Living on the Black

by John Feinstein

  He couldn’t do it. Torii Hunter led off the seventh with a ringing double, and left fielder Jason Kubel, hardly one of the Twins’ bigger threats, hit Mussina’s next pitch into the right-field bleachers to make it 4–2. Mussina exited right then and there, frustrated that a good day had turned into a bad one, and the Twins went on to win 6–2.

  This was an ifs and buts game, but the bottom line was still another loss. In sixteen years in the major leagues, Mussina had never won fewer than eleven games in any season. Midway through the 2007 season, he was 4–6. And his team, one game past that midway point, was now 40–42 and twelve games out of first place.

  THE METS AND TOM GLAVINE had no such issues on the Fourth of July. They were in first place, and Glavine, in spite of taking a loss two days earlier against the Colorado Rockies, felt good about the way he was pitching.

  There were, however, some signs of cracking in the foundation, even though the Mets were leading the Braves by four games and the Phillies by five.

  It had started when Paul Lo Duca had been ejected from a game against the Oakland A’s for arguing balls and strikes and then followed up his ejection by throwing equipment onto the field to let umpire Marvin Hudson know just what he thought of his work. Naturally, he was suspended (two games), and just as naturally he appealed the suspension. One of the sillier rules in baseball allows a player to keep playing while a suspension is under appeal. Why it takes more than twenty-four hours to determine whether to amend a suspension, no one understands. The circumstances are usually clear-cut; there is always videotape evidence; and there is no reason why the commissioner’s office has to wait until a player is in New York to hear his appeal since conference calling is available anywhere, anytime, anyplace.

  Things change slowly in baseball, so it is not the least bit uncommon for a player to trot out to his position on the same day MLB announces that he has been suspended. In the case of Lo Duca, his appeal dragged out long enough that it became something of a headache for the Mets, who needed to know exactly when they were going to have to call up a catcher to take his spot. Since a suspended player is not considered to be off the roster, someone would have to be sent down or released, and the question was who it would be and when it would happen.

  As the appeal dragged on — three days, four days, five days — Lo Duca was asked about it every day. Was he thinking about withdrawing the appeal and just getting it over with? Did he now regret his outburst? How much of a problem would it be if he was suspended on June 29 when the Mets had a day-night doubleheader and almost certainly needed two catchers?

  Most days Lo Duca was the most cooperative guy in the clubhouse when it came to the media. He was outgoing, loved to talk, and enjoyed the give and take. But the whole suspension thing wore on him, and, finally, five days after the incident, he got angry. “Go talk to some of the other guys, will you?” he said. “There are other guys in here who speak English, you know.”

  It was a fairly benign blow-off, the kind you might expect from someone who has been asked the same questions five days in a row. But someone — not surprisingly not a regular beat writer — decided that Lo Duca had been firing some kind of ethnic slur, a comment about the number of Hispanic players on the team. Anyone who knew Lo Duca knew that wasn’t what he was saying or anything close to what he was saying. The Hispanic players certainly knew it, but once it was in a New York newspaper (Newsday) it became a story.

  When Lo Duca walked into the clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia on the morning of the day-night doubleheader, he was instantly surrounded by every person wearing a press credential. He was angry. He said if people were going to misconstrue comments he made, maybe he would stop talking to the media completely. Things were bad enough that Mets PR director Jay Horwitz rounded up some of the Hispanic players to come to Lo Duca’s defense.

  That morning, most of the Mets were wearing brand-new T-shirts that had been created by several of the veterans, including Glavine, Billy Wagner, Carlos Delgado, and Lo Duca. The veterans were getting tired of all the doubts they perceived to be surrounding a team that was in first place and had been almost the entire season. So, to mock the doubters (the media), they had T-shirts made up with a picture of Bozo the Clown. Under Bozo was the word “ENOUGH!” On the back of the T-shirt were the words: “There ain’t a big top big enough for THIS circus.”

