Salvaging Some Pride

Well, it’s about time.

While it really is a matter of too little too late, the Mets made a statement this weekend to the Phillies and that statement was hopefully fairly clear: “We’re not going to stand here and be your whipping posts anymore.”

After Friday night’s game in which Chase Utley slid late and VERY hard into second base and collided with 2nd baseman Rubin Tejada, the Mets were steaming. A lot of comments were made about the rough slide which while no one actually used the words “dirty play”, it was certainly implied. The Mets hinted that a retaliation might be in order, but with many other Phillie-related incidents over the last few years, many figured it would be a matter of talking but no real action.

For once though, the Mets were good to their word. They not only stepped up and beat the defending NL Champs twice in a row (the Phillies hadn’t lost two games in a row in over a month) and denied them the oppertunity to win the NL East and celebrate with the Mets in attendance (something there were rumors that the Phillies were REALLY hoping to be able to do… celebrate at home and in front of the Mets) but Carlos Beltran returned the favor on Saturday night and slid late and hard into second base to break up a potential double play, after which the Mets surged with 3 more runs in the inning to take a 5-2 lead.

Beltran was furious with the Utley play from Friday. “To me, yes, he crossed the line,” Beltran said in a pretty worked up manner. “Not only on that play. He has done things in the past, like blocking bases. It’s O.K. to play hard, it’s O.K. to get outs. But once you try to hurt somebody, that’s no fun. He’s such a good player, too good, to be doing that. But I guess that’s the way he plays. We can play like that, too.”

Beltran backed up his words even more on Sunday, hitting a pair of homeruns, including one of them off losing pitcher Cole Hamels who finished the year 0-4 against the Mets this season, and making a fantastic diving catch.

What I’m hoping for is that the team sat down together after Friday night and said to each other “I’m sick of this $^!#. Enough is enough. I’m not going to be a punch line or a punching bag anymore.” and decided it was time to start playing the sort of baseball (and having the sort of attitude) that demands some respect.

A perfect example is the below video which Frank posted. It’s a video created by a comedy duo from New York and the video itself is very funny, but the idea behind it is that the Mets themselves are a bunch of clown shoes. It’s really about time the team took it upon themselves to shake that label off. While the last two days haven’t done that, it’s certainly a step in the right direction.