The Mets are struggling financially and on thin ice with their fans, so you’d think that when one of their players spends his offseason preparing to do something generous and cool, the front office would praise him and consider opportunities to market it.
There are few major leaguers whose careers and stories are more intriguing than those of R.A. Dickey. He was born without an ulnar collateral ligament, couldn’t cut it as a regular pitcher, transformed himself into a knuckleballer, and spent more than a decade as a journeyman searching for a multi-year contract. The Mets finally gave Dickey a stable home with a two-year, $7.8 million deal last offseason, and he has since become a fan favorite.
Now, Dickey is trying to use his newfound fame to give something back. His attempt to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro is meant to benefit Bombay Teen Challenge, a charity that aims to help victims of human trafficking. He has devoted hours to conditioning himself for the challenge, and to minimizing the already low risk involved.
That’s the glass-half-full view; the Mets have chosen the glass-half-empty one. They aren’t happy with Dickey’s plans, sent him a letter requesting that he abandon them, and told the Wall Street Journal about it. Given all that has gone wrong in recent years, the team’s concerns are understandable. But, if anything, these matters should have been handled internally, in a way that would have left the door open for the Mets to piggyback on a potentially great story.
By publicly chiding Dickey for what they deem an unnecessary risk, the Mets have thrown away the chance to generate positive attention from it. With the Wilpons’ fiasco still unfolding, the fans reeling from the departure of Jose Reyes to a division rival, and a full-scale rebuilding process underway, the Mets need all the feel-good stories they can get. Yet, they’ve managed to spin Dickey’s climb as something both the pitcher and the fans should feel bad about.
The open threat to void Dickey’s contract if he suffers an injury that prevents him from pitching is both pointless and wrongheaded. There is far more on the line for Dickey—who had few guarantees during his first 14 years in professional baseball—than for the Mets, and his runs with an oxygen-limiting mask are proof that he understands both the challenge of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and how much he risks by doing it.
His desire to do it anyway is selfless. The Mets’ attempt to stop him is just another example of the selfishness that got them into their current hole.
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The owners are broke and the team is awful. Where they are now is a bad place and the media loves to jump on them, especially this time of year when there is nothing to talk about. Check out Hardball Talk sometime.
Daniel makes good points - and I agree - however this is a late December baseball story. Not newsworthy. We all know other players do similar "risky" activities in the offseason. But Dickey went public with his plans and because its the Mets (and not say the Royals) it gets media attention and gets slammed.
This happens in KC, Cleveland, Pittsburgh or Seattle and you'd never know about it.
The bottom line is the Mets have a very valid point. Dickey wants to do this and his ego made sure everyone knew about it too. He could have just waited until he retired and then done the same thing.
The fake outrage by the fans makes me laugh. I realize non-Mets fans get their jollies hating on the Mets, but it should be saved for occasions when they deserve it. Like letting their homegrown star leave.
I'm as disillusioned with the Mets as any Mets fan. But I don't think it's selfishness as much as lack of diplomacy.
I don't necessarily disagree with their stand, but I do disagree with them taking it public. They should have kept this in house rather than making their threat in the press.
The company that I have researched, a rather safe one, has had one death out of 15,000 customers. That death was an old man who experienced a heart attack near the summit. Sure it's dangerous, but at worst you'd expect that he experiences some severe altitude sickness and needs to be taken back down.
The Mets' organization seems misguided in their disapproval, and somewhat misinformed.