  The Yankees would have found the Mets’ discomfort amusing. They dealt on an almost daily basis with questions about the future of their manager, general manager, and practically everyone in the starting lineup. The Mets were bridling over a few people wondering why they hadn’t yet put together a five-game winning streak.

  “I guess it’s all relative,” Glavine said, as he watched Lo Duca answer question after question. “But look at what Paulie’s being put through. No one’s better with the media than he is, and he’s getting hammered for saying something he didn’t say.”

  That much was true. But the T-shirts were a sign of a team feeling a certain amount of pressure. The Mets were supposed to win the East as easily in 2007 as they had in 2006 and then glide into the World Series. Real life is never that simple.

  “I think there is a tendency to think because you win by twelve one year, you should win by twelve the next year,” Glavine said. “I can tell you from experience, it doesn’t work that way. But I do think we’re all waiting for that hot streak to come. We know we’re capable of it; we just haven’t done it yet.”

  They weren’t going to do it before the All-Star break. After winning the first three games in Philadelphia, they lost the finale and headed to Colorado and Houston for the last week before the break. Glavine was relieved to learn he hadn’t made the All-Star team. There had been some talk that he might be invited since it was possible this would be his last year, and while he had not pitched that well, he had pitched solidly.

  “I really hope they don’t do it,” he had said. “It isn’t that it isn’t an honor; it is. But I could use a few days off doing nothing. I wouldn’t be excited to have to fly to San Francisco and then go straight back to New York. I’ve been in All-Star games [ten of them], and they’re fun. But this year I could use the rest.”

  He was scheduled to pitch twice more before the break. After the series in Philadelphia, he opened against the Colorado Rockies and pitched five shutout innings. The problem was that he pitched a total of six innings, and in his one nonshutout inning (the third), he gave up six runs. Three scored on a home run by Matt Holliday, who was developing into one of the best hitters in the game. That was upsetting but understandable. The last two scored on a single by pitcher Jason Hirsh after Glavine had intentionally walked the number eight hitter to pitch to Hirsh.

  “Boy, do you hate when that happens,” he said. “A four-run inning is bad, but a six-run inning is a lot worse. After that, my job was to try to eat up a few innings to save the pen.”

  He did that, lasting through six innings, but the night and the series was lost. The Rockies, who had been picked by most people to finish fourth or fifth in the National League West, were starting to show signs of serious life. They had swept the Yankees, and now they had swept the Mets. That didn’t necessarily make them contenders (they were still only 42–43) but there were some indications that they should be taken seriously.

  “That’s a good, young lineup,” Glavine said. “Sometimes you think it’s the ballpark, and in the past at times it has been. But I think those guys are good enough to hit just about anyplace. The question will always be their pitching.”

  The last loss in Colorado on the Fourth of July dropped the Mets to 46–37, still in first place but on a 13–20 slide during a five-week stretch. They still had a three-game lead going into Houston to play four games before the break, but there was a sense that the team had become fragile, that something wasn’t quite right.

  That feeling grew stronger in Houston. The Mets managed to end their four-game losing streak behind yet another strong performance by John Maine — w
ho was 10–4 and All-Star worthy, even though he hadn’t been selected — but were shut down the next night by the immortal Wandy Rodriguez in a 4–0 loss.

  That wasn’t the worst part of the night. That came in the eighth inning when Jose Reyes hit a routine ground ball to Mike Lamb at third base and decided not to bother running the ball out. As luck would have it, Lamb bobbled the ball but still made the play easily since Reyes wasn’t running. That play so infuriated Randolph that he yanked Reyes from the game.

  If it had been the first time Reyes had loafed or hadn’t been paying enough attention on the bases it would not have been cause for serious concern. But it wasn’t. It was starting to become a habit and that’s what troubled Randolph. At his best, Reyes was as exciting as any player in the game. He was the best base stealer in the National League; anything he hit anywhere near a gap was going to be a triple, and he was a dynamic leadoff hitter who was hitting .310. He had MVP potential. Bobby Cox had already labeled him the best leadoff hitter he had seen since Rickey Henderson.

