknowledged his problem with Mays. “It was not just one guy like Willie Mays when he came to the Mets in 1973 (sic),” Berra said. “It was four or five guys who (Steinbrenner) wanted and the coaches and I didn’t.”

I didn’t realize Mays sat out the final three weeks of the 1973 season with injury, thus not being part of the great comeback to win the NL East. He played in just one game in the NLCS win over the Reds. He started the first two games of the World Series, in which his age finally caught up with him. He stumbled around the bases, and famously fell down in center field trying to catch a ball.

He would pinch hit once more in the Series, and was sitting on the bench with two outs in the ninth of Game 7 as Wayne Garrett strode to the plate as the tying run. Mays was hoping to get the call to pinch hit — one last chance at glory. But Berra, his confidence in Mays shot after those first two games, never looked his way. Garrett popped out, the Series was over, and so was Mays’ career.

Mays then began his ten-year retirement package. His role was never clearly defined. He was in uniform before games, but he was never really a coach. Had Payson still been alive, she would have found important work for him to do. But she was long gone, and no one seemed to care about Mays anymore.

And that seems to be the case for Mets management today. While they have an entire rotunda dedicated to a man who never played for the team, the Mets make no mention of Mays — a far better player than Jackie Robinson who also played a significant role in baseball history, and one who actually wore a Mets uniform. 

I’ve written about this before, but I’ll do it one last time — the Mets should retire Mays’ number 24. Sure, his actual performance on the field was forgettable, but one of the greatest players ever wore your uniform — that alone makes retirement appropriate. Also, the Mets claim Citi Field is not just a monument to the Brooklyn Dodgers; it is also an homage to the New York Giants. Well, Mays played for those Giants, winning a World Series and an MVP award. He deserves some honor in the city.

There is a precedent for this — Hank Aaron played for the Milwaukee Braves, moved with the team to Atlanta, then came back to the Brewers for the final two years ago his career. One difference is that Aaron played 12 years in Milwaukee before the move while Mays played just half of that in New York. But still, Mays was as beloved in New York as Aaron was in Milwaukee.

But back to the book — a fine read and an important historical piece about a great, misunderstood player.

I just read a book with the unfortunately long title of “Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itself” by Michael Shaprio that is a must-read for Mets fans. While the book does not talk about the team hardly at all, it does tell the story of what led to the creation of the New York Mets.

The basic story is a familiar one that every self-respecting Mets fan should know: After the Dodgers and Giants left town for greener pastures out West, New York went to work finding another National League team. Some lawyer named Bill Shea was tasked with the job. When he failed to lure an exisiting team to town, Shea dreamed up the idea of a new league — the Continental League — to compete with the NL and AL, which of course would have its flagship franchise in New York, in a new stadium in Flushing Meadows. The leagues got scared, and agreed to expand — two new teams each, with of course one of the NL teams in New York.

End of story, although that’s what I always thought. I thought the Continental League was just an idle threat. Turns out it was much more than that, and that’s what this fine book is all about. The planning for the league went on for years, with former Dodgers GM Branch Rickey joining Shea to spearhead the work. An old, ”reluctant” Rickey was even set to become league president.

The one hitch in the plan was that Rickey didn’t want to go it alone. He didn’t want to be a “renegade” league that would challenge the established leagues. He knew that would be a suicide mission. Instead, Rickey wanted the NL and AL to cooperate, and for the Continental League to be a third major league. There were even vague plans for a three-way round robin World Series.

The leagues strung Rickey and Shea (left, in his namesake stadium) along, but it appears they never had any intention of going along with the plan. But the planners trudged onward, lining up owners in eight cities — New York, Houston, Minnesota, Buffalo, Denver, Toronto, Atlanta and Dallas.

Finally, when push came to shove, the NL and AL agreed to expand to make the threat of the Continental League go away. One problem was that while the leagues said they would try to accomodate half of the prospective Continental owners and cities, it was not written in stone. The NL did the right thing, admitting New York and Houston. But the AL, which was far more adamant against the new league all along, screwed them over. Yes, Minnesota was given a team, but that was a transfer from Washington. The new Washington Senators had an owner picked by the AL. The second expansion team was the Los Angeles Angels, which was never part of the Continental League planning.

The one issue I have with the book is the Casey Stengel part of the title. Mixed in with chapters about the Continental League is the story of Stengel’s final years with the Yankees. It had absolutely nothing to do with the formation of the new league, and just felt out of place. The story of the Continental League is good enough to merit its own book.

But all in all, an excellent read — a story all Mets fan should know.