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  “He so badly wanted to be the guy that everyone else wanted him to be, that young stud prospect who is going to come in and do something special for the team,” Paul DePodesta told me. “When he got sent down, it was a chance for him to take a breath and say: I can just be myself. I’m not here to meet anyone else’s expectations. Once he said that, ironically, he started to become that guy.”

  21

  “THROW A GODDAMNED

  FASTBALL!”

  A late-morning ride over the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge to Citi Field takes on an inherent sense of promise in mid-June, a week before the official arrival of summer. Soon enough the haze and lassitude of New York summer will cover everything in sight, but for the time being the sight lines are crisp, even the infamous East River looks picturesque and scenic down below, and the sight of Citi Field, glimpsed from the opposite angle of the approaching 7 train, somehow manages to kick in, from some forgotten corner of the imagination, a burst of childlike excitement in the promise of another day at the ballpark. I was attending the Mets’ June 14 home game against the San Diego Padres with a friend of mine, Bronwen Hruska, a book publisher and author with close to zero interest in baseball, but up for some good New York people watching, and we were a little surprised to arrive and notice that the parking lots were very nearly empty. For a moment it felt like some damning indictment of the Mets. Less than two weeks earlier, on June 2, they’d pummeled the Phillies 11–2 to pull within one game of .500 (28-29), putting them in position to try to hit the All-Star Break with a winning record. Instead, they’d taken a sudden nosedive, losing six straight, including a 6–4 loss at AT&T Park in San Francisco that dropped Zack Wheeler to 2-6 for the year after he gave up four runs in only 32/3 innings. They limped home from that punishing road trip and won one against the Brewers, then it was two more losses in a row to send them back to eight games under .500.

  Scanning the empty parking lots, I had dire scenarios on my mind. I was just sure a sudden decision had been made on behalf of all Mets fans to quit the team, to end the years of disappointment and frustration, but no, there was a simpler explanation. Game time was late that afternoon, so it was too early for spectators to arrive.

  Looking to kill a couple of hours, and maybe contrite for having doubted Mets fans, when of course we know most of them hang in there year in and year out, we decided to visit a place with almost holy appeal for any Mets fan: Mama’s pastry shop and deli in Corona, Queens, less than a mile away from where the Mets play and an institution for generations. Mama DeBenedettis passed away in 2009, but her three daughters have carried on in style. I first met Carmela, Irene, and Marie a couple of years ago when my friend George Vecsey, the longtime New York Times sports columnist and a regular there, suggested we meet in Corona so I could experience the place. They greeted me with warm hearts and warm freshly made mozzarella and I was hooked. The place offers a rich helping of what the Germans call Gemütlichkeit, as well as the kind of well-of-course-we’re-passionate-about-sports vibe that comes with being a regular stopping-off point for everyone from former Mets GM Omar Minaya to any fan of the Italian national soccer team.

  “The DeBenedettis family of Corona has to be taken as a unit—with roots near Bari, but now long sunk into 104th Street in Corona, which has been an Italian enclave for a long time,” Vecsey told me. “Now the three stores—deli, pasta shop, and pastry shop—are run by Carmela Lamorgese, Marie DeBenedettis, and Irene DeBenedettis. They are individuals but form an indestructible core, all talking and fussing over guests at the same time.”

  George had been to Mama’s with Minaya many times, and in 2013, he and his wife stopped by with their friend Haruko, a “­major baseball fan,” as Vecsey put it, in town from Yokohama for the All-Star Game, and ran into security guards from more than one ­major-league team. “The other day, Joe McEwing, former Met utility man, dropped in—he’s now working with the White Sox. He took a sack of pastry back to Pennsylvania with him. It’s like that. I took my granddaughter Isabel there during the Open two years ago, and totally by accident ran into Omar, who was loading up to bring stuff home to New Jersey.”

