Spring Training baseball is a lot like Lost. Both are exciting to watch and endlessly entertaining, but resolve nothing and leave you with more questions than you had before you tuned in.
It's hard to get too worked about anything you see on the field this early in the Grapefruit League season, because who knows who's ready, who's throwing his arm out, and who's exclusively working on his changeup. Sure, the games are played and one team wins and one team loses, and it's not like anyone's taking a dive, but there's not a team in the world that cares about its Spring Training record.
But it's still great to see baseball on television again and read about it in the newspapers every morning. Even when the news is bad, it's sort of good, because it's a harbinger of an upcoming baseball season. And sometimes there's good news.
This week, Mets fans got some.
There's a long-standing ethical debate over whether it's appropriate to wish injury upon an opposing player; it's a complex issue that I have neither the time nor the patience to delve into here. Still, Mets fans on either side of it have to be a little bit happy to read that Braves pitcher Mike Hampton hurt himself in batting practice and will miss the start of the season.
A memory refresher: The Mets traded two promising young players for Hampton before the 2000 season. That year, he won 15 games for the Mets and helped the team to the World Series, only to leave for Colorado the following offseason. When he signed an eight-year megadeal with the Rockies, he claimed it was because he wanted to win and so his children could get a better education -- a jab at the Mets and the city itself. The rumors have always had it that he simply wanted to go to Colorado to hit home runs.
He did, but he struggled mightily while pitching in and out of the thin Rocky Mountain air. He'd stand as the most embarrassing acquisition in Rockies history if it wasn't for a certain Denny Neagle incident that will not be recounted here.
Then the Braves picked him up in a trade, somehow punting most of his salary to the Marlins in the process. He began the type of career turnaround that might seem heartwarming if you were anything but a Mets fan and he was on any team but the Braves. He was sidelined for most of 2005 and all of 2006 with an elbow injury that required surgery, but was penciled in to the Braves rotation for 2007.
But now he's out until at least May, and -- ethics be damned, I'll admit it -- I'm happy about it, and not just as a Mets fan or a proud New Yorker. The irony appeals to me, too; a guy whose priorities are so shot that he would sign to pitch in a hitter's heaven just so he could boost his batting stats later gets injured while taking batting practice.
To top it off, the Denver Post has reported that the Rockies are trying to shop Byung-Hyun Kim to the Braves as a replacement.
Kim has an unorthodox delivery that complements his flamboyant mound antics. It's often said that Steve Trachsel is a pitcher who wears his emotions on his sleeve, but Kim makes Trachsel look like a poker champion. The Korean right hander also has a nasty habit of getting torched in big spots, so he's become almost famously associated with an expression of utter torment (see above).
Now, this goes back to the ethics thing -- and I certainly don't wish psychological distress upon Kim for any particular reason -- but I have to imagine it would be boatloads of fun to see that look of anguish under the brim of a Braves hat.
Of course, even when I outwardly hope that the Braves acquire Kim so I can watch see him so afflicted when the Mets knock him around, I inwardly fear that if he went to the Braves, he'd follow the same path as Hampton and so many embattled pitchers -- John Thomson, Jaret Wright, Russ Ortiz and John Burkett come to mind -- who have gone to Atlanta and revived their careers. It's an uncanny trend, and it's one of the prime reasons the Braves won 14 consecutive division titles.
And it's one of the reasons, I suppose, that it's OK to be happy about Hampton's misfortune. It's not a matter of ethics; it's a matter of optimism. Maybe Hampton's struggles are a sign that the Braves have finally run out of whatever miracle potion they were feeding to scrap-heap pitchers.
That's something to smile about.
Mets sign Wil Cordero to a Minor League contract: Why?
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