Fine Sense of Wilponian Proportion

[G-Fafif]

David Waldstein on the brief but impactful manager-player relationship between Bobby Valentine and Jose Reyes. One wonders if it would have flourished had it gone beyond Spring Training 2002.

Great nugget from the end of the article on the Mets owner's previously unreported desire for meaningful games in a different September:

Valentine�s Mets were so bad in 2002 that by the end of the season the principal owner Fred Wilpon told Valentine to manage the final week of the season as if it were the World Series, a test to see whether the players were still listening to him. Valentine said, �If that�s the case, then I want to bring up Jose Reyes.� The request, which would have to have been executed by then general manager Steve Phillips, was denied. With Rey Ordonez and Marco Scutaro playing shortstop, the Mets went 1-6 in their final seven games and Valentine was fired. Reyes was finally promoted on June 10 the next year, too late for Valentine.

[Ceetar]

Wow. interesting.

Imagine if Reyes had come up and run all over the place for seven games, and then went home to let Mets fans think about him for 5 long cold months? Bet it would've sold some 2003 season tickets..

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Smell my feet..... NOW!!!!

I recall quite a bit of stuff like that from Bobby in '02. The Wilpons can be real shits.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Waldstein Shmaldstein. I click that link and I get some article by a guy named Prince.

[metirish]

A missed opportunity perhaps , Valentine was great with young players too, that Wilpon statement illustrates the kind of work environment Booby was in......

[seawolf17]

Edgy DC wrote: Waldstein Shmaldstein. I click that link and I get some article by a guy named Prince.

Very subtle, G. "I want people to see my article, but I don't want to seem self-serving..."

[Guest Edgy DC]

My memory has Steve Phillips making that statement. And another response history recorded Bobby as making was along the lines of, "Well, can I have a lefthanded pinch-hitter? Everybody else has one." KC used it as a sig line for a while.

[ashie62]

G.P. Publicity Ho

[Guest Edgy DC]

Nope, Jack Curry attributed it to Wilpon at the time.

[G-Fafif]

Oh, the conspiracy theorists will have a field day with that mistaken link. Fixed above and right here.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Edgy DC wrote: Nope, Jack Curry attributed it to Wilpon at the time.

Thanks a lot for that. A terrific reminder of the Wilpon's longstanding alliance with Bud Selig in their shared desire but near complete inability to establish a strong National League presence in New York, as if that wouldn't be goal of any team in any city. And firing Bobby for having a backbone then running out to get Art Howe.

[metirish]

That was a great read and a good refresher course on the state of the org then.......no mention of Howe in the list of possible replacements.....Showalter mentioned but that was never going to happen as he was much like Valentine....

this I don't remember

Phillips later called Valentine at home, Valentine said. ''He tried to talk to me the way he talks to someone who is being sent to the minor leagues,'' Valentine said. '' 'This is a very difficult day for all of us. I know how you feel.' It was that speech. I told him: 'Steve, spare me. I'm not doing this on the phone. We'll talk some other time.' ''

what a slime ball Phillips was.

[Frayed Knot]

I think Reyes would have been better served with a half-season more of minor league time rather than a half-season less so I'm glad that request didn't go through - although that still doesn't excuse the "play like it's the World Series" demand.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, in the context, Wilpon had an underperforming team, and a manager and a GM who --- if not openly feuding --- were the nearest thing to it. The pressure was on to choose between the two, he was (quite wrongly) leaning toward the GM, and he challenged the manager to show him he was wrong with perfomrance.

I understand that. But what Wilpon missed (besides backing the wrong guy) was that the GM, by intention or failure, put the manger in terrible position to respond to that challenge. Or maybe he didn't miss it and was cool with Phillips' power play.

In the locker room after the Mets won the 2000 pennant, Nelson Doubleday gave all credit to Steve Phillips. It's subsequently been very hard for me to get my head around the idea of Wilpon and Phillips as the villians and Doubleday and Valentine as the victims. I'm as big a Vee fan as they come, but it just doesn't sort out so easily.

[batmagadanleadoff]

metirish wrote: that Wilpon statement illustrates the kind of work environment Booby was in......

As Doubleday's role as owner diminshed, I'd say that working conditions for Mets GM's and field managers under Wilpon were as treacherous as those in the House of Borgia. Wilpon appears not to trust his own employees, and thus creates indirect lines of authority where almost anyone in the organization can leapfrog his or her direct superiors. The system is ripe for backstabbing. Whether or not this is correct, I can't say for sure, but the results are very consistent with the conditions I described.