  Irene greeted Bronwen and me like old friends, though she’d met me only once before. The sisters knew I was working on a book about Sandy Alderson. They knew it had been an especially dispiriting stretch for the Mets, so they insisted I take along a box of their lovingly prepared, authentic Italian cookies for Alderson, to buck him up, like Jewish aunties might insist I bring along a quart of chicken soup.

  What to do with a large box of cookies sitting at a Mets game? During the years I’d worked on this book, I would meet Alderson from time to time at points around the country and we’d sit together to watch Mets games, but never at Citi Field. It was a kind of unwritten rule between us. He’d talk to me on the phone once a week or so through the season, we’d discuss all aspects of the team, but he needed to be left alone during home games. Often Alderson had to get up and pace, or leave the ballpark altogether and drive around; it was all too much. So I was surprised when, after I texted him about dropping off the cookies, we met a couple of innings later, and he showed Bronwen and me the way up to his private box at Citi Field, where we joined him and Linda and John Ricco to watch the game. The cookies would later be put out for the players; Alderson is not really a cookie person.

  I was fascinated to be taking in a game that close to Alderson at Citi Field, but wished it had been another game, one not quite so ugly and hard to watch. Any lingering sense of promise that might have held over from the Mets’ 6–2 win over the Padres the night before, behind a strong Bartolo Colon outing, vanished in the first inning. Zack Wheeler got two quick outs, then gave up a single to Seth Smith and fell behind Chase Headley 3-0, walking him to put runners at first and second. The first inning had been an issue for Wheeler throughout the season and he came into the game with a 6.23 ERA in the first. The crowd of 38,269 at Citi Field did not wait long to grow restless and edgy, bracing for the kersplat of another first-inning rally that put the Mets down before they’d even had a chance to swing the bat. It was bad enough when Yonder Alonso doubled on the first pitch he saw from Wheeler, a decent low fastball away, giving San Diego its first run, and putting a man on third base. But facing .184 hitter Yasmani Grandal and ahead 0-2 in the count, Wheeler threw a curveball in the dirt for a wild pitch that made it 2–0. The Mets had two on in the bottom of the inning, but Lucas Duda lined out to right to end the threat, and Wheeler continued to struggle, giving up single runs in the third and fourth.

  The Mets were down 4–0 before their half of the fourth, and up in Alderson’s box it was getting tense. Linda Alderson, a warm person as well as a woman with a most interesting work history, was getting on great with Bronwen, talking about Bronwen’s novel Accelerated. I was grateful for their discussion, which relieved me of any need to make conversation with Alderson and Ricco. But by the bottom of the fourth, it got to the point where it didn’t matter.

  David Wright, leading off that inning, was hit by a pitch and did his familiar dance off first, clutching his batting glove in his hands, as reliable a sign of optimism as Mets fans have had in recent years. That brought up the amazing Bobby Abreu, doing a turn with the Mets at age forty. He worked a walk to put runners on first and second, and even if not too many in the stands—or in Alderson’s box—really believed the Mets were about to erase the Padres’ four-run lead, maybe they could at least whittle it down by a run or two. Next up was the big man, Lucas Duda, who was batting only .234 even after a 2-for-4 effort the night before. Duda struck out on a big, slow curve and I almost wanted to plug my ears rather than listen to Alderson’s agonized reaction.

  That brought up Chris Young, poised on the edge of the Mendoza Line with a .201 average coming into the game. Things perked up when Padres starter Jesse Hahn’s wild pitch put runners on second and third with still only one out. But Young had nothing. He swung through three pitches, looking like he had no chance of foul-tipping one off, let alone getting
a hit. The third strike was a breaking ball half a foot outside easy and his wild cut wasn’t even close, earning him a resounding round of boos from the crowd.

  “This guy has been a big disappointment!” Alderson exclaimed behind me.

