MLB Random Thoughts [6/17 - 6/23]
Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
-
Comment
-
The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept.
As he went, he said: "O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!
If only I had died instead of you
O Absalom, my son, my son!"Comment
-
The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept.
As he went, he said: "O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!
If only I had died instead of you
O Absalom, my son, my son!"Comment
-
Jeff Passan opens up his column about Harvey & Wheeler with this story..
There is a story about Matt Harvey, one whispered around the New York Mets' clubhouse. It sounds fictitious. People who know Harvey swear it isn't. They saw it themselves. He stared down a giant bully, threatened to whip his ass and watched Goliath slink away.
Harvey would prefer not to talk about it, because he knows better than to gloat. "I'm not gonna discuss it," he said Tuesday, one of the biggest days of his career, an even bigger one for the franchise he now and for the distant future will embody. Now, in fact, is the perfect time, for the tale runs so wonderfully parallel to the Mets' recent history.
During his rookie season last year, Harvey was tired and decided to take a nap in a side room of the Mets' clubhouse. One of baseball's stupid decrees goes something like: Rookies pretty much can't do anything. That includes nap. The self-appointed enforcer of this rule was Jon Rauch, the 6-foot-11 relief pitcher with head-to-toe tattoos and the sort of perma-snarl reserved for nuns and rabid dogs.
Rauch, according to people who saw the incident, barged into the room with bucket of ice water, which he proceeded to dump on Harvey. It waterlogged Harvey's phone, which was resting on his chest as an alarm, and incited an even more electrical reaction inside Harvey.
He bounded up and challenged Rauch to a fight. Right there. Right then. He gave up 7 inches, about 75 pounds and a gallon or so of bad ink. It didn't matter that he was a rookie. Harvey would not be a joke. He would not be a punch line in Rauch's re-telling. He would not let some mediocre clown play him.
Rauch backed away.
From that day forth, everyone who witnessed the incident or heard about it understood a new Mets commandment: Thou shalt not trifle with Matt Harvey. And they gleaned something that they may not have understood at the time but certainly will going forward: If he can stand up against the big, bad leviathan and turn into the alpha dog just like that, so can the team that for the last five years has been nothing but joke after punch line after clown bait.
And here's a funny Freeman story from yesterday...
It angered him, and back he came against Freeman, the Braves' best hitter, with a changeup, then a fastball, then two more changeups, then a slider. And with the count full, he twirled in a curve ball, like he was marking his territory, that this mound was going to be his for a long, long time, and using his fourth-best pitch on a 3-2 count was kosher.
Freeman turned back to John Buck, the Mets' catcher.
"Are you serious?" he asked.
"He can throw whatever he wants to now, bro," Buck replied.
"That son of a bitch," Freeman said.
That son of a bitch followed with a 97-mph fastball that Freeman spoiled and a 96-mph fastball through which he swung. When the inning ended, Harvey stomped back into the dugout, mad that for the third time this season he flirted with a no-hitter only for it to turn its back on him.Last edited by EmpireWF; 06-19-2013, 08:57 AM.
Comment
-
Mets traded pitcher Collin McHugh to the Rockies for OF Eric Young Jr.
I sense a 10th different leadoff hitter for the Mets coming soonComment
-
Comment