Speedo Tracksuit Discovers Los Mets

[Edgy MD]

A lot of sources hintnig that Castillo's neck is on the block this morning,

On what could be his last day as a Met, Tracksuit looks at the color issue.

[G-Fafif]

Andy Martino offers a kernel of a nugget of an intriguing idea...for a column in 2007.

Luis Castillo batted .302 in 2009, and played through injuries while many of his Mets teammates spent their summer on the disabled list. He was proud of this, and was stunned on Opening Day last year, when Citi Field fans booed him during introductions. "Yeah, man," Castillo says, shaking his head and wincing. "I'm not the only guy with a lot of injuries the year before, and I'm batting .300. It is what it is." But what is it, exactly? Why is one of the toughest and most passionate Mets so unpopular among fans? Asked if the issue was about race, Castillo, who is Dominican, shrugged and wondered why the public did not appreciate his willingness to play through intense foot and leg pain. "When you are hurt, you try so hard, because you don't want fans and your teammates to think you don't want to play," Castillo says. "That's hard, man, to play when you're hurt. Sometimes the fans don't understand that." Castillo, reluctant like most players to wander into a subject fraught with controversy and misinterpretation, chose not to discuss race. A friend of his only partially accepted the premise that Castillo's troubles were related to his skin color and heritage. "Yeah, sometimes that is tough," the friend, a fellow Hispanic in baseball, said about Castillo's experience. "But it's harder to say that's the main issue with Castillo, because he hasn't performed. If you had that same mistreatment of a guy that was performing really well, then it would be more obvious." Jose Reyes and Angel Pagan have played well as Mets, and have not faced the same anger. People who root for a team value production, above all other qualities, and have unleashed negativity on many white players in the past. But are nonwhite players more vulnerable to being labeled lazy malcontents, and less likely to be called "gamers?" Must they work harder to receive credit for positive contributions to the team? Castillo presents a complicated case. Yes, he came to New York as a declining player and signed a generous four-year, $24 million contract. Yes, he dropped a popup in 2009 that cost the Mets a game against the Yankees, and missed a voluntary visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2010. Those events aside, Castillo's mentoring of Reyes, willingness to play hurt and his cerebral approach at the plate have long earned him praise from teammates. The public's perception is often different. Castillo is jeered at Citi Field and at the Mets' spring home, Digital Domain Park, and abused on the Internet. In a sampling of recent Twitter posts, he is described as "lazy" and "hated." It is difficult not to explore Castillo's plight through the prism of race, because that subject has defined much of the discussion around the recent Mets. Under former general manager Omar Minaya, the team constructed a heavily Hispanic roster, and created the website LosMets.com. As in many clubhouses, players often gravitated toward cliques divided by ethnicity. The divide spilled into the public several times, as in 2007, when catcher Paul Lo Duca said of Hispanic teammates, "Some of these guys have to start talking (to the media). They speak English, believe me." Whatever its motivations, the anti-Castillo crowd might receive long-awaited news this month, as the Mets ponder releasing the infielder. The three-time Gold Glover is competing with Brad Emaus, Luis Hernandez and Daniel Murphy for a roster spot, although most scouts say he is the superior player. The veteran, whose efforts have never been accepted in a city that prides itself on acceptance, is left to wonder about his future. Thursday, Castillo sat on a bench in front of his locker, looked up and asked a reporter: "What do you think will happen?"

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't think it's a skin color thing. I think it's the $6 million per year contract and the dropped pop fly.

The masses need a scapegoat for 2007 and 2008, and the frustrations since then, and unfairly or not* Luis Castillo has been picked to be one of them.


*I think it's unfair.

[bmfc1]

Awww, poor Luis. He's a shadow of the player that he once was, can't field, can barely run, can only hit singles, but we're racist because we don't like him. It was time for him to go a year ago but today would be good.

Aww, poor Tracksuit, having no relevance anymore. He doesn't know how to effectively use social media and still thinks that people should wait for the newspaper to read about the Mets. He can go,too.

[metirish]

Terrible hackery form Martino , never once have I heard a Mets fan complain about Castillo and then insert race to the mix...

[Edgy MD]

They hated on him well before the pop fly, and I think it's clear that Mets of color and foreign-born Mets have a different row to hoe regarding fan indulgence.