  A walk to backup catcher Taylor Teagarden loaded the bases, and during the Padres’ mound conference the silence in the box dragged out uncomfortably. Then Matt den Dekker struck out swinging to end the inning. Alderson, like a pitcher sneaking in a changeup, let the moment speak for itself. His frustration was understandable: First of all, the Mets were playing the Padres, the franchise Alderson led as CEO from 2005 to 2009, and it was just human nature that he’d want his new team to make a strong showing against his old team. Far more important, with a concert scheduled for after the game by rapper 50 Cent, this was one of the best crowds of the year at Citi Field, an opportunity to make an impression and show off some of the young talent the organization was promoting. Instead, it was one of the Mets’ worst games of the year. They had all of one hit through seven innings and looked ragged. By the top of the eighth, reliever Gonzalez Germen was in the game for the Mets and Alderson was out of patience with the horror show of a game. It tormented him just seeing Germen out on the mound.

  “This guy went on the DL with an abscess!” Alderson cried out.

  I’d read about Germen going on the disabled list on May 10 with an abscess. He had been more or less effective before that, posting a 3.57 ERA, a small improvement on his 3.93 mark the year before in twenty-nine games for the Mets.

  “How do you go on the DL with an abscess?” Alderson threw out there, continuing his rant.

  Talk was cut short when the inning began and Germen bounced a changeup in falling behind Chase Headley and then gave up a wind-blown home run to make it 5–0. With one out he walked Grandal and then started Cameron Maybin off with a changeup, which he poked to left field for a single. Alderson couldn’t believe it. Dan Warthen had reviewed with Germen the need to pitch off his fastball. A changeup was named a “changeup” for a good reason. It was a change of pace, meaning its effectiveness usually hinged on first showing the speed of a fastball, getting a hitter focused on that, and then catching him off guard with a much slower pitch. A first-pitch changeup was another name for a very slow, hittable fastball. It rarely made sense.

  “Why does he think it’s called a changeup?” Alderson groused, getting up to go walk around in the rear portion of the suite and watch on TV.

  Warthen came out for a mound conference. Alderson was sure he was out there to remind Germen to establish a fastball. Warthen headed back to the dugout, and Germen peered in for the sign and made his first pitch to Alexi Amarista. It was a changeup.

  “Throw a goddamned fastball!” came ringing out from the deep recesses of the suite.

  It hardly mattered that Amarista flied out to left or that Germen got out of the inning without further damage. Alderson steamed through the remainder of the game. It was agony, one of the worst days of the year for him. I asked him once what the hardest part of being general manager was, and he did not have to search his thoughts to offer an answer: “The hardest part is living with losses,” he told me. “You live with them on a day-to-day basis during the season and you have to live with them in the offseason. Nobody in baseball goes home happy at the end of the season except if you won the World Series. I know that from personal experience.”

  Far from finding Alderson’s outbursts in his box the day of the unsightly loss to San Diego objectionable or untoward, I thought they seemed about right. Alderson seethed with disappointment or anger when the team regressed, and that game had been a showcase of regression. Progress was harder to spot than glaring mistakes and it took longer to unfold, so it was therefore not nearly as satisfying as the bad moments were disturbing. I left Citi Field that day with two takeaways: One, I doubted that Gonzalez Germen had much of a future with the Mets, and two, I was struck by the sheer arithmetic of it all; that day’s loss was the thirtieth of the year and therefore the 291st of Alderson’s time as Mets general manager. He may have been at the forefront of bringing dispassionate decision-making to baseball, but he was passionate and tortured by every single one of those 291 losses. Seen from a distance, he might look lawyerly and disengaged; the truth—a little startling to witness trapped in close quarters with him—was that during games he could be Mount Vesuvius.

  The next day, Curtis Granderson homered in the first inning and paced the Mets to an easy win over the Padres, giving them two of three in the series. They lost two straight in St. Louis after that, but by the time they arrived in Miami for a four-game series, they’d turned a corner from the sad, dispirited club they had been in the home loss to the Padres I watched with Alderson.

  A tiny detail of that shift started that week: Granderson, the veteran, the man talked about universally as one of the most upbeat personalities in baseball, started waving a towel to encourage his teammates. It was a small thing, insignificant, it went without saying. But somehow it caught on. Somehow a team that could have moped through another series started to play like it was having fun, like it took pride in doing well, and the new attitude spread from player to player.

