THE METS and Yankees are playing this weekend and the great controversy surrounds Bobby Valentine not picking Cliff Floyd for the All-Star team while Joe Torre selected seven of his own men.
The Mets and Yankees are playing and the most interesting confrontation is between a guy who will not be playing but should (Roger Clemens), and a guy who probably will play but shouldn’t (Mike Piazza).
The Mets and Yankees are playing and that is supposed to be something exciting, except it is missing a key ingredient – excitement.
This version of New York-New York has all the accessories to suggest the special from an expectation of 160,000 people in attendance for the three games, national TV audiences for tomorrow and Sunday, and – well – the two New York teams. But while this has not descended to Expos vs. Blue Jays in inter-league irrelevance, it certainly is the ugly, backward relative of its previous self.
All pre-game passion will be more forced than Brooke Shields’ Broadway career. This series is not so much Subway as substandard. This has become like one of those successful movies that just has too many darn sequels. The world did not need Lethal Weapon 4 and it does not need the Mets-Yankees for the second time in three weeks.
This matchup now suffers from overkill and – in the case of the Mets – under-skill. By the time Sunday night arrives and we are watching Todd Pratt vs. Randy Keisler, the New York state of mind likely will be disinterest. Around the Big Apple the question will be asked, do you want to watch Mets and the Yanks, or Sex and theCity? Let’s face it, Samantha’s got much more game than Rey Ordonez.
Of course, the big reason this showdown lacks panache is that the Mets are Six Feet Under – HBO can send the check in my name to The Post sports department. Look at it this way, the Mets won their 37th game Wednesday. The Yankees won their 37th by beating the Mets June 15 in the first game of their first series.
We knew going into this season that the Subway would lack novelty, since the teams have played a regular-season series every year since 1997 and two the past two years. We knew that the Subway would lack some fervency, since the teams played for a championship last October. What we did not see coming was that the Subway would lack gravity because one of the teams was trying to stay out of last place.
The Mets arrive at Yankee Stadium disappointing, disillusioning and disrespected. It would be nice to say you can throw away the records when these two teams play. But even Chuck Knoblauch could not throw this record away. The Mets are not only New York’s second best team by a wide margin, they are the NL’s 13th best club.
The idea that the Mets could even play spoiler this weekend is ridiculous. If the Mets win each game 10-0, they will still be hopelessly out of the race and the Yankees will be in it. And history says the Mets will not win each game 10-0. The history of this series calls for close, compelling, hard-fought games. Which means we should have contests. But, suddenly, no context.
Even if Piazza plays with a fractured big toe, he will not get to face Clemens or even Carlos Almanzar. And why risk your most important player as a DH when your team is DOA? The Mets have spent more than half a season making themselves irrelevant and a weekend, even a weekend against the Yankees, is not long enough to make amends.
