[ad_1]
The immediate problem for the Mets is the hole in the rotation that Jacob deGrom was going to fill every five days. We aren’t likely to see deGrom until June 1 at the earliest, so that’s 10-12 starts he isn’t going to make, after the 20-22 he didn’t make last year.
And that means deGrom is about to join another New York category, one no athlete ever wants to be added to.
Call them the “What-If” All-Stars.
It is hard to believe that after eight years in the major leagues deGrom’s lifetime record is just 77-53. Even in an era when wins and losses no longer define a starting pitcher as they once did, that’s an amazing figure at age 33. And look, we understand it isn’t just injury that has kept deGrom’s win total at 77, thanks to regular bullpen sabotage.
But now that deGrom is going to lose a chunk of significant action for a second straight season — and don’t forget, he missed his last eight starts in 2016, too — it’s clear his overall career, his overall body of work, will suffer by this absence. There is no denying his greatness in real time, when healthy. But it will be forever difficult to talk about his career without using those defining, qualifying words:
“When healthy …”
There is a rich list of New York athletes who share a similar burden. For many of them it didn’t hinder their ability to qualify for a Hall of Fame, or at least secure a permanent place in the fans’ memory bank. But all of them also have the melancholy preface.
When healthy … Joe Namath was one of the greatest players who ever threw a football. It was a different game then, and the Jets weren’t as good toward the end of his tenure as they were at the start. But Namath also lost huge sections of 1970, ’71 and ’73 — his age-27, -28 and -30 seasons. That should have been the cream of his prime. It wasn’t.
When healthy … Bernard King was one of the best forwards in NBA history. As it was, his glorious 1983-84 season — 27.4 points per game on 57.2 percent shooting from he floor — nearly won him an MVP, and he was averaging 31.6 the next year when he blew out his knee. That cost him his next 185 games as a Knick. It almost certainly is what’s kept his No. 30 out of the rafters at the Garden, and it’s impossible not to wonder what a healthy King/Patrick Ewing tandem might’ve looked like.
When healthy … Mickey Mantle was one of the two to three best baseball players who ever lived. But after 1951 he was never truly healthy, even as he played through myriad aches and pains. But injuries cost him the last nine games of his 1961 pursuit of Babe Ruth’s record, helped plummet his lifetime batting average under .300 late in his career and took a toll on his lifetime numbers, too. From 1963-68 he missed close to 200 games, a minimum of 800 at-bats. At his career average of one homer every 15.12 at-bats, that’s an extra 52 to his total and brings him to 588 — certainly within distance where he might’ve been the second player all time to reach 600, before Willie Mays did it.
When healthy … Don Mattingly was Donnie Baseball, maybe the most complete player in all of baseball from 1984-88. But as the excellent documentary coming on MLB Network details, he was almost too hard a worker for his own good, and his back suffered for it. The notion that Mattingly isn’t in the Hall of Fame is preposterous for those of us who grew up in New York in the ’80s, regardless of his short period of elite play.
When healthy … David Wright was on a Hall of Fame track. Through age 26 his closest comp according to baseball-reference.com was … Mookie Betts. His first six seasons, Wright’s average year was .306/.387/.515, 26 homers, 104 RBIs and an OPS-plus of 137. But we know what happened to Wright. And we know he’ll never come close to Cooperstown.
Vack’s Whacks
Eddie Coleman wasn’t just terrific at his job. He was also as fine a companion, friend, jump shooter and gentleman as anyone could aspire to be. Here’s to a prosperous and happy retirement.
Our old pal Gary Myers will be hosting a draft party April 26 at the Greenwich Street Tavern in Tribeca, featuring a Q&A with Tiki Barber and Tony Richardson.
I wonder if LeBron James feels differently about the NBA’s play-in system this time around, now that the Lakers are tooth-and-nail with the Spurs for 10th place in the West?
Suddenly doesn’t seem like the end of the world that the Mets’ second game of the season is going to be on a streaming service, does it?
Whack Back at Vac
Alan Hirschberg: What a shame the Mets didn’t erect the Tom Seaver statue outside Citi Field while he was around to see it.
Vac: Of all the baffling things prior ownership did, it was their glaring lack of caring about the team’s history which I’ll always find most mystifying.
Jim Scannelli: I, too, am a fan of the NIT. Sorry to see it go. In my younger years, we never missed the semifinals at the Garden. I remember when the NIT was the premier tournament. Too bad all good things must come to an end.
Vac: All I know is, we may have been one-and-done Tuesday night, but the St. Bonaventure folks who stuffed the lower bowl of MSG had a party we’ll never forget.
@PovreyPop: I remember 1989 when P.J. Carlesimo took Seton Hall to the NCAA Finals. We were robbed by COVID in 2020. Shaheen Holloway is a great hire, and if he has better talent play like Saint Peter’s did? Watch out NCAA! I’m pumped!
@MikeVacc: I can’t remember the last time a hire was met with such universal approval by a fan base.
Reid Scher: Thank you for your story about the day Gil Hodges died. I was 18, and the Mets and Hodges meant so much to me. I was one of the thousands who waited for hours to view his casket. This piece meant a great deal to me.
Vac: All these years later, it was remarkable to see that Hodges’ impact is still felt so deeply among Mets fans of a certain generation.
[ad_2]