Loud and Clear? Mets Suddenly Hear Fans on HOF, et al

[Guest Edgy DC]

Oh, yeah, as I wrote in that thread, I've got no problem with older guys jumping the line. But nobody's a bigger Rube Walker advocate than myself and I frankly don't think any coaches that don't also have managing tenures are on their radar screen, so if any of you see Howie Rose or Marty Noble over the holidays or after, put a big Rube Walker bug in their ears.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Too little and too late. While I'm glad to hear about the resuscitation and revival of the Mets HOF, I'm not about to cheer ownership for doing now what they ought to have been doing 10 years ago, and only after being shamed into it by fan outrage. They're not gonna mollify me by putting Tom Seaver's name on some plaque attached to some entrance way.

Let's see what kind of Met Museum ownership installs what with just about every single Met artifact apparently sold off to pay for that big dumb number 42 looming in that rotunda that I refuse to acknowledge by name and about as tall as two Wilt Chamberlains.

[Guest Edgy DC]

C'mon with that. It's enough that Ashie is distorting facts to suit an agenda. You know better.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I know. The truth of it is that I never really did measure the 42 sculpture that honors a Dodger that never even played for the Mets, situated at the architectural centerpiece of our new stadium. Not that a Duke Snider Rotunda would be any more appropriate. In fact, I shut my eyes real hard whenever I have to pass that number in order to lessen the indignity of it all. I never measured Wilt Chamberlain either for that matter, so what do I know even though, ironically, I began this post with "I know"?

But really. Wilpon has to be shamed into building a Mets Museum? What kind of owner is the kind of owner that wouldn't know to honor its past right off the bat? What kind of soul does Fred Wilpon have? Does he love the Mets? Does he love the Mets the way you do, or the way I do, or the way any other member of this forum loves the Mets, all of us (and hundreds of thousands of others) devoting unreasonable amounts of our time and thoughts and emotions to this baseball team that we love. What do the Mets mean to Fred Wilpon? Perhaps the franchise is nothing more than another opportunity in Capitalism for Wilpon to make more money that he doesn't even need? I don't know that I'm convinced otherwise. Fred certainly hasn't shown it.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

What kind of soul does Fred Wilpon have?

[A Boy Named Seo]

Yeah, I don't know that loving the Mets should be a requirement to owning the Mets, and I don't much care about that angle anyway. They built a pretty new house, but left a lot of the meaningful stuff from the old house in storage. People bitched and the Mets didn't have to, but they listened, and responded in a pretty solid way, as far as I see.

A lot of people get off on beating the Mets down for shit they mess up on, but they're doing a decent job of correcting some mistakes here.

[batmagadanleadoff]

What kind of soul does Fred Wilpon have?

[metirish]

An exchange between Ken Davidoff of Newsday and Paul Lukas of Uni Watch

Yesterday, I wrote, of the Mets' adding their history to Citi Field: "...in 20 years, are we really going to remember, 'Gosh, the Mets sure botched the opening Citi Field by neglecting to acknowledge their own history'? Or will fans just enjoy the team history?" My buddy Paul Lukas, of the great Uni Watch blog, responded, "True, but it misses the point. Because in 20 years we'll be talking about the latest tone-deaf moves the Mets have made, and the stadium botch will be one of the more prominent entries in the 'Timeline of Mets Management Mistakes' hat we'll all be reading (and writing). The issue isn't whether one isolated incident is a big deal; the issue is that this ownership crew has a demonstrable tendency to mess up the simplest elements of team management. Or to put it another way: How many OTHER teams ran into this problem when opening their new stadiums? Right." Can't argue with that.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Yeah, I don't know that loving the Mets should be a requirement to owning the Mets, and I don't much care about that angle anyway. They built a pretty new house, but left a lot of the meaningful stuff from the old house in storage. People bitched and the Mets didn't have to, but they listened, and responded in a pretty solid way, as far as I see.

A lot of people get off on beating the Mets down for shit they mess up on, but they're doing a decent job of correcting some mistakes here.

