FIRED ACROSS THE BOW: New York Daily News, bad opinions
Truthfully, I thought about responding to Brian Biegel’s OP ED piece right at the New York Daily News site, but I could not bring myself to register at the NYDN simply to comment. Instead, I respond here, in our continuing and periodic OP ED series, Fired Across the Bow:
WASHINGTON, DC (Herald de Paris) – If you are going to write an opinion piece, it is often best to research your subject before attempting to publish it. It is no secret to any Mets fan that owner Fred Wilpon grew up a Brooklyn Dodger fan, that he regularly visited Ebbetts Field, and that he pitched on the Lafayette HS (Brooklyn) baseball team with Sandy Koufax. It is further clear to any Mets fan that Wilpon has no reverence for Mets history prior to the time that he and former co-owner Nelson Doubleday bought the team. For all the hoopla surrounding the Shea Stadium farewell, I do not recall anyone in the organization even mentioning Joan Whitney Payson or George Weiss or M. Donald Grant. They paraded out Bill Shea’s son, but I did not see a Payson or a de Roulet (the family some of the Payson descendants married into) anywhere. As far as Wilponmania is concerned, the Giant connection never occurred. Preposterous, yes, but that’s how Freddie-boy sees things. Personally, I am surprised the Wilpons even invited Willie Mays to the ceremony, because the only reason that Willie agreed to play for the Mets (do you really think the Giants wanted a 2nd rate pitcher that badly that they had to trade Willie Mays, who played more years for the SF Giants than he actually did for the NY Giants?) was because Joan Payson told him he owed it to the New York Fans to come home to end his career.
To say that the Mets history is more closely tied to the Giants than the Dodgers is also incorrect. True, the “NY” on the caps comes from the Giants, but the Mets colors were selected to represent BOTH the Giants (orange) and the Dodgers (blue). It also would have been unusual for the NY Mets to sport a “B” upon their caps for no particular reason, however, the fact remains that the principal owners of the Mets, who drove hard for expansion to bring the NL back to New York, were, former Giants shareholders. Similarly, when it was clear that Ebbetts Field had out-lived its usefulness, the City of New York pushed hard for the O’Malley’s to move the Dodgers to Willets Point, in Flushing Meadow, the eventual site of Shea Stadium. It was Walter O’Malley’s stubborn refusal to move his staunchly Brooklyn team to Queens that ultimately drove them to Los Angeles. True, the Mets played their first two years in the Polo Grounds, however, had Ebbetts field still been standing in 1962, the Polo Grounds may never have been used, at all. For all its own history, it was never billed as anything better than inhospitable. Even in the dark ages of the 1950s and 1960s, having to walk though a centerfield gate to get to the clubhouse was wholly bush-league.
Granted, I love the idea of a Willie Mays shrine at Citi Field, but Willie is already prominently enshrined in San Francisco, at their bay-side ballpark. Nor did Mays, who was arguably an overall better player, carry Robinson’s burden of breaking the color barrier in MLB, and changing the face of the entire American landscape, by breaking down racial barriers far beyond those of any ball field. I envision Robinson’s memorialization at Citi Field more a monument to his achievements in promoting equality for all people, and not just for his baseball abilities. And since you seem to be short on your baseball history, when Robinson was traded to the NY Giants, he promptly chose, instead, to retire. Therefore, the only way to honor Robinson the ball player is to depict him in a Dodger uniform.
It isn’t so much that I think you do not deserve your opinion, Mr. Biegel, but when the facts are so readily available, not having the foresight to look them up is pure ignorance on your part, because an opinion piece in a daily newspaper should definitively state your perspective, and not ask answerable questions.
Brian Biegel’s original article may be found at: THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
No comments yet.