Buck and the Mets

In reality, there are no curses. I think most of us can agree on that. The Billy Goat Curse was nonsense. It was a way to explain away, among other things, the Chicago Cubs’ longstanding inability to acquire and develop talent. The Curse of the Bambino was nonsense; it makes much more sense to say that the Red Sox kept on losing because they refused to sign Black players longer than anybody else and because the Yankees were better.

So I know, intrinsically, that the New York Mets are not cursed.

And yet …

This is how it ends for the Mets, relegated to the wild-card round because of a technicality*, playing at home in front of a less-than-sellout crowd, having their offense strangled by the San Diego Padres’ third-best pitcher and with their long-suffering manager, Buck Showalter, reduced to desperate pleas of, “Hey, umps, help us, that guys might have some sticky stuff on his ear,” or words to that effect.

Somehow, it feels like all this could only happen to the Mets.

*As you know, the Mets and Braves finished with identical records of 101-61, but the Braves were given the division because of their 10-9 record against the Mets during the season. Everybody just accepted this like it was written on ancient scrolls, but this is new. Baseball used to have one-game playoffs to decide such important matters … or even three-game playoffs if you want to go back to the 1951 Giants and Dodgers. The Dodgers had a 14-11 record against the Giants that year, by the way, so they could have saved a lot of time — and saved Russ Hodges that sore throat after shouting “The Giants win the pennant!” 500 times — by just giving the title to Brooklyn.

Showalter devotees undoubtedly had that deja vu feeling on Sunday night. (Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)

If you are the sort of person who believes in curses, you probably saw all this coming on the very day that the Mets hired William Nathaniel Showalter to run the team. What a career it has been for Buck. Got the Yankees job when he was 36. Made the team a winner, was in first place when the 1994 strike happened, managed the Yankees to their first playoff spot in 14 years*, got fired immediately, watched as Joe Torre took his team to glory.

*Longest playoff drought in New York Yankees history — you have to go back to the Highlanders for the last time this team didn’t make the postseason 14 years in a row.

Became the first manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Won 100 games in the organization’s second season, but lost in the playoffs. Had a winning record the next year. Got fired. Had to watch Bob Brenly — BOB BRENLY — take his team to glory.

Went to Texas. Won some games. Got fired. Had to watch Ron Washington take his team to moderate glory.

Went to Baltimore. Stayed almost a decade. Won 96 games in 2014 and beat a fantastic Detroit Tigers team in the playoffs. This looked like the year. And then the Orioles got swept by the Kansas City Royals (the Kansas City Royals!). Didn’t get fired, though, stuck around, made the playoffs again in 2016, got locked in a tight game with Toronto, refused to put his ultra-dominant reliever, Zack Britton, in the game for reasons that still aren’t clear, lost instead with Ubaldo Jimenez on the mound. The Orioles stuck with Buck, though, stuck with him until his team lost 115 games in a season.

What do you THINK is going to happen when you mix that juju with the New York Mets mystique?

Right. The Mets will win a ton of games, somehow lose the division, and it will all end on a cold New York night with umpires caressing Padres’ pitcher Joe Musgrove’s ear because a photo of his shiny ear was going around the Internet and his spin rates were higher than expected and the Mets couldn’t touch him.

Of course, there’s no such thing as juju or curses. I think we all understand that.

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