So former Met Ike Davis is coming to the Bronx. If only Nick Swisher had been a Met or a Red Sox. Then Brian Cashman might actually bring him up from Triple-A. Let’s face it. If you want the Yankees to pick you up from the proverbial baseball scrap heap, it helps if you have been a former Metropolitan or Red Sock. Cash seems to take particular glee in signing or trading for somebody who used to play for one of those teams, thinking he’s sticking it to them. Which was actually the case with Johnny Damon, one of my favorite Yankees. With Stephen Drew, not so much.
It remains to be seen where Davis, whose father was former Yankee Ron Davis, will fall on that pantheon. But NJ.com describes him as a “Mets dud.”
Ike did start out with a lot of promise, though. Squawker Jon and I saw Davis hit his first major league homer, back in 2010. And it wasn’t that long ago that the Mets chose Lucas Duda over Davis, and people wondered if they made the right choice. (Spoiler alert: they did!)
Fun fact: Ike’s father Ron hasn’t been invited back to the Yankees’ Old Timers’ Day since 2008, the year Ike was drafted by the Mets. Harsh!
Speaking of OTD, I also found it quite ridiculous that Jim Leyritz wasn’t invited back this year. Especially since it’s the 20th anniversary of the 1996 World Championship, and other members of that winning squad were brought back. Members of that team like John Wetteland (first time back for OTD), Brian Boehringer, Jeff Nelson, Ramiro Mendoza, Bernie Williams, Graeme Lloyd, Mariano Duncan, Paul O’Neill, Scott Kamienicki, David Cone, Joe Girardi, Charlie Hayes, and manager Joe Torre were all there on Sunday. But not Leyritz, whose epic home run was one of the greatest moments of that series. And one of the greatest Yankees postseason moments of all time. Terrible.
I was out doing my long run late Sunday morning (I ran 10 miles in the summer heat. Yikes!) so I missed watching this edition of Old Timers’ Day live. And I know the Yanks are doing something else this summer to honor 1996. But Leyritz, who has been invited back to OTD in the recent past, should have gotten the invite this year.
Now I wonder if Ron Davis will get invited in 2017, now that Ike Davis is a Yankee. Guess it depends on how Ike does!
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