He’s a fan favorite in Queens, and he has nothing to do with the chain of hotels. He ranks in the top three on the Mets’ all-time list in home runs, RBI, doubles, and stolen bases. Howard “HoJo” Johnson sat down with me in downtown Cooperstown in what was his first chance in several years to come to the historic town, as he just finished a four-year stint as the first base and hitting coach for the New York Mets.
“It’s pretty awesome (to be in Cooperstown) because I get to be around so much baseball history,” said Johnson. “I get to see players I played with and against.”
That he did. Johnson was sitting at the same table as the great Dale Murphy, former Braves outfielder and first baseman. Murphy, who won consecutive NL MVP awards during his playing days, was sharing laughs with Johnson and many others who were in Cooperstown for the Induction Weekend festivities to celebrate the enshrinement of Roberto Alomar, Pat Gillick, and Bert Blyleven into the Hall of Fame.
“I have a lot of respect for all of these guys,” Johnson said. “Having the chance to sit next to Dale Murphy and Pete Rose the last two days, you just can’t beat that for a couple days in Cooperstown.”
Now that Johnson has completed two separate stints with the Mets — one as a player and one as a coach, I asked him what the difference was like to be a part of the Mets organization as a coach compared to a player.
“When I was a coach, it was a little bit different because I had to learn how to deal with each guy’s personality and get the best out of them,” he explained. “When I was a player, I just worried about myself.”
Johnson knows that the structure of the coaching stuff and upper management looks much different now than it did when he coached his last game for the Mets in 2010, but he doesn’t seem to think much has improved.
“They’re playing .500 ball, which is probably about as good as they can be,” he said. “When I was a coach with them, we were above .500 every year until the last couple and the only reason we did that was because of so many injuries. It’s too hard to compete with the Phillies and Braves when there are so many injuries.”
Johnson also said he wasn’t sure where Mets shortstop Jose Reyes will end up after the season. Reyes, who is hitting .353 and leading the league in several categories, is expecting to cash in big as he becomes a free-agent this off-season.
“It’s hard to say where he will end up,” said Johnson. “He’s going to be getting quite a payday next year and nobody really knows where he will end up. He’s well deserving, whatever he gets and wherever he goes.”
Finally, I asked Johnson for an update on his own life these days now that he is finished with the Mets, and he said he’s doing some little things but nothing too big.
“I’m living down in Atlanta now,” he said. “I’ve been doing some work on amateur baseball there and just trying to stay busy.”
At the conclusion of the interview, Johnson wasted no time. He stood right up and asked everyone where Murphy ran off to. HoJo slipped through the nearby door in pursuit of his old friend Murphy as the two continued their weekend in Cooperstown.
Pete Rose sits down with Matt Tracy in Cooperstown
Pete Rose sat back comfortably in his chair, donning his Cincinnati Reds hat while he sipped his beverage on a warm day in what is quite certainly the most ironic place he could be — Cooperstown, New York.
“It’s a great village,” said Rose during my sit-down interview with him just a few buildings down from the National Baseball Hall of Fame. “I’ve been in Cooperstown many times before, and every time I come here it is very nice.”
Known as the “Hit King,” Rose is arguably the best hitter in baseball history. His 4,256 hits are the most all-time, and he also holds the record for the most games played (3,562), at-bats, (14,053), and outs (10,328). He won three World Series titles, three batting titles, the 1973 NL MVP award, and made 17 appearances in the All-Star game.
Although these numbers are reminiscent of a hall-of-famer, Rose has yet to find himself in the hall. That said, he enjoys returning to Cooperstown for the annual induction weekend festivities around the town. This year’s class included Roberto Alomar, Pat Gillick, and Bert Blyleven.
“It’s a baseball weekend,” Rose said of the Induction weekend. “It’s a lot of fun.”
Because his playing and managing days are now becoming more of a distant memory with each passing day, the 70-year old Rose has been returning to Cooperstown more often. He played his last game in 1986 and most people will tell you that plenty of things have changed in the game of baseball in the last 25 years. Rose would disagree.
“I don’t think the game has changed,” he said, besides a higher emphasis on home runs. “The press is the one thing that has changed. You can find out everything that happened in a game that same night, and now I don’t want to read about it tomorrow morning. There is so much media going on today that everyone goes for the controversial stories.”
Rose brought up that he also has no issues with the way that salaries have changed for players since he was in the game and he believes players have every right to fight for their salary. According to the Major League Baseball Players’ Association, the average salary for players in 1986 when Rose retired was $412,000. The average salary for a player in 2010 was $3,014,572.
“That’s fine,” he said of the salary differential. “You’re as good as you negotiate, that’s how good you are.”
I also had the chance to ask Rose about his playing days and his accomplishments. Besides his records for hits and games played, he feels that his next biggest accomplishment was being a part of six world series teams. He also felt that it was all or nothing, and if his team didn’t compete in the world series then it didn’t mean much.
“In my 24 years, six included World Series competition,” he said. “That’s 18 years that were wasted, but the reason why you play the game is to win.”
Rose spent the bulk of his career with the Reds before he went to the Phillies and Expos. He eventually wound back up in Cincinnati when he was traded from the Expos in 1984. Upon his return to the Reds, Rose was named player-manager and remained in that position until November of 1986 when he retired as a player but continued as manager. I asked Rose what it was like to be a player-manager considering most people of today’s generation have never witnessed such a thing.
