The Mets and Their Backward Regime

Spend like the Yankees, win like the Yankees and generate cash like the Yankees and you can act like the Yankees.

Do that and you can hire all the Jason Zillos you want and have him act as if he’s the “gatekeeper” (his word, not mine) and function as the intermediary between the “regular folk” and the insular, mostly dull world of a baseball clubhouse.

After all, that’s where players eat, shower, dress, watch TV, so all sorts of other things that won’t go mentioned here and “prepare”. Much of that “preparation” is spent in the Players Only room where they tend to such important matters as sleeping in the training table, playing video games or making calls on their cell phone.

You can’t be “Yankees Lite” and have the audacity to treat a reporter as if access is a privilege when all he did was write a book with content that puts the organization in a bad light.

After his book Wilpon’s Folly was published, the Mets informed Howard Megdal’s editor at the LoHud Mets Blog that there would be no more press access provided to Megdal for the coming season—link.

If the Mets have a legitimate issue with anything written in the book and they have proof that there are inaccuracies, they should be pointed out and addressed in an evenhanded and point-by-point manner; if there are outright fabrications in the book, the Mets should sue Megdal and his publisher Bloomsbury.

I wouldn’t be surprised if those who are making the decision as to whether or not Megdal is given the normal access he’s had in the past haven’t read the book and only received redacted snippets from other sources that probably weren’t in full context.

And if they did receive the full text of what was written, so what? Don’t the Mets have other things to worry about than Howard Megdal wandering around the clubhouse?

I haven’t read the book. I think Megdal’s campaign to be Mets GM was silly. But to rescind his press credentials? Why?

I don’t pay any attention at all to the stuff that comes out of a big league clubhouse because the majority of the time it’s tired clichés and boring interviews. Technically, no, the Mets don’t have to give access to Megdal, but what the Mets have done by denying it is draw attention to his book by reacting to it. They would’ve been better off giving it to him as normal and ignoring the book or confronting him directly.

Anything would’ve been better than this. It’s bullying via proxy and it’s pathetic.

If the Mets are going to act paranoid, arrogant and like a dictatorial regime as the Yankees do, the least they can do is accumulate power like the former Soviet Union and the Yankees and actually be a powerful force instead of looking like something out of The Naked Gun.

Share|

//