Can’t Anybody Here…

BY KEVIN KERNAN

First, some history.

The laughable, lovable 1962 expansion Mets were 13 games out of first place on May 4, 1962. David Stearns 2026 Mets are 12.5 games out on May 4.

That puts things in perspective.

The great Jimmy Breslin, a guy I got to spend a little time with while in New York, wrote this about the 1962 Mets in his classic book Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?

“You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn’t maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a t-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller?”

That is writing … and the truth; and writing with a backbone.

Here we are 64 years later and the Mets payroll for 2026 is in the Rockefeller MLB neighborhood at $375 million.

Jimmy, this team is not going to work for short money, that’s for sure.

Breslin was fond of telling this story in his wonderful Queens accent of a doubleheader where Marvelous Marvin Throneberry hit a triple in each game and manager Casey Stengel had this reaction.

In the first game there were two men on base when Marvelous Marv tripled.

“He forgot to touch first base,’’ Breslin deadpanned. “The runs don’t count. In the second game he hit another triple. Again, he forgot to touch first base. The whole thing doesn’t count again. Stengel the manager said to Throneberry, ‘Are you an adult? How can you forget to touch first base twice?’ And Throneberry said to him, ‘I don’t know why you are getting so excited. I didn’t touch second either.’’

Only the Mets.

I have another classic Mets paperback from yesteryear at home as well, called: The Year the Mets Lost Last Place, written by two more NYC writing heavyweights – two more media giants – two men I was able to get to know a bit, Paul Zimmerman and Dick Schaap.

In the introduction they wrote this: “In the first seven years of their existence, from 1962 through 1968, the New York Mets faced a crisis every day. The crisis was not whether they would win, but whether they would live. Marvelous Marv Throneberry, who impersonated a first baseman for two seasons, might be skulled by a pop fly. Roger Craig, who lost 46 games in two years, including 18 in a row the second year, when he felt at home, might be decapitated by a line drive. Elio Chacon, who could play short, second or third with equal risk, might lose his teeth to a ground ball. And the young Ron Swoboda, the brave bull, might pursue a fly ball and gore himself or any other outfielder who came too close to his horns. Never in the history of baseball had so many men played so poorly for so long.’’

And this from a third paperback in my collection, another Hall of Fame writer in Roger Angell, The Summer Game.

And know this, through the years there were numerous nights at the ballpark when I would pull up a chair in the press box and chat with Mr. Angell. It was an honor. He wrote this about the Mets in May 1964 in a chapter entitled: A Clean, Well-Lighted Cellar.

That was the season the Mets moved into a brand-new baseball cathedral, Shea Stadium.

“As the writer of two excessively vernal and optimistic previous dissertations on the New York Mets, I resolved this year to keep my distance after the home opener and not file a report until after midsummer. This admirable plan lasted three weeks, during which time the Mets lost 16 of their first 20 games – exactly the same mark they achieved early in 1962 while rushing toward an all-time record, generally considered secure for the ages, of a hundred and twenty losses in a season.’’

Roger was pretty close, that record held for 62 years until 2024, when the White Sox told the Mets to “hold my beer’’ and managed to lose 121 games. Angell the essayist died in 2022 at the age of 101, so that 1962 Mets record losing lasted his lifetime.

The reason I brought back the words of these writing giants: Breslin, Zimmerman, Schaap and Angell is two-fold. I wanted to show how tough those writers were back in the day and I wanted to put the Mets 2026 start to the season in perspective.

These Mets so far are monumental losers.

This is epic losing, and it needs to be reported as so and at BallNine and The Story we pull no punches because like those writers of the past – and I certainly could have dropped a little Dick Young or Howard Cosell in here as well on those laughable, lovable Mets – BallNine tells it like it is and the level of entitlement by this Mets front office for spending this much money and coming up with this result, cannot be understated.

These Mets so far are monumental losers. Last week I wrote a column called Data Off a Cliff, pointing to the Red Sox and Mets and other teams, but the Mets deserve a column of their own for this dreadful start. And don’t forget it was David Stearns who not only bought the groceries, as Bill Parcells might say – and Bill is another sports legend and huge baseball fan I was able to spend time with through the years – but Stearns also changed out Carlos Mendoza’s entire coaching staff this season. And, of course, he hired Mendoza as the 25th manager in Mets history for the 2024 season.

I find it interesting that two of Mendoza’s coaches from last season, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and first base coach Antoan Richardson are with the NL East leading Atlanta Braves.

And that brings me to my next key point.

I realize the season starts earlier now than in the seasons from 1962-67, but it still is stunning to me that the Mets find themselves 12.5 games out of first place on May 4.

Again, for history’s sake: the 1962 “Can’t Anybody Play This Game’’ Mets were 13 back at this point as they would go on to finish 10th, last place in the National League. During those years, only one team from the American League and one team from the National League made it to October, and that was the World Series.

Now six teams in each league make it to the postseason, there is much more room to fail and still make the playoffs, but the Mets have dug themselves a humongous “Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game” hole.

The 1963 Mets were six games out on May 4th. The 1964 Mets were nine games out come May 4th. The 1965 Mets were six games out, but the 1966 Mets were only five games out on May 4th. Those Mets also finished ninth that season in the National League, leaving 10th place for the laughable and lovable Cubbies. In 1967 the Mets were seven games out on May 4th as they went on to reclaim last place, 10th overall in the National League. Two years later were the Miracle Mets of 1969.

The Mets are not alone in their ineptitude in the NL East. The Phillies were so bad that Rob Thomson was fired, and bench coach Don Mattingly was named the interim manager. I’m a Mattingly fan and the Phillies have won five of six under Mattingly, and as Bryson Stott, who hit a three-run home run in the first inning of the Phillies 7-2 win over the Marlins in Miami on Sunday said after the game, the firing of Thomson was a “wakeup call’’ for the underachieving players.

Mendoza must deliver the same type of wake-up call to his players or else he will be fired. The 12-22 Mets have won two of the last three against the equally terrible 13-22 Angels, but you have to start somewhere. Again, only the 1962 Mets were more games back on May 4th than these 2026 Mets, and only by half a game.

The Mets are in a period of Titanic losing, another one of those The Worst Team Money Could Buy seasons. That book was written by my friends Bob Klapisch and John Harper, and it details the 1992 season when the $45 million Mets of Steve Phillips finished fifth in the NL East. On May 4th they were only two games back at 16-10. Things changed as they finished 24 games back of the NL East winning Pirates.

For now, it is one small step at a time for these Mets, and I can only wonder what Jimmy Breslin, who died in 2017 at the age of 88, would say about these Mets who are 12.5 games back on May 4th. It would not be nice.

Think I am going to have to re-read Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game.