Thursday, June 13, 2013

Harvey The Savior

The important thing about Matt Harvey isn't his ability to throw a baseball... I mean it IS, but it ISN'T. Confused? Ok, I'll explain.

The Mets really haven't been very relevant over the last number of years, thanks to ownership forgetting they are in charge of an actual Major League team in an actual huge market. The embarrassing Bernie Madoff scandal isn't something I need to rehash here, but it's effect have been long reaching and have neutered the team's ability to do much more than pretend to care about its fans while they rebuild.

The few bright spots since 2007's collapse out of the playoffs have come with younger players giving the fans some dim hope. Daniel Murphy and Ike Davis come to mind as some relief to the pain of watching the likes of Mike Jacobs, but even these brief respites haven't given way to wide-spread excitement like the young Mr. Harvey has.

Harvey is Dwight Gooden. He's Generation K. He's Jose Reyes and David Wright combined. Harvey is a view that there is a light at the end of the tunnel that is';t signaling an oncoming freight train.

Fans can look at Harvey and his electric stuff on the mound and they can dare to dream again. Especially when they whisper, in a hashed like voice afraid that being too loud will wake them from a dream, names like Zach Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero. Add them to existing pitchers Dillon Gee and Jon Niese and suddenly you start thinking of comparisons to the holy five of Gooden, Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, Bobby Ojeda and Rick Aguilera.

And for Mets fans, who can remember the pain of Oliver Perez, those names are music. Sweet, sweet music.

So, yeah... Harvey's arm is the thing... but the dream of that arms is even bigger.