As I sat on the porch this morning with my Newsday, I went through my normal routine. First I read the news, then I look at the ads, then comes the sports section. However, my newspaper was doused when I spit out my morning coffee during a particular article by Barbara Barker entitled “Chipper Nostalgic in Last Week at Shea”. Here we go again.
Some of you may know that I had a big problem with the interview Kevin Burkhardt did with Chipper on the Mets Pregame show last month. First of all, why were the Mets trying to humanize Chipper Jones? It just made his sound worse. It was bad enough that Kevin was fawning over him like they just spent a night of passion together, but to hear Chipper say “the fans don’t hate me that much, people are friendly to me in the streets.” Yes…the Yankee fans. Sheesh. Then, as if that wasn’t enough bad enough, he had the nerve to imply that he wouldn’t mind playing for the Mets. Over my dead body.
So this article goes even further, chronicling Chipper’s last weekend at Shea. He walked about the park with his family (including 4-year-old Shea), taking pictures. Now that doesn’t bother me. And to be fair, for the most part he wasn’t too abusive to the fans (unlike after the 1999 post season where he stated the Mets fans could “go home and put their Yankee gear on). However, upon finding out that he actually bought a pair of seats from Shea, that’s when I lost it.
Seriously? I mean it’s bad enough you ripped the Mets apart everytime you played them. But I find it insulting that Chipper feels that close to this stadium and that he makes it so publically known.
And I find it even WORSE that the media is condoning this as if to say “See? He’s not such a bad guy!”. During his interviews all he talks about is how much he loves Shea because of how good he played here. Why on EARTH would anyone in New York want to relive that? I don’t want to hear Chipper talking about how great he played here. I was around and I am aware. It’s hard to tell who I am more upset with…Chipper or the New York media.
So this sparked a debate with fellow Hot Foot writer Rob Harding and myself. I even talked to Anthony DeRosa, the Footfather, who had some interesting views on the subject.
So maybe Chipper has done his job. And maybe the media thinks it’s OK because the Braves are so bad this year. Maybe he has sparked the rivalry and made it more fun. But the point of doing that was to make he despise him. Today I stand here willing to concede that fight to him. Congratulations. You made the rivalry more fun, and I despise you. You win, Larry. Enjoy it.
Just don’t think you’re going to have those same memories at Citifield. In any uniform.
Pete Lappin (3)