“When I was player-manager, there were certain things I had to do,” said Rose, tapping each finger with his hand to count how many things he had to do. “I had to keep my skills honed by practicing every day, I had to give time to the press, and I had to give time to the players. Otherwise, something will mess up. I couldn’t take less time with the press and I couldn’t take time from the players, so I didn’t have time to practice and that’s why I retired. I just ran out of hours in the day to do what I had to do”
“There’s too much going on to be a player manager today,” he concluded.
To begin wrapping up the interview, I decided to ask Rose a question he has probably been asked several times before. I asked what he thought was the most memorable moment of his career. He listed his three favorite moments as if he had memorized the answer to that question long ago, and he said he did not have one favorite moment but instead several.
“First at-bat.”
“First World Series.”
“Last at-bat.”
Finally, as a follow-up question considering Rose had such a long career and had an emphasis on his first and last at-bat as his most memorable moments, I concluded the interview by asking him what the difference was between his first and last at-bat in the big leagues. While I didn’t expect him to go into great detail, I assumed he might have a few things to say considering he had such a long career.
“24 years,” he said, nodding his head.
With that simple answer, Rose and I shook hands and he continued on with his special weekend in historic downtown Cooperstown.
No Carlos Beltran, no David Wright, no Ike Davis, and most importantly, no Jose Reyes. That was all you needed to know to understand how difficult it was for the Mets to get through the past couple weeks, and most recently, the last couple days.
Thankfully for the Mets, however, Reyes returned from his hamstring injury last night after missing a couple weeks, and Beltran was also back in the lineup after missing the weekend due to the flu. The Mets could not have asked for much more from either of them in their return.
While the pair may not be in the same lineup for very much longer as Beltran is likely on his way out the door, they made an immediate impact as Beltran reached base five times and went 3-for-3 with two doubles and Reyes had yet ANOTHER multi-hit game in his return.
The rumors swirling around baseball right now indicate that Beltran is all but gone. Sandy Alderson probably doesn’t believe the Mets have a shot at catching the Braves, and he will gladly ship the healthy Beltran while his value is sky high and hope for a decent prospect in return. Some rumors have indicated that the Mets and Phillies are talking about swapping Beltran for top Phillies prospect Dominic Brown. This may be a long shot, but Alderson has been shopping Beltran for some time now and it wouldn’t be surprising if he gets several teams that are in the NL playoff race in a bidding war for Beltran, which would force them to give up more than they want just so that they prevent Beltran from going to a fellow contender.
With that said, it is no surprise that sources say that the Mets are definitely not trading Reyes this season and they will allow him to play out the remainder of his contract this season before he becomes a free-agent. I personally have no idea how the Mets would manage without him — the middle infield was just atrocious in his absence — botched double play opportunities, bobbled balls, miscommunications, and rookie mistakes by the shortstop Tejada hurt the Mets and in turn allowed too many unnecessary runs to score.
With Alderson already shipping Francisco Rodriguez to Milwaukee, it seems he has already started to carry out his plans for 2012 and the Beltran trade rumors easily confirm his intentions. I would expect that the Mets will continue to rebuild their minor league system and create some cheaper options for 2012 so that they are able to have a shot at affording Reyes.
Despite the high price tag that will come with Reyes this off-season, it is obvious that the Mets absolutely need to do whatever it takes to re-sign him.
Remembering Dick Williams
It was just a couple weeks before he died that I was able to meet Hall of Fame manager Dick Williams in the Hawkeye Bar in Cooperstown.
I was in Cooperstown in mid June with my father to watch the Hall of Fame Classic, also known as the Old-Timers game and similar to the one that takes place at Yankee Stadium. The event in Cooperstown brings together former major league players, most of them being Hall of Famers, to play in a game at Doubleday Field.
This year, Williams managed both teams that played in the game, making several trips since he had to make the necessary substitutions for both teams.
I am thankful that I had the chance to meet him, especially considering I had no idea that my time was running out on that chance, as he died last week of a brain aneurysm at the age of 82. Williams began his professional baseball career first as a player, and most notably as a manager. As a 21-year manager of the Red Sox, Athletics, Expos, Angels, Padres, and Mariners, Williams became one of only two managers to ever lead four teams to four 90 win seasons. He led teams to three AL pennants, and NL pennant, and two World Series victories.
Williams was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008.
The Mets could have considered trading soon-to-be free agent Carlos Beltran and some other key parts of the Mets’ lineup by this point, but they have remained in contention in the National League and all indications point toward the club keeping Beltran for the remainder of the season. There was talk earlier this season that the Mets were considering trading Jose Reyes, but he is now in the midst of the best season of his career, by far. This doesn’t mean that the Mets are not hoping to make some moves before the trade deadline.
The New York Daily News claims that Mets GM Sandy Alderson is currently shopping relievers Jason Isringhausen, Tim Byrdak, and closer Francisco Rodriguez. All of these relievers have had decent seasons so far, which increases their value for another contending team that could use them. The Mets are especially shopping K-Rod due to the expensive option in his contract that would take effect in 2012.
Besides these three relievers, don’t expect many other Mets players to be considered when trade discussions take place. The Mets have already exceeded expectations thus far and the team is fairly confident that they have the pieces in place to contend in 2011 or at least remain in the middle of the pack. Despite injuries to David Wright, Ike Davis, Johan Santana, Chris Young, and others, the team has poked their head above water as they sit at 43-42 and in third place in the National League East.
