Newsday- “Mickey came out of his office, dressed, and I thought he was leaving for the day, so I said, ‘See you tomorrow, Mickey,’ ” Healey said. “And then he said, ‘Don’t be a smart-ass.”
Healey said he was told by other reporters that Callaway continued to curse at him. Healey said he did not hear that because he was “10 feet away at that point.” Healey said Callaway then went into another room, and when the manager returned after a few minutes, he picked up where he left off. “I couldn’t confidently tell you exactly what he said, but he said, ‘You know we’re going to be in a bad mood after a loss,’ or something like that. And I tried to tell him, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just saying I’ll see you tomorrow. And then he said, ‘Get this guy out of here,’ and that got the attention of Jason Vargas.” According to Healey, Vargas was getting dressed at his locker, which was about 15 feet away in the cramped visitors’ clubhouse, and Healey noticed the pitcher had been staring at him for what seemed like roughly 45 seconds. Healey said he was just standing there, “wondering why Mickey was blowing up,” when he saw Vargas. He recalled asking him if everything was OK or if there was something he wanted to say. That’s when Vargas threatened him. “He said, ‘I’ll knock you out right here’ and then took a couple of steps toward me,” Healey said. “Some people said charged — charged is super-strong.” Mets media relations manager Ethan Wilson got between Healey and Vargas while other players, Noah Syndergaard and Carlos Gomez among them, moved in to make sure the pitcher remained at a distance. Healey said he walked away at that stage. “I was shocked, and at the same time trying to tell Vargas or Callaway or Ethan, ‘Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it,’ which might have been interpreted as aggression on my part. I was in no way trying to be aggressive or antagonistic or anything. At that point in the day, I want to talk to Diaz and then leave, you know? “What’s the point in me trying to pick a fight?” ----------- Working under the unsafe assumption that Mickey Callaway isn't intentionally sabotaging his job security in hopes of being granted the sweet release of a paid-in-full termination from an organization whose ownership makes employment in pro sports feel pretty close to imprisonment...
...I think it's safe to assume that he probably isn't long for his current workplace if someone can't say something as benign as "see you tomorrow" without him interpreting it as a condescending dig at his chances of seeing even one more day on the job. I wouldn't know Tim Healey if he walked up to me and said "nice to meet you!" in a difficult to distinguish tone, so I haven't the slightest idea how cantankerous his relationship might be with the New York Mets. Hell, even if I did know it to be relatively peaceful, I'm not sure how reliably objective Newsday can be in reporting on their own reporter's unfortunate incident. That said, I think we can all agree that the team said reporter happens to cover is entirely capable of starting a death-match with the media over minor miscommunication. Like, the idea of an MLB clubhouse turning into a clusterfuck over a misheard pleasantry would be entirely out of realm of possibility...if not for it being the one MLB clubhouse that makes the movie Major League seem like it might be based on a true story. I'm not going to point fingers because are there three sides to every story, but the side that makes the most sense might just be the one in which a Manager lost his shit over a "see you later", as if the meanest thing you could offer Mickey Callaway is a reminder that the Wilpon's are too cheap to can his ass. I think that right there tells you everything you need to know about the flammable top-down culture of a franchise that makes the "this is fine" dog seem fire retardant by comparison... 
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
January 2020
|
RSS Feed