[Guest Edgy DC]

What I don't buy from Lukas is the hopelessness of it all.

Are we really doomed to 20 years of tone-deaf promotion?

The mistakes and miscues and misdeeds are what they are. But they stand for themselves. They don't project 20 years of errata.

And it's certainly easy enough to see how a successful season by the team would've dwarfed all this.

[soupcan]

And it's certainly easy enough to see how a successful season by the team would've dwarfed all this.[/quote:1iqctmr3]

Absolutely.

A winning season and getting rid of the black on the uniforms.

[Benjamin Grimm]

And getting rid of the drop shadow and the orange button.

And renaming Citi Field to Bob Murphy Stadium.

And eradicating all traces of Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers from the rotunda.

And changing the facade so that it no longer resembles Ebbets Field.

And applying tar and feathers to Jeff Wilpon.

And Luis Castillo!

And retiring numbers 1, 7, 16, 17, 18, 31, 36 and 45.

Did I miss anything?

[A Boy Named Seo]

Leiter, you've got every right to kvetch (never used that word before). But at some point "You screwed that up?" should really become "OK, good job, Mets" if they really did address stuff that peeps were upset over. And that's not directed at you I don't think, but more to the "too little, too late" comment by batmags and the kind of unforgiving tone Lukas took.

I mean, I don't know if the Indians fucked up the history of the Indians exhibit when they opened Jacobs field, or the Cardinals didn't build a memorial to Jack Clark when they opened new Busch. I don't follow those teams. While it's fun and cool for some to beat the crap out management, I think they're on the right path here is all.

[metirish]

Nothing short of the Wilpons selling the team will please some fans.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Leiter, you've got every right to kvetch (never used that word before). But at some point "You screwed that up?" should really become "OK, good job, Mets" if they really did address stuff that peeps were upset over. And that's not directed at you I don't think, but more to the "too little, too late" comment by batmags and the kind of unforgiving tone Lukas took.

I mean, I don't know if the Indians fucked up the history of the Indians exhibit when they opened Jacobs field, or the Cardinals didn't build a memorial to Jack Clark when they opened new Busch. I don't follow those teams. While it's fun and cool for some to beat the crap out management, I think they're on the right path here is all.

[G-Fafif]

I just don't think Wilpon's aloof about any of this. He'd have to be brain-dead not to understand what the typical Mets fan expects from a brand new Mets stadium without having to be bombarded by fan outrage. I swear to God, I think he's some cold, soulless and sadistic real life version of Montgomery Burns, probably ensconced in his inner sanctum and mocking his fan base in disdain, laughing at us and our addiction to this team, and the way we spend more of our time and money than we ought to, all for Wilpon's benefit, as he sees it. I think Wilpon sees us as suckers, paying $20 bucks to park our cars and groveling to have him name some stupid doorway after Tom Seaver.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Because how come nobody had to shame Wilpon into ensuring that the Jackie Robinson paraphernalia would be ready when the new stadium opened up for business?

This is what I think folks continue to miss. Wilpon was shamed into dedicating the rotunda to Robinson.

The Mets were under heavy pressure to name the stadium after Robinson. You think the Mets seem tone-deaf now? To say no to honoring the unimpeachable Robinson (or Martin Luther King), and to do it publickly, can easily get spun as a racist move. To do it, and instead opt for a corporate payday, makes it easier than easy to spin the organization and the owner as racist, selfish, corporate creeps.

