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The New Yorker: Meet the Mets

Johnny Dickshot Mar 16 2006 07:39 PM

Nice item this week in Talk of the Town: ]SPRING TRAINING DEPT. MEET THE METS by Ben McGrath Issue of 2006-03-20 Posted 2006-03-13 In a week, the Mets will have assembled in full at Port St. Lucie, back from representing their various native countries at the World Baseball Classic. Expectations are high. The last time fans were this optimistic was probably 1988. Those Mets, who won a division title (as none have since), were a brash, hard-living bunch, the stuff of tabloid legend: Doc and Darryl, Nails, Coney, HoJo, El Sid. And what of this year’s squad? Much has been made of the growing Hispanic influence, sought by Omar Minaya, the general manager, and of the outspoken liberal politics of the new slugger Carlos Delgado, but perhaps the best portrait of the 2006 Mets can be gleaned from an unwieldy spreadsheet assembled last week by Sandra van Meek, a member of the team’s communications department. Van Meek set out to catalogue the “answers to some questions people like to ask about the players,” she wrote in an e-mail. Those questions include the names of the players’ pets, the dishes they most like to cook, their game-day superstitions, and their favorite board games. A few of the stars (Pedro Martinez, Delgado, Billy Wagner) eluded van Meek’s survey, but twenty-six players participated, providing a broad sample from which to generalize. The team is certainly diverse, like the borough it plays in. Six languages are spoken, or could be spoken, in the clubhouse: English, Spanish, Spanglish, Swedish, German, and Japanese. Musical taste runs from James Taylor (Tom Glavine) to Jay-Z (Cliff Floyd and Victor Diaz) to Wisin y Yandel (three players). Career aspirations, if baseball had not been an option, range wide: a cop (David Wright), a veterinarian (Carlos Beltran), a soldier, a doctor, a lawyer, a pastor, a financial planner, a teacher, a hockey player. Taken as a statistical composite, however, the typical Met has 1.08 children (pick a name: Bella, Tobias, Yomar) and a dog, probably a terrier (Mitch Wylie’s is called Gucci). He started playing baseball when he was six years and two months old, and in grade school his best subject was math—the better for calculating his stats. He now drives a Mercedes, a BMW, or a Cadillac (and possibly some combination thereof). He likes rice and beans, and among meats he favors pork chops. Every so often, he gets out the spatula and fires up the Weber. The typical Met’s golf handicap, if he’s willing to name one, is around eleven or twelve—the result of almost a decade of links experience. Two individuals stand out as outliers in this regard: Steve Trachsel, who, despite twenty years of practice, is still a twenty handicap, and Philip Humber, the team’s first-round draft pick in 2004, who learns quick and has an eight handicap after only three years of playing. The average Met is just as likely to read Maxim as the Bible, but, to be honest, reading isn’t his strength; his main hobbies are basketball and fishing. Under “Would like to meet,” four Mets name the Pope; one lists Rachel McAdams. Generally speaking, today’s Met seems a little less wild than his predecessors of the late eighties, favoring Chicago, for instance, over Miami by a small margin. He is concerned about young people, whether in this country or internationally, and he does his part to eradicate cancer. His favorite actress, depending on the day, is Sandra Bullock, Angelina Jolie, or Reese Witherspoon. Some of the lesser-known pitchers are deserving of special mention. Heath Bell, a young reliever, has a hamster named Blossom and a cousin, Drake Bell, who is a TV star (on Nickelodeon), and for quick cash in high school he baked and sold gingerbread houses. Yusaku Iriki, a thirty-three-year-old making his American début this spring, did not start playing baseball until he turned fifteen. (His favorite sport is kickboxing, and he is partial to Bob Marley.) Duaner Sanchez plays the trumpet. Here are your highbrows: Steve Trachsel (Scrabble, Wine Spectator, “pecan-crusted” pork chops) and Aaron Heilman (Trivial Pursuit, Scientific American, philosophy, Discovery Channel). Here’s your lowbrow: Xavier Nady (bowling, Las Vegas, “Dumb and Dumber”). Certainly these Mets are a far cry from the original teams in the sixties, as Dan Reilly remembers them. Reilly, who is sixty-eight, was the first ever Mr. Met, introducing the iconic papier-mâché baseball costume to Shea Stadium fans in 1964. “Jack Fisher and Ron Swoboda were both from Maryland, and they used to have little parties where they’d serve the soft-shell crabs,” he said. “A couple of the guys were show guys—Broadway shows. I don’t think these guys today are into that. Back then they liked art, they liked jazz.” Reilly is working on a book called “The Original Mr. Met Remembers.” “We didn’t need questionnaires in those days,” he said. “We just knew the players.”

