Leiter Controls the Universe
Sometimes it's quite a bother having two top-shelf MLB franchises, and subsequently two attractive Class A Minor League squads, in this metropolis that is threatening to become baseball's Judge Dredd version of Mega-City One. As I am not Job, let's just stick to the real baseball?the National League?for these preseason baseball purposes and for express written consent and all that disclaimer argy-bargy that is about to take over the summer airwaves. Without the games and the back pages alight with swing poses and mound grimaces, it's all agita.
Man cannot live on MetroStars soccer alone, but don't tell anyone at the MSG network. As New York baseball fans sort out the annual crossword puzzle of cablecast mayhem and YankeeNetsDevilsIslipDemolitionDerby networks that seem to crop up every spring, the only thing to do is to toss it to Al Leiter. Chances are, he'll catch it. And as Larry King might say: New York hasn't had an Al this loquacious since Senator Pothole.
The more Mets ace Al Leiter faces the media, the more the whole scene is reminiscent of a Gabe Pressman-to-Ed Koch City Hall press conference, only without the pastrami sandwich references or the priceless Koch mandate that the Giants hold their Super Bowl parade in Moonachie.
Al, which is short for Alois, has suddenly become the Yasha Heifitz of press spin, and he never took a lesson. He will someday be baseball's upgraded Jim Bunning and a less demonic Jack Kemp and a more interesting Bill Bradley. Politics is local and in Leiter's future, and you can bet his left hip flexor on it. There he is in the middle of the diamond in Port St. Lucie, FL, where the Mets train. He's with Peter Gammons, who is visibly suffering the heat in his Botany 500 suit. Alongside Leiter is comrade-in-arms Steve Trachsel to form a Mutt and Jeff sitdown interview in which they discuss the "mental" aspects of the pitching game. There's also an author of a motivational pitching book chiming in, but with Gammons and Leiter on hand, this guy might as well be living in a van down by the St. Lucie River. Gammons throws out a starchy question and suddenly Leiter is LIRR gunman Colin Ferguson acting as his own lawyer. Trachsel appropriately gets nary a word into this befuddled strike zone of chatter. The more Leiter talks, the more he cranks it up and the more his voice sounds very much like Quentin Tarantino talking about pie and then duking it out with Three of Cups patrons in the East Village.
Leiter's brick-oven intensity used to be contagious, now it might just be scary. He still throws tantrums on the bench when he fails to get the bunt down with two outs when he's up 6-0 in the seventh inning. Weird things happen when he is around?like the time he stroked a triple against the Marlins at Shea last season. The Mets should go ahead and take the pretentious NHL-style captain's "C" off of John Franco's uniform and give it to Al.
More than one writer, and more than two cable television sports network talking hairdos, have compared the 2002 Mets to the squad featuring Eddie Murray, Bobby Bonilla and Vince Coleman, from a decade ago. This is not fair, because none of them would have been selected to introduce the new mayor of New York, as Leiter did this past January. If Mike Bloomberg is a "Mets" mayor, then it's no wonder his suits don't fit and he lets the cameras roll while groundhogs claw his raincoat and he carries on like a junior high substitute teacher. He should take a few lessons from Leiter. Even his distant relatives are smooth. There was the time a guy calling himself one of Leiter's cousins or nephews or somesuch wandered into the Alibi Club in Fort Greene. He sat down with a bunch of luggage and ordered a drink. Was in the neighborhood to visit a pal who wasn't home, so he thought he'd wait at the bar. Soon enough, Alibi patron Mark Anderson, son of Times sports columnist Dave Anderson, had successfully confirmed from barside that the stranger spoke the truth. He was indeed a Leiter. Toms River, NJ, and all that. Lantern jaw, intense gaze, the whole 60 feet, 6 inches. He was issued an authenticity voucher after correctly answering a battery of questions regarding Al's no-hitter with the Marlins.
Soon enough the focus shifted from his family pitching legacy to the hilarious fact that no pitcher wearing a Mets uniform has ever enjoyed the succulent fruit of the no-hitter tree. Even with Leiter insisting that he's healthy through the end of Spring Training, there seemed to be concern, much like the Florida Dept. of Agriculture's efforts to contain a sudden outburst of citrus canker just north of the Mets training camp. They've got warrants to go into residential backyards to hack down the tainted trees. Now it's Governor Jeb's citrus stormtroopers vs. dimwitted conservationists and feral antigovernment types in a battle over the solitary citrus grove out by the shed.
