If you were in the company of a Giants fan Friday night, as I was, I suspect the soundtrack in your living room went similarly to the one in mine.
(Yeah, I will admit that even if we can now get closer than ever to the actual swear words these days, I still like the ones from cartoons and comic books). Call me traditional.)
It was Saquon Barkley.
The issue is, it’s acceptable to lament Barkley’s departure while yet admitting that, overall, it was the right decision for the Giants. Visceral response is one type. The other is not attached. It makes perfect sense for me to care about this things as a sports fan. However, the two do not preclude one another.
In the unlikely event that Pete Alonso and the Mets break ways in the near future, supporters have already been contemplating the same situation for a few months. On the one side, you have everything that a true fan could possibly care about: a homegrown player who you have watched develop into an all-star during his time as a Met, and the hope that players of that caliber will play their whole career for one team. Everybody powerful. That’s all correct. That’s all fair. That’s all within the rights and privileges of the fan.
It’s usually a little cooler than that for the team.
We saw on “Hard Knocks” just how emotionally wrenching it was for John Mara at the
moment he realized Barkley wasn’t going to be a Giant For Life
. It was quite understandable. Of all of our owners around here, none is more unabashedly a fan of the team they own than Mara is. The conflict in his face was the conflict of millions.
It’s also possible that Steve Cohen qualifies as the second-most ardent fan of his own team since his affinity for the Mets goes back to 1963 and the Polo Grounds. Whatever he may think is most prudent in a business sense, or whatever other organizational voices may try to sway his opinion, there will be the 13-year-old voice in his head when decision day arrives for Alonso. And if he is playing elsewhere, a similar reaction.
Because of two names—Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver—Mets fans are more affected by this than many other fans in the area. Ryan won 295 of his 324 career games for clubs other than the Mets because the Mets became weary of waiting for him to resolve a blister issue. In return, the Mets received a year and a half of relief from Jim Fregosi. Naturally, Seaver was banished in 1977 due to the disapproval of his miserly boss, M. Donald Grant, thus Mets supporters witnessed Seaver pitch in Cincinnati at the end of his career.
But it happens to all teams sooner or later. Yankees fans saw Dave Winfield get a World Series-winning hit for the Blue Jays a few years after George Steinbrenner finally succeeded in ridding the team of him, and watched both Dick Howser and Lou Piniella win championships as managers during their own title drought of 1978-96. Islanders fans had to watch Bryan Trottier win his fifth and sixth Stanley Cup rings with the Penguins. It killed Knicks fans to watch Mr. Bill Cartwright win three titles with the Bulls. Jets fans watched Jonathan Vilma win a championship as a key member of the Saints.
And as a Sixer, Dr. J?
Ten years old me still finds that terribly depressing.
Others exist. Numerous others exist.
It doesn’t make it any easier, even though we understand that this is a fact of life in sports and isn’t limited to New York. For example, Red Sox supporters were probably not ecstatic when Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens won the pennant with the Yankees, and Cardinals supporters weren’t exactly ecstatic when Keith Hernandez was promoted in 1986.
Didn’t make it any easier to watch what Barkley could do behind a competent offensive line Friday night, scoring three times, looking every bit as sharp as at any time as a Giant. Won’t make it any easier next year to watch Alonso hit bombs in the uniform of the Cubs/Giants/Astros, if that’s how it all shakes out. It never did get easier watching Seaver as a Red, after all — or even Daniel Murphy as a National.
But, then, nobody promised you that any of this would be easy, did they?
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