Let’s Not Forget What Was

It was inevitable, I guess. And most probably thought this actually happened 2-3 years ago. But Matt Harvey has hung ’em up.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Matt Harvey (@mattharvey33)

The prevailing line of thinking that I’ve seen online and in text chats was “what might have been”. There’s no disputing that a debilitating injury robbed him of what could have been a Hall of Fame career, because he had Hall of Fame stuff. But you have to have a “was” to have a “what might have been”. And Matt Harvey’s “was” was pretty damn amazing when you think about it.

He referenced in his Instagram post the night that Met fans were chanting “Har-vey’s Bet-ter” in a game against Stephen Strasburg. He also started an All Star game, and he started a do or die Game 5 of a World Series and threw eight shutout innings before the decision to start the 9th with him which will be talked about forever. Forget about us regular folk, there are a ton of baseball players who wish they had the career that Harvey had, where every start he made was an event. “Happy Harvey Day” was an organic celebration not seen in Flushing since the days of Doc Gooden.

Even the lows made back page news. People cared.

I used to write for AOL FanHouse from 2007-09. It was a pinnacle … maybe the pinnacle of anything I’ve everything I’ve ever done in writing about sports since I started blogging out of 2005. Did some amazing and fun things in that time (and got paid for it!) I was honored to work with people who have gone on to write for the big boys, and do things that mattered when it came to writing about online sports. Every single one of them. They’ve all reached their pinnacles.

And I often think: “What did I do wrong? Why was I the only one out of that group to fall off the map? What could I have done differently? Could I have had a youtube channel with Jerry Blevins or Ben Verlander that millions of people subscribed to?” What might have been, right? Except that I wasn’t the Matt Harvey of that group. Far from it. (I was probably more like Daniel Muno, which probably answers the question “Why was I the only one out of that group to fall off the map?”.) Yet I still think about “what might have been”. And I guarantee that every single one of you have those thoughts about yourselves as well. And I would bet that most of us haven’t had the highs that Matt Harvey has had in his Mets career before the injuries.

So Godspeed, Matt. Thanks for what was. It won’t be forgotten.