Media Go on Attack Against Matt Harvey

You’ve got to love the media. They feast on building people up, just to tear them down. The latest case in point — Matt Harvey.

Harvey is struggling on the mound like he has never struggled before. After his latest poor outing Tuesday night, Harvey committed the cardinal sin of refusing to talk to the media. It makes sense to most of us — why would Harvey want to talk about these difficult times? How many of us clam up when times get tough?

It makes no sense to the media, though, which apparently think people are obligated to talk to them whenever a microphone is shoved in their faces. Guess what — athletes are not required to talk to anyone. It would be nice for fans to hear from their favorites, but it is not something they have to do.

Mike Vaccaro’s point (?) in the New York Post was that Harvey always played by his own rules and the Mets allowed it to happen, so they share the blame for this terrible, terrible slight. Vaccaro went the insult route, calling Harvey a “Pale Pawn,” (a lame take on his “Dark Knight” nickname) and an “empty jersey.” Real mature.

Over at the Daily News, John Harper decided that Harvey’s teammates were angry that he refused to comment. He based this solely on Kevin Plawecki looking “rather uncomfortable” during his locker Q&A.

By the way, these are the same two publications which mocked Harvey’s serious medical condition during Spring Training, pulling out every urination pun they could think of. Why should he utter a word to them after that?

It seemed like only yesterday that the media were fawning all over Matt Harvey, calling him the next Tom Seaver. They reported on every date he had with a model, complete with a click bait photo of the smiling couple. Harvey, it should be noted, did not object to talking to the media to cultivate his man-about-town image. Let’s just say they used each other.

However, all of that is over because on this one night, Matt Harvey did not want to share his feelings about another miserable performance. There are players like David Wright who will always stand up and talk, no matter the circumstances. But not every player has to be that way.

But guess what, folks — when Matt Harvey turns this around (and he will), the media will be all over him again, building him up, just salivating for the moment to knock him down again.