The people’s choice will make his case today.
That’s who Wally Backman is, who he has been from the moment he showed up at old Shea Stadium in 1980, 20 days shy of 21 years old. You think the team’s hit a rough patch lately? You have to remember 1980. Joe Torre was the manager and Steve Henderson the best player. The Mets drew all of 1.2 million fans to Shea, and that was like Woodstock compared to the 788,905 who bothered to stop by the year before.
On Sept. 2, the Mets were playing out the string at Dodger Stadium and Torre gave Backman, freshly called up from Tidewater, his first start. In the top of the second inning, two outs and two on against Dodgers righty Dave Goltz, Backman ripped a single up the middle to score Claudell Washington in his first-ever at-bat.
He would shuttle between Tidewater and New York for a couple of years, stick for good in 1984, and he was an anchor of the good days, a dirty uniform always willing to lay down a bunt and break up a double play, always ornery that Davey Johnson didn’t play him more against lefties. If those mid-’80s Mets are remembered for the single-name star power of Doc and Darryl, Mex and Mookie and Kid, their energy and passion came mainly from Backman and another dead-end kid, Lenny Dykstra.
Mets fans never forgot the dirty uniform. His player page at baseball-reference.com is sponsored by a fan who gushes: “Backman’s grit and determination played major roles in the Mets 1986 title run.” He speaks for himself, and for just about every other Mets fan.
It happens that Backman has been a winning manager, too, since he gave up playing for good following 10 games in 1993 with the Mariners, the team closest to his hometown of Hillsboro, Ore. His first year managing organized ball, with the White Sox affiliate Winston-Salem in 2001, the team went 54-86. By the time the Diamondbacks briefly hired him for the big leagues three years later, he was coming off an 86-54 record for Arizona’s farm club in Lancaster, Calif. And he was 51-25 in Brooklyn this year, a pace that almost matches the ’86 Mets’ 108-54.
He brings baggage to his interview with Sandy Alderson today, well-documented baggage, but the Mets have made peace with Backman’s pledge that he’s a different man than he used to be.
He also brings the one name that still can stir Mets fans’ passion. Terry Collins and Bob Melvin may be terrific baseball men. So is Don Wakamatsu. None of them brings Backman’s tie to the Mets’ glory decade. It was Backman who was asked, before the Mets tried to defend their title in ’87, what could keep them from doing so, and this is what he said: “Fifteen or 20 bleepin’ car wrecks.”
Yeah. Mets fans remember. After two years of passive Jerry Manuel, after a stoic Willie Randolph and room-temperature Art Howe, that seems all the more appealing. Will it move Sandy Alderson, whose history tells us he would far prefer a manager who would simply execute his vision in a dugout?
And should it matter?
Here’s something that’s good to remember in the week that Sparky Anderson passed away: When the Reds hired him in 1970, he was a 36-year-old nobody. He was hired away from the staff of a 110-loss Padres team. Cincinnati’s ever-benign newspapers asked, “Sparky Who?” Then Sparky Who won 70 of the first 100 games he ever managed, won three World Series and 2,194 baseball games and a spot in Cooperstown. And there was no way
the Reds knew they were hiring that
in 1970.
Alderson is too smart to be swayed by either sentiment or stubbornness. I believe Backman can blow him away with a good interview today in California, could get the job if they connect. It will not be because of all the dirty uniforms, all the faded swagger. If he aces his interview today, he’ll be hired because he’s the best man for the job in 2011, not because he kicked a water cooler in 1985. If you’re a Mets fan, that might not be why you’re rooting for him. But it’s a fine way to root anyway.
