Baseball Guru
05-15-2003, 03:45 PM
Sabean's Giant steps
would fit in Flushing
SAN FRANCISCO - Even when calamity strikes, the Giants still manage to navigate their way around the bases. As far as the Mets are concerned, touching 'em all seems to be a lost art, their smack-a-thon in the diluted air of Colorado notwithstanding.
It was a wounded, stuttering band of pseudo-New Yorkers who straggled into town last night, hoping to capture a sliver of whatever backbone it was that helped them knock off the Giants in 2000. Perhaps Al Leiter or Mike Piazza, two of the few survivors from that wild season, would be kind enough to regale their fellow travelers with tales of glory days gone by, when the Mets knew how to do more than a few things right.
The Giants, despite dropping five straight, ought to wear badges proclaiming their survival skills. The Giants lose their manager, lose their closer, lose their second baseman, lose another second baseman, have a starting rotation that won't make anyone drool. Really, the Mets should have such problems.
Even a simple infield-fly rule for the other team turns into a run scored, which is what happened the other day when the Expos pulled off the sort of boneheaded play that is rarely observed even on sandlots. When the shock of that fine lowlight wore off, we half expected to see the Mets standing around the plate, chattering nonsense.
McCovey Cove, as charming and wicked as ever, remains home to the most successful team in the eat-their-own NL West. Granted, it helps that Barry Bonds continues to go deep with alarming alacrity, smashing home runs almost every time the opposing pitcher gets brave and gives Bonds something to hit.
He's still the same buff, brooding dude who nearly won the World Series last year all by his lonesome, and it should make the Mets shudder to know that this buff, brooding dude is not at all happy.
"None of us are," Rich Aurilia, the Giants' Brooklyn-born shortstop, was saying yesterday. "Now that we got a taste of it, we want that ring more than ever."
In what should have been the Series clincher last October, the Giants allowed a 5-0 lead to evaporate, and all those no-name pests from Anaheim now have what everyone here craves. Weeks after San Francisco gave away the championship, and before the signature on his new contract had dried, Brian Sabean, the Giants' New York-reared (in baseball lives) general manager, promptly shook the club as if it were a snow globe. Say goodbye: Jeff Kent, Reggie Sanders, David Bell, Kenny Lofton. Dusty Baker is gone, along with the manager's precocious son.
Say hello: Edgardo Alfonzo, Jose Cruz Jr., Marquis Grissom, Ray Durham (now on the disabled list). Felipe Alou, the new manager, celebrated his 68th birthday earlier this week, and despite his team's various travails (Who's on second? Where are all the lefties on the bench, in the bullpen?), appears as tranquil as Art Howe is conflicted.
Sabean, the architect of this stunning transformation, would have been a keen fit in Queens. He spent eight years with the Yankees, from '86-92, refining their scouting system. Think the Mets couldn't use his brain power? That scratching sound you hear is the Mets clawing at the bottom of their minor-league silos for talent that might not exist.
Alou was the most daring of hires, made by a GM who, unlike his counterpart across the bay in Oakland, is not into self-promotion. Sabean handpicked this roster, sometimes choosing the best players available, sometimes choosing players who possessed elusive intangibles like selflessness.
He found Alfonzo on the Queens' scrap heap after the Mets decided his iffy back and declining numbers weren't worth the risk. (History may prove them right on this one: Before last night, Alfonzo was hitting .231, and had been dropped to the seventh spot in the lineup.)
"This game is so fickle and fragile as it is," said Sabean. "The stronger the group is at the core, the more you'll get through things."
It certainly helps that the media and fans here don't hyperventilate over every calamity, every botched double play. No wonder Howe, craving the sanity of Oakland (now there's a thought), seems genuinely befuddled by all the fuss surrounding Shea.
His tenure in the Yankee asylum notwithstanding, Sabean doesn't necessarily agree that teams here are any less scrutinized. Bless his heart, he's been blinded by all that San Francisco fog. He remembers what it was like in 2000 when Pac Bell was shiny and new, and the expectations were 49er-tough, and the Giants began the season looking an awful lot like these Mets.
The Giants ended up decimating expectations, won the NL West, then lost to the Mets in the division series in four games. How loudly, how crassly the mighty have since fallen.
"We should have beat the Mets back then," said Sabean, with a sigh. The Giants might want to get their kicks in now, because these Mets won't be around in the postseason.
