Matt Harvey Decided To Meet With New York Media At Same Time As Mickey Callaway

There isn’t a lot to look forward to for the New York Mets these days, so the arrival of a prominent former pitcher in town is newsworthy. That happens tomorrow, when one time Dark Knight of Gotham Matt Harvey comes in to town with his new team, the Cincinnati Reds. It is a meeting that may not have happened if the Reds were able to move Harvey prior to the trade deadline, but it did not. Harvey isn’t even scheduled to pitch in the series, having gone Saturday and given up four runs in five innings against the Washington Nationals, so the best the media will get is a pre-game interview with Harvey tomorrow. In what has become a typical circus surrounding the Mets, Harvey has decided to hold that media session at 4:00 pm, the exact same time that Mets’ manager Mickey Callaway conducts his pre-game press conference.

The Mets did request that Harvey hold his session at either 3:45 pm or 4:15 pm to avoid conflicting with Callaway, Mike Puma of the New York Post reports, but Harvey decided to talk at 4:00 pm anyway. Puma is also reporting that Reds’ officials indicated that Harvey was not aware of the Mets’ request to change the interview time but will still meet with the media around four anyway since it fits his schedule best. The Reds also went out of their way to indicate that this choice was not intended to be a slight from Harvey, which is hard to believe.

The fact is that Harvey was here for a month with Callaway, who held his pre-game press conferences three hours before first pitch then too. Harvey was also around for years when Terry Collins held his press conference at 4:00 for a 7:10 pm home game, so he knows that picking 4:00 would interfere with the Mets’ normal routine. It is just a sign of how bad things became between the Mets and Harvey at the end. Moving his meeting with the media 15 minutes is not Harvey’s responsibility, but it would have been a nice gesture to the franchise that brought him to the big leagues. Instead, a game between two of the worst teams in the National League will have a pre-game circus as the press decides whether to check in with Harvey or Callaway at 4.