{"id":853,"date":"2008-02-26T22:14:34","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T22:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=853"},"modified":"2013-11-30T22:19:26","modified_gmt":"2013-11-30T22:19:26","slug":"97-baseball-the-marty-noble-interview-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=853","title":{"rendered":"97% Baseball: The Marty Noble Interview (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the second part of a 3-part interview, veteran Mets beat writer\u00a0Marty Noble<\/a>\u00a0and I discuss recent Met history with uniform numbers again providing the backbeat. It should be noted this conversation took place in January, shortly before the Johan Santana deal brought a decidedly sunnier outlook to me at least. Thanks again to Marty for his cooperation and candor.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"What\u2019s your sense of Charlie Samuels\u2019 power in the clubhouse?<\/strong>
\nEvery clubhouse has a guy like that. Del Webb and Dan Topping didn\u2019t decide what number Mickey Mantle wore: Pete Sheehey did. I know of clubhouse guys, not on the Mets, who wouldn\u2019t give a black player a number that belonged to a racist white player.<\/p>\n

Someone wrote me an email once that suggested the Mets only issued No. 21 to black players.<\/strong>
\nSpahn says that\u2019s wrong. Elliott Maddox? He was 21. Cleon Jones. Bill Pulsipher, Yoshii. Cleon is the first 21 that comes to mind for me. Pulsipher \u2013 he was special guy. I wish he\u2019d filled 21 for 20 years. I don\u2019t know anyone who enjoyed the game more than he did. Loved every second of what he was doing. He was strange and crazy and sometimes, not always crazy in a good way, but he loved the game, and I respected him. I liked him a lot.<\/p>\n

Terry McDaniel?<\/strong>
\nHe was zero.<\/p>\n

Do you remember why?<\/strong>
\nNo. Do you?<\/p>\n

No. I thought someone must have had a reason for that.<\/strong>
\nI remember what Rey said when he didn\u2019t want to be zero anymore: I want to be more than nothing.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s that, all right.<\/strong>
\nI liked Rey. He trusted me. If you drew a circle around second base seven feet in diameter, there was never a guy who played that area of the field like Ordonez. Nobody. Not Ozzie, not anyone I ever saw.<\/p>\n

\"\"Seemed that he could have been a more useful offensive player than he turned out to be.<\/strong>
\nYeah. Part of that was him bulking up too much, part of that was Valentine. They should have told him, just catch the ball. He wasn\u2019t much more than inept than Belanger, who had one good year as a hitter. But Bobby always had to fix somebody. That\u2019s part of the reason Jay Payton didn\u2019t like Bobby: He didn\u2019t want to be fixed. But he wouldn\u2019t come to him for help and Bobby wanted guys who came to him for help.<\/p>\n

It was my impression that Valentine was a Payton guy.<\/strong>
\nOh no. Not even close.
\nBobby was a great coach of hitting. I remember doing a piece the first spring he was there, where I followed him from field to field over 60 minutes. One of the things he did in a very brief period of time was teach Fonzie how to hit the inside pitch to right field with power. And Fonzie was amazed at what he\u2019d learned. He was not someone who ever raised his voice, but he was stunned that Valentine knew so much.<\/p>\n

Valentine also helped Agbayani become a very efficient hitter against lefthanded pitching. But if you didn\u2019t go to him, he wouldn\u2019t want you. A young player would have to worship at the altar before Bobby would accept him.<\/p>\n

Do you remember what number Payton wore?<\/strong>
\n25 and 44.<\/p>\n

Guys who were 44 tended to want to be power hitters.<\/strong>
\n\"\"Ryan Thompson, for sure. But not Jeff Reardon. Payton was a line-driver. I\u2019m still disappointed at the career he had because I thought he was going to be a stunning player. He lost significant time to injuries. To miss two years when he should have been learning in the minors was a shame. He and Paul Wilson were very hard workers, it\u2019s a shame that so little went their way.<\/p>\n

Wilson wore 32.<\/strong>
\nAs did Matlack, Tom Hausman and Mike Stanton.<\/p>\n

Stanton<\/strong>\u00a0was like Glavine \u2013 no Met fan\u2019s favorite Met.<\/strong>
\nBut he was a pro and gave you all he had every night.<\/p>\n