  Zack Wheeler helped jump-start the feel-good vibe by shaking off the 2-7 start to his season and carrying the Mets to a 1–0 victory on June 19 with a complete-game shutout, his first in the big leagues. He struck out eight and walked only one, a key stat for him, but far more important, he’d clearly made a step forward. Harvey was ten months away from pitching for the Mets in a game, and the team needed Wheeler to be a formidable, reliable presence in their rotation. He’d been better than his win-loss record, but still confounding with his continuing issues; a complete-game shutout was a tangible sign of progress for him, a rallying point that he could use to build on.

  The towel waving was on full display by the fourth game of that series in Miami, which saw the Mets erupt for eleven runs to steamroll the Marlins and take three of four. The white towels were waving all over the place by then, and after the game Granderson explained the whole thing this way to reporters: “It popped right from my memory of the Bulls and their three-peat championship, Cliff Levingston or Stacey King out there waving a towel all the time, it just popped in my head and we’ll do that when we get a hit… . Now we’ve seen the guys in the bullpen doing it and some of the fans in the stands are doing it. Hopefully, just something to keep us going.”

  The difference in d’Arnaud’s approach to hitting was truly amazing to behold when he was called back up from Triple-A and rejoined the Mets for their June 24 game at home against the Oakland A’s. His first at bat, he struck out against left-hander Scott Kazmir—but there was no question, watching d’Arnaud swing, that he looked better in striking out than he’d looked even when he got a hit earlier in the season. Back then his swing often had a flailing quality to it, as if he were forever unsure if he really wanted to swing at a given pitch or wanted to try to poke the ball this way or that way. Now he was letting it fly. Earlier in the year, every time he struck out, which was often, he’d wince like a guy who had just aggravated a nagging injury and mope on his way back to the dugout, all but whistling a tune and crying out, “It’s so hard bein’ me!” This time, he struck out with a big cut and bounced back toward the dugout, eager to get another crack at Kazmir. Sure enough, his next time: home run, a three-run bomb to help the Mets on their way to a 10–1 victory.

  “You can see he’s less under control than he was before,” Alderson told me after d’Arnaud rejoined the team. “He’s less tentative, basically swinging hard with his own swing. I think right now he’s just trying to hit the ball hard, which is working pretty well for him.”

  The towel-waving thing had built by then into a full-fledged tradition, and it was funny watching the press try to respond. The Newark Star-Ledger wrote an article about the towel waving on June 26, explaining how it had already evolved to the point where players lined up in the dugout for a white-towel “car wash” l
ine to welcome players back to the dugout after a big hit. The Wall Street Journal checked in on June 27 with an article pointing out that, traditionally, waving white was a symbol of surrender.

  Above all it was a way for the players to have fun together. As Wilmer Flores pointed out when I asked about towel waving, it might feel a little silly at times, but it was a way to bring everyone together, rookie and veteran, pitcher and position player, star and bench warmer.

  “It’s just part of the game,” he told me. “Sometimes we forget this is a game and we’re supposed to have fun.”

  D’Arnaud echoed that point.

  “When I came back up, they were doing it, so I just went along with it,” he told me. “It’s been fun.”

  Did having fun help them play better? Or were they having fun because they were starting to win? No one knew.

  Alderson, taking stock in early July, saw grounds for both optimism and frustration and was having trouble sorting out the contradiction. The Mets had fallen to ten games under .500 (37-47) with a three-game losing streak when he and I talked on July 2, but to that point had scored 327 runs for the season, against 331 allowed. “If you look at our run differential, we’re minus 4, and based on a minus-4 differential at this point in the season, we should be five games better than we are,” he said. “I do believe we should be better in the standings. That’s the frustrating part for me. It’s not like, ‘OK, the team stinks. We do some positive things, but we’re 10-20 in one-run games.’ You say, ‘OK, that’s going to come around.’ Well when?”