Sweet! Not only did the Yankees beat the Mets two games to one this weekend, but I woke up to the news that Mets owner Fred Wilpon has made Hank Steinbrenner look like Silent Cal Coolidge. The New York Times reports that this week’s New Yorker has an interview with Frugal Freddy. In the piece, Wilpon criticizes his own players, including Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Carlos Beltran. Wilpon even does the “Beltran standing like a statue” bit I have been mocking Squawker Jon with for years.
Before I get to yakking about Sunday, I just want to point out some of the gems Wilpon unleashed on Jeffrey Toobin when they watched a game together last month. Wilpon’s so-over-the-top insulting, he makes Brian Cashman’s offseason quotes look subdued. A few examples:
* David Wright: “A really good kid. A very good player. Not a superstar.”
* Carlos Beltran: “‘We had some dummy in New York, Wilpon says, referring to himself, “who paid him based on that one series. He’s 65 to 70 percent of what he was.” He later mocks the Beltran called third strike in the 2006 NLCS with a pantomine of it.
* Jose Reyes: “He thinks he’s going to get Carl Crawford money. He’s had everything wrong with him. He won’t get it.”
The Times’ Tyler Kepner, who wrote the story about the New Yorker profile, thinks this piece is a good thing for Wilpon, saying:
“Such insights may bother the players, who will surely be asked about them before their next game on Tuesday in Chicago. But they humanize Wilpon, and for him, that is something. For fans, winning owners are easily the best kind. But owners who empathize with their feelings probably come in second.”
Oh, please. At the risk of speaking out of turn as a Yankee fan, I think the only thing Fred Wilpon could do at this point to please Mets fans is to sell the whole team. As our blogging friend Metsradamus sez, “This is the family atmosphere that Tom Glavine once bragged about? The Gosselins had less dysfunction.” True.
I doubt any fan is going to say “Fred’s one of us” after reading that story. He or she, in my view, is more likely thinking that Fred is trashing his own stars’ abilities in order to have reasons to get rid of them. And it’s not like these players are at the end of their careers, but demanding huge paydays from the Mets (like a certain Yankee shortstop) that he’s objecting to. No, Wilpon just wants to not have to pay anybody.
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