As a fan, I found that the celebration of Glavine\u2019s 300th<\/sup>\u00a0win was way over the top. He was a guy whose equity was still with the Braves.<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t think it was doing anything more than getting people in the park. It was also because he and Jeff were very tight. I have great regard for Glavine. The fans said awful things about him.
\n[Glavine] said he was not devastated. He probably shouldn\u2019t have said it. What he said was, I\u2019m disappointed beyond belief how I performed but I\u2019m not devastated. That\u2019s not how to be.<\/p>\n

But contrast what they did for Glavine with what they did for a guy like Alfonzo, who by the time he left the organization was well up there among the leaders in all the offensive categories and was beloved by all the fans.<\/strong>
\n\"\"Well this was 300 wins and for Fonzie the equivalent would have been 3,000 hits and he wasn\u2019t close to that. To some extent these things are about selling tickets. The Yankees had Elston Howard\u2019s number retired to sell tickets. Obviously the last game will stay with his image forever. But without him, they don\u2019t have a chance and I don\u2019t know how they\u2019re going to replace him.<\/p>\n

The Mets always say they want a guy who knows how to pitch, but as soon as the Mets get one they trade him for Ambiorix Burgos. Bannister was going to be a good fit. But Omar thinks of guys who can throw a ball through a wall.<\/p>\n

Frank Cashen could open a drawer, take out a piece of paper and show you who would be on the team in three years. I don\u2019t think Omar could tell you who\u2019s going to be on the team in April. They don\u2019t have anything down below. They lost Flores last year knowing they didn\u2019t want to have LoDuca around. They have nobody to be a first baseman and they won\u2019t want to pay Delgado after this year. What happens if Pedro leaves and there\u2019s a good chance he will? I\u2019m not big on what he does.<\/p>\n

The feeling I get as a fan was that they were getting a little better at looking at things ahead of time, putting resources into the organization that they hadn\u2019t before Omar arrived.<\/strong>
\nI think they are devoting resources. But they still have to have a catcher. They don\u2019t have a first baseman. I don\u2019t expect Delgado is going to do that much more than he did last year.<\/p>\n

What about Mike Pelfrey?<\/strong>
\nHard read. More awful times than good times. But that game against the Braves was fantastic. I\u2019d tell Pelfrey you have 25 starts. And if you\u2019re horseshit after 25 starts we\u2019ll have to look at it. I think they have to do it that way. You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to get with Pedro. He could break down anytime. I don\u2019t trust Perez. I was wrong on him already; I didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be as effective as he was last year. You know Perez is just waiting to go 12-17.<\/p>\n

He wears 46. That doesn\u2019t portend good things in Mets history.<\/strong>
\nWho else?<\/p>\n

Neil Allen, David West, Terry Bross, Brian Bohanon, Willie Blair\u2026<\/strong>
\nBohanon is one of those guys who Bobby Valentine made better. Blair gave up that home run to McGuire.<\/p>\n

Rich Rodriguez\u2026<\/strong>
\n\"46\"<\/a>One of those relievers they brought in. Like Jeff Musselman or Ricardo Jordan. Jordan came over with Toby Borland in the Rico Brogna deal and shit the bed against the Padres in Bobby Valentine\u2019s first opening day as manager. They gave up 11 runs in the 5th<\/sup>\u00a0inning. But the great thing about Ricardo Jordan was that he had a sister called Lucy. So we had Lucy, we had Ricardo. We had little Ricky Otero and Desi Relaford all in a period of four years. And I put it all in a story and wrote the headline: Meet the Merts.<\/p>\n

When is your book coming out?<\/strong>
\nNever. I don\u2019t have the time for one, but also, I don\u2019t want to be put in a spot where I can\u2019t use the best stuff I have. I also don\u2019t want to offend some guys. I have some Doc stories that might not shock people, but would intrigue them. But he\u2019s had enough. And there\u2019s some good stories about Wally. But maybe some things are best left unsaid. I grew up in that time where we knew Mickey Mantle hit home runs and were probably better off not knowing that he drank.<\/p>\n