So Leiter might be healthy, and maybe he'll even go on to become the first Mets hurler to toss a no-no. In any case, things can get ugly in a hurry when frontline starters spend most of Spring Training battling injuries. The sun-drenched tranquility turns into a Nam style subtropic airborne tension.
When the Mets and Marlins played to a 7-7 tie on March 18, a Paisan-heavy crew of Mets fans following their team on the road started some heavy booing that made the papers the next day. Trachsel had a shitty start, and by the end of the afternoon, the Mets fans were taunting their old pal Jeff Torborg, whom the Canadian temp agency sent over to occupy the Marlins field manager desk this season. Both teams were out of pitchers. Happens all the time in the Grapefruit League. Quaint and funny to most, but not to the cellphone guys down front with the black Piazza jerseys and the gold chains. Andy Fox (yes, former Yankee Andy Fox) had even volunteered to pitch for the teal team, but Torborg put the kibosh on that and he and Bobby Valentine (yes, the man who invented the "wrap" sandwich) agreed to call the game a draw. At least they gave the fans 14 runs.
The same day at Cardinals camp in Jupiter, the Braves and Redbirds played an 0-0 game with not even a yellow card issued to either side. And the mishegas from Cape Canaveral while America's pastime was pulling a Brit soccer deal on its sunburned minions? Just a test launch of a Trident II ballistic missile from the submarine USS Alaska, right out there in the choppy Atlantic. And I thought I spied Gene Hackman on the Cocoa Beach Pier.
Talk of this year's Mets home opener has been couched in the language of Broadway, with Leiter getting John Lithgow-type billing for the team with a payroll that is now the Sweet Smell of Excess. It seems that Bobby V made the decision last Aug. 8 to have Leiter as his Opening Day pitcher this year. What gives? Shouldn't this be Mo Vaughn's coming-out party? Or a celebration of the end of Todd Zeile's annoying camcorder diary entries used for rain-delay fodder by the moribund Fox Sports Net?
And whom shall face Al when the curtain rises on the Amazins lidlifter on April Fool's Day? The Pittsburgh Pirates, official court jesters of the NL Central. Don't expect the Brad Clontz-lay-down-and-die Buccos that handed the Mets a playoff berth in the final series of 1999. Don't expect the same Buccos who have lost some 25 of their last 30 games at that dump out in Flushing. Don't expect the cold-weather wimps of old like Jermaine Allensworth and his full-body ski suit that he unveiled a few Aprils ago at Shea. No, this is a new Pirates team injected with venom from the Cobra. That's right, Dave Parker returned to the black-and-gold this spring, and from the minute he showed up in camp as a hitting instructor, the ball started to fly off the bats of everyone from Mendy Lopez to Shawn Gilbert to Pat Meares. And as if that Murderer's Row doesn't strike fear, there's always Aramis Ramirez and Craig Wilson, who specialize in what Phillies announcer Harry Kalas calls a "tower-ing dri-ve."
Seeing Parker take some cuts in the batting cage in Bradenton was worth canceling a trip to Hallendale for the Florida Derby. "If I could get these legs to run, I'd still be playing," Parker told some awestruck onlookers. The hip swagger is still there, the bat is still lightning and you can almost see the sledge hammer gleaming in the 1979 sunshine pouring down on the Three Rivers on-deck circle. Helping Parker to settle his differences with the organization was the best move Bucs manager Lloyd McClendon has made yet. Too bad Parker won't be sticking around during the regular season. Maybe that lies in the future for Pittsburgh, a city that has matured since its fans summarily dismissed Parker with tossed batteries and racist vitriol during the drug scandals of the mid-80s. Now it's time to get the Cobra into Cooperstown, where he belongs.
?
PREDICTIONS: Mets opener: Pirates 6, NYM 3 (HRs by Giles, Ramirez). Yankees opener: NYY 7, Devil Rays 0 (230 disorderly conduct arrests). October 2002 Baseball: NL East: Braves; NL Central: Cubs; NL West: Rockies; NL Wildcard: Mets; NL Champ: Braves
AL East: Yankees; AL Central: White Sox; AL West: Rangers; AL Wildcard: A's; AL Champ: Rangers
World Series: Texas Rangers defeat Atlanta Braves in six games. The method to my madness is explained in the upcoming May issue of Gallery magazine.
Almost-Inevitable Labor Day Work Stoppage Short-Season Champions: the Milwaukee Brewers, with celebratory styrofoam cup refreshments served by the Ladies Auxiliary in the basement of the Selig home.