Edgy DC Mar 16 2006 07:46 PM

Way to go, Sandra van Meek. Iriki's song makes more sense now.

Nymr83 Mar 16 2006 09:05 PM

I would guess that Tom Glavine wanted to be a hockey player...who wanted to be a pastor??

Edgy DC Mar 16 2006 09:17 PM

I'll say Jackson, Mississippi's own Chad Bradford.

Spacemans Bong Mar 16 2006 09:29 PM

Edgy DC wrote: I'll say Jackson, Mississippi's own Chad Bradford. Got it. Very religious. I think his dad was a minister.

Willets Point Mar 16 2006 09:46 PM

]Reilly is working on a book called “The Original Mr. Met Remembers.” Future bookclub consideration.

Yancy Street Gang Mar 16 2006 10:35 PM

Is there gonna be another book club? What would be the point?

MFS62 Mar 17 2006 07:49 AM

Which Met do ya' think speaks Swedish? Later

Frayed Knot Mar 17 2006 09:14 AM

My money's on Matt Lindstrom Besides the very Swedish name, I believe that's where he did his Mormon mission.

metirish Mar 21 2006 09:13 AM

Cool article today on Nady, learn how he pronounces his name... ] Xavier Is a Household Name. At Least It Is in the Nady Household. By BEN SHPIGEL Published: March 21, 2006 PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., March 20 — Xavier Nady's father calls him Junior, as his father did, as his father did, as his father did and as his father did. The continual line of Xavier Nadys spans six generations and stretches back more than 150 years, to when Nady's great-great-great-grandfather, the man they call X the First, moved his family from eastern France to raise horses on a 660-acre patch of farmland in southeastern Iowa. But the actual first Xavier Nady lived in the 1500's, in the French hamlet of Auxelles-Bas, in the Alsace region of France, and he started the tradition. In some generations, the name was Xavier Louis. In others, it was Xavier Francis or Francis Xavier, because of St. Francis Xavier, the first Jesuit missionary. "It's just a good Catholic name," Nady's father said in a telephone interview. "I don't know why else they would have chosen Xavier." Xavier Clifford Nady, or Xavier VI, said he did not know much about his early ancestry, other than he pronounces his first name differently, putting a modern-day signature on a 16th-century name. Nady's father pronounces it ZAY-vee-yer — "That's the correct way," Nady said. But Nady, whose Mets teammates call him X or X-Man, prefers EX-ay-vee-yer to, ahem, exaggerate the X. "Why not, right?" Nady said. "It's pretty cool." Nady had the distinction of being the first major leaguer with a name beginning with an X to hit a home run, when, as a rookie with the San Diego Padres, on April 2, 2003, he clobbered a pitch from San Francisco's Damian Moss. Of course, the competition was not steep. There are only two others — pitchers Xavier Hernández (whose real first name is Francis) and the Manhattan-born Xavier Rescigno, known as Mr. X — and they had a combined 109 at-bats. Nady said he did not know Hernández, but last season, Rescigno wrote Nady a letter, delighting in their shared Xavierness, and they met before a game in San Diego. "It was really cool, one Xavier to another," Nady said. "How often do you see that? Probably not often, unless the Nadys are around. The Xavier Nadys share much more than a name. To a degree, all have been sportsmen. The early Xaviers were said to be capable horsemen, and the later generations revealed aptitude on a ball field. Nady's grandfather, known as Big X, coached baseball at St. Martin's University in Lacey, Wash., and three sports at a Des Moines high school. Nady's father pitched for Boston College and the University of Colorado before becoming, like his father, X the Third, a lawyer. Hardly