That said, Martino has nothing there. No new angles, no juicy quotes, no Castillo willing to take the bait.

[Edgy MD]

Few explicitly insert race into the mix. But it's there. It's all over this team and its fanbase.

For all I know it's all over baseball, but the racial and nativist resentment surrounding this team is as persistent and evergreen as Jay Horwitz.

[metirish]

I didn't mean to imply that race is not an issue with this team , just that among my Mets friends(mostly you lot) people don't care about a players race. I think the medias fascination with Los Mets from 5/6 years ago had left a negative imprint on this org.

[metsmarathon]

i'm certain that a small part of it is a communication barrier, where between a native speaker and a non-native speaker, nuance and connotation may be misapplied and misinterpreted.

i'm also certain that racism will never ever disappear, because stupid people are everywhere, and those stupid people are often loud enough that they can be heard above the din of intelligent banter. then the drunks hear something stupid and, well, it gets even louder.

its not about race for most met fans, of that i'm certain.

unfortunately, for too many others, it is about imagined moral and character flaws realizing themselves as degraded performance on the field.

we want our athletes to play as well as they care, and care as well as they play, and imagine that the two are inexorably tied. we want our athletes to play hard, but not get hurt, because injury is weakness, of strength and spirit. we want our athletes to recover immediately, and with no setbacks or lingering effects, because recovery is solely about how much you care, and how good a person you are, and how hard you try.

we feel this way, because... well... i dunno... i guess we feel that if only we cared more, we could be in the majors. if only we were strong of body and soul, we would never get hurt, and if only we tried hard enough, all our injuries would fade away. but we're not playing pro ball on hte highest level, we do ourselves get hurt, and healing takes time. and so we ourselves are uncaring, weak, morally corrupt, and unwilling to fix it. we suck, so we need our stars not to...

and lets not get into potential unfulfilled. jeez, lets not even begin to touch that one.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, but the fans' response is still there years later, Whether it's us or not, it's still a story (which Tracksuit does a terrible job with, I think).

Google "Mets sign Raul Chavez" and it's better than even money one of the first responses below the story will be something along the lines of "o great, another latino! I thou Omar was GONE!"

It's just there and needs to be discussed. My experience suggests that nine times out of ten, if a player has labels of moral failure like "lazy," "jaking," "baby," "only cares about the money," "million-dollar arm/ten-cent head," we're talking about a non-white or foreign-born guy.

[metsmarathon]

racism is everywhere and it is pervasive. but not everybody is a racist. it's just the blithering idiots.

i actually think the nativism is a greater factor than racism. far greater. it's just buried a little deeper.

oe: classism, too.

[Edgy MD]

metsmarathon wrote: unfortunately, for too many others, it is about imagined moral and character flaws realizing themselves as degraded performance on the field.

But this is the crux. As baseball gets more expensive, the fanbase gets whiter. The greater virtues get projected onto the players folks identify with. The lesser ones onto the players they don't. It's always been there but it has to be discussed, because fueled by beer and frustration, it gets ugly, regressive, and sometimes dangerous.

(Hold for a moment. I'm going to split and merge.)

[Edgy MD]

metsmarathon wrote: racism is everywhere and it is pervasive. but not everybody is a racist. it's just the blithering idiots. i actually think the nativism is a greater factor than racism. far greater. it's just buried a little deeper. oe: classism, too.

Agreed.

[metirish]

Edgy DC wrote: metsmarathon wrote: unfortunately, for too many others, it is about imagined moral and character flaws realizing themselves as degraded performance on the field. But this is the crux. As baseball gets more expensive, the fanbase gets whiter. The greater virtues get projected onto the players folks identify with. The lesser ones onto the players they don't. It's always been there but it has to be discussed, because fueled by beer and frustration, it gets ugly, regressive, and sometimes dangerous. (Hold for a moment. I'm going to split and merge.)

As baseball gets more expensive, the fanbase gets whiter.

I guess conventional thinking says this is true but in the small sample size of games I go to I see plenty of non whites , and it's not just whites complaining here about Castillo.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

G-Fafif wrote: Thursday, Castillo sat on a bench in front of his locker, looked up and asked a reporter: "What do you think will happen?"

The last line is desperate to earn our sympathy (the temptation to included the word "dejected" somewhere in that sentence must have been difficult to overcome), almost as if Luis was asking the question without being prompted.

