For now, he is as close as we get to an official Face of this rivalry. Carlos Beltran doesn’t necessarily see it that way. The three-run homer he blasted off Noah Syndergaard on Saturday was nice, and it helped ignite a 5-0 Yankees win over the Mets to square this latest edition of the Subway Series at a game apiece.
But the fact it was the Mets?
The fact it was at Citi Field?
Secondary. At best.
“Right now,” Beltran said, “my job is to help this team win ballgames. It doesn’t matter against where. And it doesn’t matter against who.”
Maybe that isn’t a universally held opinion. The denizens at Citi Field, it sure seemed to matter to them. When Beltran stepped to the plate Saturday afternoon, top of the first, two on and none out, a majority of 43,680 stood up and booed, same as they did when Beltran showed up as a Cardinal, same as they surely will do Sunday for each of his plate appearances.
You hope someday, Mets fans will come to peace with that damned curveball Adam Wainwright slipped past Beltran in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. You hope someday Beltran will get the kind of respectful ovation worthy of his place in Mets history — which, it says here, is no worse than the third-best everyday player in team history (with only Mike Piazza and David Wright alternate candidates) and may well put him right on top of that list.
Nine years, apparently, is not enough of a buffer. The advent of this Mets season — easily the best since that wonderful summer of ’06, when Beltran was at the peak of his powers, 41 homers, 116 RBIs, 127 runs scored, all of that with only 140 hits — apparently is not enough of a salve to disinfect an old open wound.
For Beltran, there are no hard feelings. In fact, even after schooling Syndergaard for trying to whip a 97-mph heater past his cagey old bat, he was more than happy to talk about how blessed his old team is, even as he grimly pursues October with his new team.
“It’s got to be fun for the Mets having all those young guys for the future,” Beltran said. “And right now.”
It’s not terrible being Beltran right now, either. Healthy and strong following a lost season of injury and aggravation, he has emerged as the Yankees’ most dependable hitter in the clutch. Part of the reason the Yankees are still in the conversation for the A.L. East title is the three-run bomb he hit at Rogers Center the last time the Yankees were in Toronto.
“Take a minute and check out the back of his baseball card,” said Brian McCann, another veteran, the other source of the Yankees’ power Saturday. “He’s doing things and done things … you don’t count guys like that out. He’s going to be there and his numbers are going to be there at the end. He’s one of the best postseason players in the game and he continues to put up great at-bats.”
For now, that is precisely what Beltran is trying to do. For now, he is the one who has a foot in both pools of this rivalry, a terrific run — save for one at-bat — in Flushing, and an ever-expanding role in this feel-good Yankee season that seems more and more certain to end in the wild-card game — and after that who knows?
He doesn’t take the booing personally, probably a byproduct of the modern ballplayer who expects to have multiple addresses.
“I get booed in Kansas City,” he said. “I get booed in Houston. I get booed in different cities, like Toronto. It doesn’t bother me at all.”
That’s good. Because Sunday night, he’ll hear it good and loud at Citi Field again, and maybe it won’t all be because of one bat left on one shoulder eight years ago. Maybe it’ll be out of respect. And a little bit of fear. It ought to be, anyway.