Originally published on May 15, 2003
would fit in Flushing
SAN FRANCISCO - Even when calamity strikes, the Giants still manage to navigate their way around the bases. As far as the Mets are concerned, touching 'em all seems to be a lost art, their smack-a-thon in the diluted air of Colorado notwithstanding.
It was a wounded, stuttering band of pseudo-New Yorkers who straggled into town last night, hoping to capture a sliver of whatever backbone it was that helped them knock off the Giants in 2000. Perhaps Al Leiter or Mike Piazza, two of the few survivors from that wild season, would be kind enough to regale their fellow travelers with tales of glory days gone by, when the Mets knew how to do more than a few things right.
The Giants, despite dropping five straight, ought to wear badges proclaiming their survival skills. The Giants lose their manager, lose their closer, lose their second baseman, lose another second baseman, have a starting rotation that won't make anyone drool. Really, the Mets should have such problems.
Even a simple infield-fly rule for the other team turns into a run scored, which is what happened the other day when the Expos pulled off the sort of boneheaded play that is rarely observed even on sandlots. When the shock of that fine lowlight wore off, we half expected to see the Mets standing around the plate, chattering nonsense.
McCovey Cove, as charming and wicked as ever, remains home to the most successful team in the eat-their-own NL West. Granted, it helps that Barry Bonds continues to go deep with alarming alacrity, smashing home runs almost every time the opposing pitcher gets brave and gives Bonds something to hit.
He's still the same buff, brooding dude who nearly won the World Series last year all by his lonesome, and it should make the Mets shudder to know that this buff, brooding dude is not at all happy.
"None of us are," Rich Aurilia, the Giants' Brooklyn-born shortstop, was saying yesterday. "Now that we got a taste of it, we want that ring more than ever."
In what should have been the Series clincher last October, the Giants allowed a 5-0 lead to evaporate, and all those no-name pests from Anaheim now have what everyone here craves. Weeks after San Francisco gave away the championship, and before the signature on his new contract had dried, Brian Sabean, the Giants' New York-reared (in baseball lives) general manager, promptly shook the club as if it were a snow globe. Say goodbye: Jeff Kent, Reggie Sanders, David Bell, Kenny Lofton. Dusty Baker is gone, along with the manager's precocious son.
Say hello: Edgardo Alfonzo, Jose Cruz Jr., Marquis Grissom, Ray Durham (now on the disabled list). Felipe Alou, the new manager, celebrated his 68th birthday earlier this week, and despite his team's various travails (Who's on second? Where are all the lefties on the bench, in the bullpen?), appears as tranquil as Art Howe is conflicted.
Sabean, the architect of this stunning transformation, would have been a keen fit in Queens. He spent eight years with the Yankees, from '86-92, refining their scouting system. Think the Mets couldn't use his brain power? That scratching sound you hear is the Mets clawing at the bottom of their minor-league silos for talent that might not exist.
Alou was the most daring of hires, made by a GM who, unlike his counterpart across the bay in Oakland, is not into self-promotion. Sabean handpicked this roster, sometimes choosing the best players available, sometimes choosing players who possessed elusive intangibles like selflessness.
He found Alfonzo on the Queens' scrap heap after the Mets decided his iffy back and declining numbers weren't worth the risk. (History may prove them right on this one: Before last night, Alfonzo was hitting .231, and had been dropped to the seventh spot in the lineup.)
"This game is so fickle and fragile as it is," said Sabean. "The stronger the group is at the core, the more you'll get through things."
It certainly helps that the media and fans here don't hyperventilate over every calamity, every botched double play. No wonder Howe, craving the sanity of Oakland (now there's a thought), seems genuinely befuddled by all the fuss surrounding Shea.
His tenure in the Yankee asylum notwithstanding, Sabean doesn't necessarily agree that teams here are any less scrutinized. Bless his heart, he's been blinded by all that San Francisco fog. He remembers what it was like in 2000 when Pac Bell was shiny and new, and the expectations were 49er-tough, and the Giants began the season looking an awful lot like these Mets.
The Giants ended up decimating expectations, won the NL West, then lost to the Mets in the division series in four games. How loudly, how crassly the mighty have since fallen.
"We should have beat the Mets back then," said Sabean, with a sigh. The Giants might want to get their kicks in now, because these Mets won't be around in the postseason.
Originally published on May 15, 2003