  Randolph knew the Mets needed a fresh and eager Reyes in the second half of the season. He yanked him from a game that was lost, had a talk with him, and decided not to bench him the next night. “I hope,” he said, “the message was sent.”

  Glavine pitched his final prebreak game the next night. Lo Duca was his catcher, having finally served his suspension the two previous nights. That was the good news. The bad news was the man standing behind Lo Duca: Glavine’s pal Tony Randazzo.

  “I couldn’t believe it when we got to town, and I saw we had them [Larry Vanover’s crew] again,” he said. “It was as if they were following us around.”

  Once again Glavine pitched well, except for one inning. Only this time, he didn’t see himself as solely responsible for the bad inning. Randazzo, in his mind, played a role.

  With two down in the fourth and Hunter Pence on first base, Glavine struck out Carlos Lee to end the inning. Or so he thought. Glavine was a half step off the mound before he realized Randazzo hadn’t put up his arm. His next pitch could have been a strike too, only it wasn’t.

  “At that point, I was hot,” he said. “I just thought he had missed two pitches that he shouldn’t have missed. I probably lost my focus a little against [Morgan] Ensberg, even though I shouldn’t have.”

  Ensberg doubled in two runs. Really annoyed now, Glavine gave up a triple to Chris Burke, and the Astros led 3–0. “Really, it’s on me that I gave up those runs,” he said. “I let the two calls bother me more than I should. Plus, it didn’t help that Ensberg is a good hitter. He actually hit a pretty good pitch. But if I strike Lee out, Ensberg is leading off the next inning, not hitting with two men on with me flustered.”

  Once again, Glavine got past his rocky inning and managed to pitch seven innings. By the time he left, the Mets had tied the score at 3–3, but, as had become part of a pattern, they couldn’t quite push their way into the lead before he left the game. Glavine ended up throwing 106 pitches, only 58 for strikes. It was classic Glavine cliff-hanging. He pitched from behind all night but only walked one batter and gave the Astros nothing after the fourth.

  “In the end, I pitched well, except for a couple of pitches in the fourth,” he said. “I kept us in the game, which is a starter’s job. But it was still frustrating to walk away with another no-decision when I had pitched well enough to get a win most nights.”

  It took the Mets another ten innings after Glavine left to score again. They finally won the game 5–3 in the seventeenth inning — after five hours and nine minutes — by scoring two runs in the top of the inning. By then, Glavine was showered and dressed and was sitting in the middle of the clubhouse wearing an old Houston Oilers football helmet he had found on the floor of the equipment room.

  “I tried watching in the training room, in the clubhouse, in the sauna. I tried walking away and not watching. Nothing worked. Finally, I found the Oilers helmet and put it on. We scored two runs and won.”

  Maybe Glavine should have worn the helmet again the next day. The Astros scored eight runs early and went on to an 8–3 win. That sent the Mets off to the All-Star break with a record of 48–39 and a two-game lead in the National League East. A year earlier, they had gone to the break 53–36 with a twelve-game lead.

  “This year we’re in a race,” Glavine said. “As long as we understand that and don’t get frustrated by the fact that we aren’t going to put this thing away in August, we should be fine. This is more normal than last year.”

  Glavine’s first half had been extremely solid. He had started nineteen times, and his record was 7–6, with an ERA of 4.36. Those numbers, though, were somewhat deceiving. He’d had two truly awful outings, but in his other sixteen starts, he had pitched to an ERA of 3.02. In fourteen of his nineteen starts, he had given up three earned runs or less, and he had pitched at least six innings in all but three of his starts.

  Statistics can be manipulated to suit any argument. What was clear about Glavine’s first half, though, was that he had given his team a serious chance to win most of the time he pitched. It was also clear that, with any luck at all, he would have already reached the Number That Must Not Be Named. He had a 2–1 loss, a 3–0 loss, and four no-decisions, in which he had pitched six or seven innings and given up one, two, or three runs. If he had won half of those games, the Number Could Already Have Been Named — and celebrated.