He had to give Robinson a high profile honor in order to get his stadium built without the shame that was already coming at him.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I'm not aware that there was ever any tangible pressure for the Wilpons to name the new stadium after Jackie Robinson. Any pressure of this nature was only in the imagination of the beholder. There were numerous editorials politely suggesting that naming the stadium after JR would be a good idea -- most but not all of it coming from cloutless bloggers, but also, from U.S. Sen Charles Schumer, who issued a press release in which he agreed that naming the new stadium after JR would amount to an honorable and decent gesture -- perhaps a bit of political grandstanding on the Senator's part-- but nothing even remotely resembling pressure backed by the threat of shame or the withholding of public funds. In fact, when the Wilpons made it official that the stadium's naming rights would ultimately be sold to a corporation -an eventuality that was never reasonably in doubt for even a second- Mayor Bloomberg and then Gov. Pataki responded publicly by backing the sale of the naming rights as the right thing to do. And if there was no serious pressure to name the stadium after JR, then creating a JR Rotunda could hardly be seen as a compromise. And who was there to appease anyway: the 30 year old who's too young to have ever seen JR play, blogging from his mother's basement in his pajamas for a JR Stadium? I think that the easier and less complicated answer is that Wilpon envisioned and then created a JR Rotunda because he wanted to.

Or is Citi Field the House that Shame Built?

[G-Fafif]

the 30 year old who's too young to have ever seen JR play, blogging from his mother's basement in his pajamas for a JR Stadium?[/quote:2s8jl4an]

Buzz Bissinger lives.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

the 30 year old who's too young to have ever seen JR play, blogging from his mother's basement in his pajamas for a JR Stadium?

[Guest Kong76]

Seo: kvetch (never used that word before) >>>

Kvetch is one of my favorite words. Kvetching is one of
my favorite activities.

[metirish]

It sounds like a Jewish thing so I've not done it either.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm not aware that there was ever any tangible pressure for the Wilpons to name the new stadium after Jackie Robinson.

[ashie62]

Leiter and Franco were clubhouse lawyers

[G-Fafif]

My mother's long gone, and the house where we lived is no longer in the family. I've no basement in my co-op. Blogging was invented once I was past 30. But pajamas can be comfy, I'll cop to that.

Anyway, the JR thing was definitely in the air, but I didn't get the sense it was a "You better name it for him or we're shutting this thing down" situation. I believe the Rotunda wasn't a sop but a heartfelt gesture. IMO, the result was somewhat over the top the way it elbows out all Met messages and, quite frankly, it's not all that exciting. Certainly not as exciting as Jackie was on the bases.

From Michael Kimmelman's "Bad New Ballparks" in The New York Review of Books (an article, predating the HOF announcement, in which Dana Brand's latest book is quoted at length...though I don't know his stance on jammies), a pretty good take:

Wilpon installed a tribute to Jackie Robinson, the former Dodgers star who never played for the Mets. An unimpeachable object of respect, the display of Robinson nonetheless embodies the cluelessness and historical amnesia (in this case I won't say cynicism) of an owner and club officials who in effect are implying that the Mets have no past of their own worth enshrining. This is also the message, as Brand laments, behind the absence of a museum to honor Mets stars like Tom Seaver and Keith Hernandez, but also to recall the Mets' crazy fans and both the great and horrible moments the team has experienced. It suggests management believes fans care only about winning, not about the continuum of history, notwithstanding that the sport is absorbed in the historical minutiae of its own records. Loyalty and memory are what fill stadiums year in and year out, Brand reminds us, even Yankee Stadium. Vague words like "teamwork," "determination," "persistence," and "courage" are now emblazoned around the Citi Field rotunda like slogans from some corporate retreat. These platitudes dovetail with the sense of business people, however well-meaning, who are disconnected from the game and its true followers.

[G-Fafif]

It sounds like a Jewish thing so I've not done it either.[/quote:23fpyu5g]

I'll bet you have and you don't even know it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Anyway, the JR thing was definitely in the air, but I didn't get the sense it was a "You better name it for him or we're shutting this thing down" situation.[/quote:3pb1pvnq]
Which certainly isn't what I've said, but rather a standard BML seems to want me to meet. I said he was shamed toward making the move.

[G-Fafif]

Anyway, the JR thing was definitely in the air, but I didn't get the sense it was a "You better name it for him or we're shutting this thing down" situation.

[Guest Edgy DC]

However it got there, I'm going to feel more kindly toward it once it's adjacent to the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum.

Which I'm certain we'd all concur with.

[HahnSolo]

I'd survive if the Hall of Fame did not tell us about Doris from Rego Park.