However, to me it sounds like the sort of question you throw back at somebody who has just asked a really stupid question.

Edgy DC wrote: Few explicitly insert race into the mix. But it's there. It's all over this team and its fanbase.

I have no wish to politicize this thread, but these problems tend to arise when you start advertising a person's race at the point they are hired, as if it is a positive attribute to carry out their job, or is a positive reflection on the organization. Statements like "first Hispanic GM" really irk me. Or in Willie's case, "First African-American manager in New York". FFS.

[G-Fafif]

What's lacking in this piece is any actual fan perspective on a story that's supposed to be about what "the fans" (as if we're all a homogeneous mass) are thinking, beyond an anecdotal reference to Twitter. There are dozens (and dozens) of active blogs eliciting hundreds (and hundreds) of comments daily. There's Facebook. There are no doubt databases in Flushing with contact info for those who are Mets customers that an industrious reporter can probably gain access to. Through these media, one can initiate actual human contact with actual human Mets fans. And oh yeah, there are frigging thousands of Mets fans coming in and out of Port St. Lucie where he is right now. Interview somebody. Get somebody on the record. Talk to ten or twenty or more fans. Sit in the stands for a few innings of an exhibition game (as opposed to Tweeting away in the press box) and if you see/hear somebody booing Castillo, ask why. Probe a little.

Ken Davidoff wrote a non-ethnic piece in Newsday today, the crux of which is blame the Mets for giving him the money, not Castillo for taking the money:

Mets fans who shake their fist at Castillo miss the point. It shouldn't surprise you that a middle infielder with heavy mileage, particularly one so reliant upon speed, should acquire the injury bug.

It's a familiar argument made on behalf of any and every albatross who's ever been been aggressively unloved by a vocal portion of fans.

Davidoff and Martino and their credentialed brethren see these guys as human beings whose performance and skills they may mock in the course of a season and career...but still human beings. Which is swell. If they were covering Castillo with such intricacy since 2007, he might be viewed more multidimensionally in general. But mostly he's been viewed as a ballplayer whose liabilities have outweighed his remaining assets and nobody's given a damn that he may be a decent guy -- maybe even a misunderstood, wonderful guy -- behind the scenes.

Which is not inappropriate. Back of the baseball card, as the cliche of the year goes.

I find it darkly amusing that guys who define the physical parameters of their job as essentially the clubhouse, the press box and the dugout during BP feel compelled to tell people with whom they don't speak (save, perhaps, in 140-character bursts) what those people -- "you people" -- are thinking.

[Edgy MD]

G-Fafif wrote: What's lacking in this piece is any actual fan perspective on a story that's supposed to be about what "the fans" (as if we're all a homogeneous mass) are thinking, beyond an anecdotal reference to Twitter.

I certainly agree. Martino punted here.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Tracky's error was trying to get Castillo's take on it.

But, I think he's onto something, and boy, do fans hate to even confront the idea that their notions might be rooted in unfairness.

[G-Fafif]

metirish wrote: As baseball gets more expensive, the fanbase gets whiter. I guess conventional thinking says this is true but in the small sample size of games I go to I see plenty of non whites , and it's not just whites complaining here about Castillo.

Based on my outsized sample of games at Citi Field, I'd concur, both on the diverse composition of the crowd (even if it ain't exactly the Polo Grounds bleachers in '62), and the reactions to given players by given fans.

I went to Latin Fiesta night or whatever it was called in 2007, the first time the Mets wore "Los Mets" uniforms (which wasn't a twist invented by the Mets; see the San Francisco Gigantes, who were doing that stuff in 2005; the Marineros and Cervecerias may have also been ahead of the curve on that one), sat among a heavily Latin section of fans and the player cheered most heartily around me was David Wright. For that matter, based on my personal interaction with many in the blogging community, the almost endless string of impassioned, anti-Blame Beltran pieces -- the ones that beatify this guy -- are written by folks who are (DNA tests pending) quite white.

I'm willing to accept there is a jerk contingent that might be swayed by non-baseball factors like ethnicity when they can't quite put their finger on why they don't like a particular player (or articulate anything deeper than "he sucks"). But mostly, I believe Mets fans want good players who win games. That's my gross generalization for the day.