  “Yeah, but that’s baseball,” Glavine said. “This has been one of those years where I haven’t really stolen any wins yet, so you have to figure that will come in the second half. What’s good is that, overall, I’ve pitched well. I don’t feel as if I’ve really gotten on a roll yet. It’s been two good starts, then a mediocre one, then a decent one, with a few bad ones thrown in along the way. I still feel as if there’s a hot streak in me.” He smiled. “I guess you could say the same for the whole team. Maybe once I get this thing done, we’ll all loosen up a little bit.”

  Tight is a relative word. While the Mets were feeling a bit baffled by their first half, the Yankees were simply frustrated. They managed to win three of their last four games before the break, even taking two of three from the dreaded Angels, but were still 42–43 heading into their three days off. They were ten games behind the Red Sox and eight and a half games behind the Indians for the wild card. It was the first time since Joe Torre had been the manager that the team had been under .500 going into the All-Star game.

  “It’s all very simple,” Mussina said. “We’ve had injuries, which haven’t helped at all. But we also haven’t played good baseball. If we continue to play this way in the second half, we’re in serious trouble. If we play like we know we can play, then we’ve got a chance.”

  Mussina would pitch fourth when the second half began, behind Pettitte, Clemens, and Wang. That would mean he would go eleven days between starts. “Not ideal,” he said. “But that’s the way it is. My job is to win more than four games in half a season. Period.”

  22

  Good News, Bad News

  LIKE ALL THINGS IN BASEBALL, the traditions that are associated with the All-Star break aren’t what they used to be. This is an era, it is worth remembering, when the October Classic can end in November. It is an era when corporate names are plastered all over stadiums, often until the corporation is in bankruptcy. (Anyone remember Enron Field?) It is also an era when teams not only no longer play doubleheaders on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day, but in some cases do not play on those holidays at all.

  And, it is an era when the three-day All-Star break is four days for a lot of teams. In fact, in 2007, on the traditional post-All-Star break start-up Thursday, only twelve of the thirty teams were scheduled to play.

  Two of those twelve teams were the Mets and the Yankees. Both returned from the break on the traditional Thursday, the Yankees traveling to Tampa Bay, while the Mets hosted the Cincinnati Reds.

  The first day back after the All-Star break is usually a happy one for most teams. The th
ree or four days off gives everyone a burst of energy. There is a sense of starting again, that a bad first half can be put behind a team or a player. John Sterling, the Yankees radio play-by-play man, put it concisely when he opened the pregame show from Tampa by saying, “It’s time for the players on this team to start playing like the numbers on the back of their bubblegum cards.”

  The Yankees were the New York team in a deep hole, but it was the Mets who were acting as if they were in trouble. During the break, general manager Omar Minaya decided to shake up Willie Randolph’s coaching staff. He had not been happy with the impatient approach of a number of the Mets’ hitters during the 15–21 run that had led to the break.

  So, he fired hitting coach Rick Down, a close friend of Randolph’s, dating back to their days together with the Yankees. He replaced Down on the coaching staff with Rickey Henderson and then announced it would not be decided until the second day of the Reds series whether Henderson or Howard Johnson would be the hitting coach.

  In the end, Johnson was given the hitters, and Henderson was assigned to Johnson’s old spot at first base. If nothing else, the maneuvering raised some eyebrows in the clubhouse.

  “We are in first place, aren’t we?” said Glavine, whose day-to-day life was completely unaffected by the changes. “Usually, if you make changes like that in season, it’s because the team isn’t performing.”

  Bringing Henderson into the clubhouse on a daily basis had to be considered a gamble. On one hand, he was the greatest base stealer in baseball history and the most productive leadoff hitter in history. On the other hand, he had always been, to put it gently, an enigmatic clubhouse presence with all the various teams he had played on, including the Mets. Once, he had put down tape around his locker and declared the area inside the tape off-limits to the media. He was one of the first great third-person talkers. During card games in the clubhouse he would often say, “Rickey takes three.” And frequently he had trouble remembering teammates’ names. Often he would refer to them by position or skill: “Hey, weak-hitting shortstop, what time is BP today?”