A moment of clarity in the midst of the fog

I live up the street from 3-way intersection in one of the busiest parts of New York City. The streets are often filled with young children and elderly arts patrons, but the street lights at the corner are so poorly timed that it's absolutely impossible for even the briskest walker to cross the street before the light turns red. I've witnessed countless near-misses, and brought the problem to the attention of the city and our local officials. One day, someone will be killed at this intersection. As is all too often the case, it will take a tragedy for the problem to be fixed.

David Wright was beaned last week. There may be no scarier moment in baseball than this, one that may end a season, a career, or a life. While his brains rattled around within his skull like a toddler on a trampoline, the crowd was silenced. Slowly assured by visible breathing, then again as he sat up, and finally as he was able to leave the field on his own two feet, greatest fears slowly melted away to the more superficial. "Is he alive?" became "Is he okay?" and then "when can he play?"

A few days later, from the safety of the disabled list, the Captain-apparent spoke volumes with just a few words: "I'm embarrassed to be on the DL."

These were words of ethos, and with them David Wright separated the men from the boys. It took a near-tragedy, but it brought a huge problem to light. The Mets are a small core of die-hard team players surrounded by others who might rather think of themselves simply as worker bees.

Many have speculated that Wright's comments were pointed at Jose Reyes, who has been neither fish nor fowl spending most of this season on the DL. Rehabbing an injury that doesn't respond, he also doesn't seem to want to get on with surgery so that healing may begin. Reyes has been on the DL for longer than anyone could have possibly expected, but one has to ask how fragile an injury this must be for him to be totally incapable of progress, and if so, why it isn't being addressed more aggressively. It's been said that if Reyes can't come back at 100% he won't come back at all. Who among us is at 100% each day, let alone a professional athlete who is expected to endure bumps and bruises every day, yet bounce back like the Energizer bunny? Expectations need to be realistic. 100% is not realistic.

Last season, Johan Santana pitched and won a complete game on an injured knee that required surgery. This season he has again showed the heart of a competitor, capped with his now-famous "I am a MAN!" Like Wright, one can surmise that Johan lives to be on the field. Other's don't seem quite as eager. Last season, Oliver Perez followed Johan's complete game with a disemboweling that sealed the team's second collapse in as many years. This year, he's conjured up injuries to mask his professional impotence, seeming to relish the opportunity to be the highest-paid regular addition to the minor leagues. Last night he "tweaked" his knee, but rather than dismiss it to the questioning reporters, said he'd have to see how he was doing, as though he was making a bed he was planning to lay in. He has pitched without any heart but plenty of excuses, and without an ounce of contrition. Failure appears to be an option for Ollie, and his mediocrity is greeted with enthusiasm. He does not live to be on the field, he lives to collect a paycheck a magician conjured up for him. His numbers do not adequately portray the ineffectiveness of his performances, but surely anyone who has ever heard of Bernie Madoff knows that numbers lie.

Alex Cora has been playing the brunt of the season admirably without real use of both thumbs. Could you even eat an order of french fries without your thumbs? Cora has relished his opportunity. He has stepped up. His season is now over and he has nothing to be embarrassed about.

Gary Sheffield will be inducted to the Hall of Fame one day. He is far from being a spring chicken, but he has fought for his position and puts everything into every at bat he has. At times he seems to be in need of a walker when he plays left field, but he gives his all every play, every game. He has nothing to be embarrassed about.

Carlos Beltran has appeared to want to come back to the team in the worst way. At this point, when they're talking about surgery still being a viable option, why not let him? What's the worst that's going to happen? He'll need surgery? He probably will anyway. Let him play, let the chips fall where they may. Carlos has nothing to be embarrassed about.

And then there's Mike Pelfrey. No injury, just demons. Mike Pelfrey is the red light on the corner waiting to be fixed. Either someone will fix him, or he's doomed to be a continual problem. Big Pelf has heart, but he needs help that may not be coming from within this organization.

Each player, each coach, each member of management needs to simply make their best attempt toward some form of success to wash away some of the embarrassment before this miserable season is finally put to bed. Whether aggressive options at this point in a doomed season should even be explored any longer is well beyond me. But what isn't lost is the cry for a solution that goes well beyond the stats, well beyond the rhetoric, well beyond everyday expectations. From a position of crisis, David Wright cried out for his team of professional athletes to push themselves toward performance. More importantly, management needs to pay attention and recognize that the Wrights of the team need to be surrounded by more of their own. Embarrassment comes from many sources. The most embarrassing for the team and its followers is a lack of willingness to go further to test themselves, to prove themselves. Each player need not get on the field prepared for a Kurt Schilling championship moment, but let's hope the lessons of this tragic season bring along some action that helps make it something that no one on the field or in the stands has to endure again.

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Perception as reality

Not having watched the show I can’t vouch for the validity of this, but based upon a huge number of Twitter mentions, it would appear that comedian Jimmy Fallon’s monologue Monday night included this quip: Tomorrow is the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Or as the Mets like to call it, "vacation."

By the sheer volume of redistribution of this little pearl of wisdom, one might think this was the greatest comedic utterance since Costello first asked “Who’s on first?” But in truth, the line’s about as funny as it is accurate. Of the 29 MLB teams, 13 rosters didn’t hold a single player voted as an All-Star. And, of the remaining 16, only one - the Phillies - had more players (5) invited to the season’s halftime show than the Mets (4).

I’m not about to indict the misguided Fallon for assault with a foolish tongue. The fact of the matter is, if you’re perceived as a joke, you are a joke, and so far this year the Mets might as well be wearing joker’s hats instead of baseball caps. Player lowlights don’t just end up on local news, they grace the entire world online and live there in perpetuity. Just as HD television takes note of every minor skin flaw your favorite reality star is sporting, the internet makes every major flaw of your favorite sports star a broadband reality and the potential butt of any joke, late night or otherwise.

If the Mets are going to allow themselves to be defined by their troubles - walk off errors, base running blunders, bat anemia, and an inability to portray that you actually do understand all the rules of the game (just to name a few) - then they’ve created the true playing field that the rest of the world judges them on. By not rectifying their problems on the field they’ve allowed perception to become reality. Today’s reality is that the Mets put up a comedic first half. It’s up to the players to change the perception by providing a new, improved reality, no matter who within their system might be playing at any time on any given day.

Management is another perceived joke that has seemed to be laughed at more and more since Omar Minaya’s plane touched down on the west coast and Willie was sent packing back east. However well he may believe he break danced around any criticism about how that particular situation was handled, Minaya’s personal presentation in the year since has invited the perception that he is a bit of a stammering joke. Through all the team troubles, Minaya has appeared to be incapable of displaying himself as forthright and fully educated. Through injuries he’s appeared unaware of status or expected treatment, and through player moves he’s appeared less than honest and, frankly, ignorant. Most importantly, through a period when the need for any type of field and plate relief would appear to be a no-brainer, he’s stuck his neck out just enough to bury his head in the sand while the inadequacy of the farm team he's responsible for is beginning to ring clear. While Jerry Manuel’s mantra could be categorized as “don’t give up,” perception is that, for at least this season, Minaya already has. For a team to which he’s devoted the second highest total salary in the major leagues, that might be considered the very biggest joke of all. That is except for the All-Star game itself, which is arguably in a league of its own.

For all you twitterati who might be interested, feel free to follow my ongoing musings at twitter.com/MikeVooss

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