anyone called them Xavier — X and Big X sounded better — and it was not until Nady's father started practicing law that he began answering to his first name. "It didn't hit me until I had to put my name on the letterhead," Nady's father said. "I couldn't very well put just X on there." Nady grew up in Salinas, Calif. — the lettuce capital of the world — and starred at the University of California, Berkeley, before he was drafted by San Diego in 2000. Viewed as one of baseball's top prospects, Nady never found his niche with the Padres. Where the Padres saw a utility player, Mets General Manager Omar Minaya saw a potential cornerstone, an exceedingly talented 27-year-old player with great potential that could only be realized if he were given a chance to play a full season. Nady was dining with his former teammate Brian Lawrence in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, when he saw his name and Mike Cameron's scroll across the bottom of a television screen announcing his trade to the Mets. He has emerged as the favorite to be the Mets' opening-day right fielder, batting .366 with a team-leading 11 runs batted in, and will be given every opportunity to extend his record for, well, almost every hitting category by a player with a name beginning with X. A greater honor, perhaps, would be being compared to great players of French extraction. There have not been many. Only eight players were born in France, including Padres Manager Bruce Bochy (Landes de Bussac), the former Expos pitcher Charlie Lea (Orleans), the former Phillies shortstop Steve Jeltz (Paris), and the Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie, who had Quebec roots. Maybe someday, if Nady does not attain that goal, a future Xavier Nady will. "If I'm fortunate enough to someday have a son, he'll definitely be Xavier the Seventh," Nady said. "What else would he be called?" INSIDE PITCH

Yancy Street Gang Mar 21 2006 09:23 AM

I'm starting to like Nady. He may turn around my opinion of the Cameron trade.

Frayed Knot Mar 21 2006 09:36 AM

Of course we did have one Francis Xavier Healy with the club for years (but thankfully no longer)

Elster88 Mar 21 2006 09:38 AM

]Six languages are spoken, or could be spoken, in the clubhouse: English, Spanish, Spanglish, Swedish, German, and Japanese Spanglish, huh?

Yancy Street Gang Mar 21 2006 09:42 AM

I hope it's not Street Spanglish. That would offend Delgado.

metirish Mar 21 2006 09:45 AM

Omar speaks spanglish.

Johnny Dickshot Mar 21 2006 09:46 AM

I'm pretty sure if you look into it you'll find Nady was rushed ahead by the Pods as the result of his Boras-negotiated contract, and the fact that he's paid more than guys with similar service time may have been a factor in the Pods' decision to trade him. I'm all for giving him a shot. If you haven't seen him on TV yet, he takes a tremendous cut, like he's chopping down a tree in a single swipe, with the axe going shoulder to shoulder, both hands on the bat. So I'm happy with Nady but I still think the Mets botched a great asset in Cameron: Not necessarily with the Nady trade, but by having a perfectly capable, defensively superb center fielder who hit 30 HRs, reached base in the 360s and stole a good number of bases and going out and paying twice his salary and three times the commitment for a bigger name who, as yet, hasn't surpassed Cammy's 2004 numbers and will never be the defender he is.

Edgy DC Mar 21 2006 09:48 AM

Well, maybe now Nady can stop being listed as an exhibit in the pro-Latin American countries prejudice case against Omar Minaya. If the Xavier Nady line stretches to a tenth generation, the tenth can be called Dos Equis.