Yankees: Will the careers of Stengel and Collins meet in a dark place
If the Yankees manager looks like he’s aged a bit in the last week, it’s nothing compared to what his colleague is going through in Queens. The question is, though, will Collins descend to the level of Stengel before it’s all over?
The Yankees have their own set of troubles now. But it could be a lot worse, and all they need to do is ride the seven train to Citi Field for a glimpse of how bad it can really get. And it would be an understatement to say the New York Mets are reeling, which they are, only because they have already have reeled this season, and they’ve been reeling
And it would be an understatement to say the New York Mets are reeling, which they are, only because they have already have reeled this season, and they’ve been reeling since their ill-fated appearance in the World Series in 2015.
And Yankees fans can recall the time when the annual Subway Series marched into Yankee Stadium with the Mets poised to fire, in succession, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, and Noah Syndergaard at the Yankees.
Now, when the Mets arrive to face the Yankees, the Lone Ranger will be deGrom, followed by a team of actors in Grade B movie.
It would be fair to say that while the Yankees are trying put out a brush fire, the Mets seek to keep the house standing with “firemen” from all parts of the world arriving to assist in putting out the blaze. Through it all, the one constant has been Terry Collins.
Collins has, somehow, managed to keep his fire burning, even though his contract is up at the end of the season and he now ranks as the oldest manager in major league baseball. And maybe his patience stems from all those years in the Dodgers organization waiting for a chance to manage. Nonetheless, he remains the positive face of the team.
The question I have, though, is this. Can he keep the masquerade up for three more months? Or, will he descend into gallows humor and media manipulation, to the point of almost becoming a clown, like his predecessor and former Yankees manager Casey Stengel?
Here’s an example of what I mean from the New York Daily News one day ago with Collins explaining his plight:
"“When you sign on for this job, you’ve got to realize it’s never gonna be easy. You can go a lot of days without having a good day, so you’ve got to realize that comes with the territory here,” Collins said before the game. “If this was 2013, this would be a run of bad luck. It’s 2017, and we’re supposed to be really good. By the way, I support that. We should be really good. We’ve got good players."
Okay, that sounds pretty much like the standard Terry Collins we’re used to when rationalizing the woes of the Mets. But then, it’s almost like he can’t help himself and the inner rage surfaces when he’s asked, once again for a solution to the same question.
“Bubble wrap,” Collins replied. “Key. Very important.”
Funny stuff and rather sophisticated when compared to the unintelligible answers Stengel would give writers, but still, it’s gallows humor that is anything but positive.
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Now, make no mistake. None, nil, zero of what’s happened with the Mets is his doing. Unlike the Yankees manager, Collins is dealing with a front office and an “Unbanded” band of brothers who own the Mets and are still reeling from their “partnership” with Bernie Madoff.
And true to his character, perhaps even to a fault, Collins has been the company man all the way.
I suppose, though, that it’s more about me not wanting to see Collins walk out with his lineup card one day, doff his cap to the crowd, and a bird flies out as was the case when Stengel did his Bill Veeck imitation as a player.
Collins is a bigger man than that. And as such, he deserves empathy (not sympathy) for being the torch carrier for his team. The same can be said for Joe Girardi, who will try every which way he can to hold his together until help arrives or injured players come back.
The difference between the two, though, is that Collins has a temper he always fights to keep in check, especially with the media. Here’s a sample:
And regretfully, I can see a day late in September when Collins decides to go out in a blaze of glory, throwing gasoline on the already burning Mets house fire, and watching it burn to the ground as he walks off the podium for the last time.
Although he would be warranted in doing so, it would remind of those days when Stengel used humor instead of old-fashioned truthfulness he could have given us to describe the ineptness of the franchise he had inherited.
Regardless, this Yankees fan tips his cap to the professional sitting over in the Mets dugout.