Edited March 18, 2011 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

It almost seemed like Track was trying to bait an emotionally vulnerable Castillo into making a complaint about racial mistreatment, and that would have certainly been career suicide.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The more fans tend to conflate themselves with the team/the players, the more likely they are, I've found, to let the imagined-character-issues seep into their fan experience, and with it a messload of other prejudices. What they hate in themselves/those around them become what they hate most-- or what they think is the reflection of what they hate most-- on a ball field.

I'm not sure which comes first.

If baseball's getting whiter in terms of NY audience, it may be due to cost (MAYbe). But elsewhere, a ticket's still cheaper than a movie, or-- hell-- a mall visit. If said audience is getting whiter in Arlington, or Denver, or L.A., it's probably due to other factors, like the multiplicity of entertainment and sports options available to consumers of color.

[G-Fafif]

Edgy DC wrote: It almost seemed like Track was trying to bait an emotionally vulnerable Castillo into making a complaint about racial mistreatment, and that would have certainly been career suicide.

Castillo demonstrating better judgment in this regard than former manager Willie Randolph with his "smells a little bit" comment to Ian O'Connor in 2008 when O'Connor (that hack) tried to make his shaky managerial status a race thing.

One former star second baseman learning from another...sort of.

[seawolf17]

I actually thought the Castillo acquisition and signing was a solid move at the time, from a cultural perspective. I distinctly remember stories that Castillo and Santana were close in Minnesota, and I thought that was a nice idea to help keep your ace happy.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

G-Fafif wrote: Edgy DC wrote: It almost seemed like Track was trying to bait an emotionally vulnerable Castillo into making a complaint about racial mistreatment, and that would have certainly been career suicide. Castillo demonstrating better judgment in this regard than former manager Willie Randolph with his "smells a little bit" comment to Ian O'Connor in 2008 when O'Connor (that hack) tried to make his shaky managerial status a race thing. One former star second baseman learning from another...sort of.

Don't expect the fans to interpret it that way. Already the reaction is as if Castillo made the charge.

[G-Fafif]

seawolf17 wrote: I actually thought the Castillo acquisition and signing was a solid move at the time, from a cultural perspective. I distinctly remember stories that Castillo and Santana were close in Minnesota, and I thought that was a nice idea to help keep your ace happy.

Johan was closer to George Washington's 137.5 million twins.

[Lefty Specialist]

Castillo may be a prince of a guy, but that doesn't win you ballgames.

He lacks range at second and was signed to a too-long contract that epitomized the problems of the Omar Minaya era.

Yes, he dropped that F#$%ing ball.

He has so little power that outfielders play in on him like he was the skinny kid with coke-bottle glasses in Little League. Many balls that would otherwise be hits are caught as a result.

His game offensively has devolved to 'let me see if I can get a walk'. We've all seen it; when the count gets to 3-1, you could throw a 79 mile an hour fastball right down Broadway and he'd take it.

When he was a good player, his game was built around speed. That speed is long gone.

None of these things have a whit to do with his skin color or my own pasty whiteness. I just want something better at second base.

[Theoldmole]

Shit. I just wrote a long response to this thread, and when I went to post it, I got a note saying "someone else has just posted -- you may want to reconsider" -- and then my post disappeared.

[Edgy MD]

Well, we didn't have anyone better last year and still buried him neck deep at the end of a bench.

This is about all sorts of unfairness. I mean, he was buried behind other Latin players by a black manager working under an Afro-Latin GM. But it was still strange and unexplained.

[Edgy MD]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: G-Fafif wrote: Edgy DC wrote: It almost seemed like Track was trying to bait an emotionally vulnerable Castillo into making a complaint about racial mistreatment, and that would have certainly been career suicide. Castillo demonstrating better judgment in this regard than former manager Willie Randolph with his "smells a little bit" comment to Ian O'Connor in 2008 when O'Connor (that hack) tried to make his shaky managerial status a race thing. One former star second baseman learning from another...sort of. Don't expect the fans to interpret it that way. Already the reaction is as if Castillo made the charge.

Yeah, good work there, Track.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

LS. you forgot injury prone.

Anybody who asks "why all the hate" either:
(1) Hasn't watched any baseball for the last year, possibly longer, or
(2) Hasn't received much attention of late.