Remember that whole mess when Izzy said something supposedly anti-Semitic into the telephone? It was \u201997, we were in St. Louis, and he\u2019s on the DL, not even at the ballpark, and Jay Horwitz has a conference call. And because Jay can\u2019t function with anything mechanical, he hits the wrong button on the phone, so instead of hitting private he hits speakerphone and Isringhausen \u2013 a great German name \u2013 says, \u201cYes, Jewboy?\u201d That was the full extent of it. Every one of the writers knew that Jay communicates with his players that way, saying, \u201cI\u2019m the Jew!\u201d<\/p>\n

All of a sudden one of the writers said Tom Hill was going to go with it. Then Buster Olney goes to his editor at the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0and says, \u201cSomeone said \u2018Jew.\u2019 Should we go with this?\u201d Now everybody had to do it, and all it did was cause shit and nobody got any benefit from the story being written. It offended every Jew in the world: Those who didn\u2019t like what Jay did, those who think every German hates Jews, and those who aren\u2019t Jewish or German. I had lots of stories I could have written that day. Instead my editor, without my knowing it, added to my story that it wasn\u2019t the first time the Mets have been accused of anti-Semitism, and quoted something from Nelson Doubleday in John Helyar\u2019s book\u00a0Lords of the Realm<\/em>. And so now Nelson\u2019s furious at me.<\/p>\n

Who runs the team today? Fred or Jeff?<\/strong>
\nJeff. He\u2019s OK. You don\u2019t have to be his friend, but you wouldn\u2019t want him as your enemy. He\u2019s doing the right thing. He\u2019s trying to make the team good. And they\u2019re not cheap.<\/p>\n

Does the Lastings Milledge trade reflect any threats to the longterm security of Omar?<\/strong>
\n\"\"I think the Milledge trade was 97% baseball and 3% they didn\u2019t have the same sense of reluctance they would have had had he not shot his mouth off and done stupid things. It\u2019s been little things with him from the day they got him. But he never got it, and I don\u2019t think they believe he ever would have.<\/p>\n

All he ever had to do is say \u201cOh, yeah, you\u2019re right. I screwed up.\u201d I don\u2019t think he could do that, and I don\u2019t think he ever reallybelieved<\/em>\u00a0that. You may not think there\u2019s anything wrong with what you do, but if all the people think that, then you have to at least acknowledge it.<\/p>\n

He also couldn\u2019t play center field in New York because Beltran was here. When you have the high profile he had and start making errors in New York it\u2019s a bigger story than if Ryan Church makes an error. And I don\u2019t think the Mets thought he was capable of handling that. They made a good deal I think.<\/p>\n

Church has nice numbers but appears to cry out for a right-handed hitting platoonmate.<\/strong>
\nSo they go with Easley.<\/p>\n

What about a guy like Nady?<\/strong>
\nI d take him back in a heartbeat. When he left here two years ago he was fourth in league in RBIs that tied the score and second in the league in RBIs that took the lead, and this is while missing a few weeks for an appendectomy and playing with a broken wrist. Omar said he didn\u2019t catch the ball real well but neither did Shawn Green.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Is Delgado going to have a better year?<\/strong>
\nHard to tell with him. He had those periods last year where he didn\u2019t get beat on fastballs, and also those where he couldn\u2019t catch up. He\u2019s a curious guy. I thought he\u2019d be a real great pickup in terms of helping others along the way but he really keeps to himself. He\u2019s not a clubhouse force.<\/p>\n

\"\"Wright seems to me that kind of guy who\u2019ll accommodate anyone with a microphone and a notebook.<\/strong>
\nDavid is perfect. He may be the perfect player in every way there is. I was around Carter and Carter did a lot of the things David did, but you got the idea that Carter did those things because he wanted people to think he was a nice guy. David does it because he\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0a good guy. It\u2019s astonishing.<\/p>\n

Coming in Part 3: Marty faces THE LIGHTNING ROUND!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the second part of a 3-part interview, veteran Mets beat writer\u00a0Marty Noble\u00a0and I discuss recent Met history with uniform numbers again providing the backbeat. It should be noted this conversation took place in January, shortly before the Johan Santana deal brought a decidedly sunnier outlook to me at least. Thanks again to Marty for … Continue reading “97% Baseball: The Marty Noble Interview (Part 2)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":854,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions\/854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}