The Mets Resume Their Slumber

• Braves 6-Mets 1; Braves 6-Mets 2:

    When Mike Tyson was still fighting seriously in the mid-90s and there were those that thought he bore some resemblance to "the baddest man on the planet" from his glory days of the 80s, he still had the intimidation factor working for him even if his skills had diminished due to apathy, controversy and incarceration. For those that weren't prepared to stand up to him and at least try to fight back, he would hit them with a punch that didn't appear to be worthy of a knockout, but a combination of fear, ambivalence and dollar signs would combine to end the bout.
    It was when Tyson ran into people who weren't afraid of him; who didn't care about what he once was; who were more interested in winning than surviving that Tyson's inner weakness would come out and Tyson would just give up. Sure he received brutal beatings from Evander Holyfield (in their first fight) and Lennox Lewis and took them admirably, but once he threw his first punches, connected with them and saw that his opponent was not only still standing there, but also had the audacity to hit him back, all the will would disappear from Tyson's body like a spray of sweat after a hard punch.
    He gave the appearance of trying, but once Holyfield and Lewis hit him back, the fight was essentially over with the results fait accompli. This "I can't win" attitude was exemplified in the second Holyfield fight in which Tyson bailed out by getting himself disqualified for biting. He saw that he had no more of an answer for Holyfield in the second fight than he did in the first one and cut his losses. I mention this only because I saw a similar attitude from the New York Mets yesterday after the first inning of their day/night doubleheader against the Braves.
    After the Mets scored once on a rare homer from Luis Castillo and proceeded to load the bases against former teammate Tom Glavine, they were ready to continue what they started this past weekend against the Yankees. That was until luck intervened and appeared to remove all of the fight from the Mets. Moises Alou hit a rocket right at third baseman Chipper Jones; two feet to the left or right or a bit more lift on the swing and it's a three run double or a grand slam; instead it was the second out of the inning. Carlos Delgado followed by ripping a shot toward the gap in right center which was run down by Jeff Francouer. After that, the Mets looked like they put their bats away for the day.
    It's bad enough that Glavine was off the hook in the first inning (through no fault of the Mets nor any skill on the part of Glavine), but the Mets let their former teammate have his way with them after that by seemingly going out of their way to get the game over with as quickly as possible. Glavine proceeded to retire the next seventeen batters batters with incredible ease and only threw 82 pitches on what became an easy, rocking chair day for the veteran lefty.
    The malaise continued into the nightcap as the unknown Jorge Campillo rolled as easily through the Mets as the future Hall of Famer Glavine did. This did not appear to be a Mets team struggling with the bats; it appeared to be a team that just said, "screw it" after the first inning of the first game. It's one thing to get beat; it's another thing to make a veteran from the Mexican League who is only now sticking with a major league team at age 29 to look like he's John Smoltz as they did with Campillo. It's one thing to lose; it's another thing to look like they're waiting for the game to end so they can go and do something else; something they find more interesting.
    Following a controversial series of quotes and a team meeting that was designed to clear the air, the Mets went into Yankee Stadium and won two straight games against their crosstown rivals. Those two wins were supposed to be a springboard for the Mets to finally begin fulfilling the potential that made them one of the favorites in the National League; it might have been had they scored more than one run and unloaded on Glavine when they had him against the ropes in the first inning; instead, they reverted to what they were last week, last month, last year. Beating the Yankees may not have been a flashpoint at all; it might have been a case of one team that's playing poorly beating up on another team that's playing worse. Beating a bad team (and that's what the Yankees are right now) can be a cure for a team like the Mets, but only if they use it as momentum and after the first inning yesterday, they didn't.

    As for the Willie Randolph comments about a possible racial connection to the criticism he's receiving----NY Times Story----once a guy starts injecting such things into the conversation, there's a problem; a big one. It would be one thing if this were the first hiccup during Randolph's reign, but there's a lot of ammunition for those that want to criticize the manager. And as for the racial allegation, if this were a less diverse town, then maybe he'd have a point; but this is New York and the only thing people are really concerned about are wins and losses. If Randolph chooses to go down this road, I don't think there's any question as to where it's going to end.

    Please purchase my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on BN.com and Amazon.com.