Mets' dysfunction goes beyond selfish players

For writers of comedy and tragedy alike, the New York Mets' organizational dysfunction provides a wellspring of rich material. Their owners are buffoons, their general manager incompetent, their record embarrassing and, as we learned in recent days, their players capable of selfishness that would border on inconceivable if these weren't the Mets, who are nearing their doctorate in ludicrousness.

The revelation that Carlos Beltran(notes), Oliver Perez(notes) and Luis Castillo(notes) skipped the team's trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., took a couple days to crystallize, and once it did, the players might as well have declared war on the United States. Naturally, the zealots turned this into a racial issue, with the Puerto Rican, the Mexican and the Dominican failing to pay tribute to American soldiers, which was an easy and lazy characterization. This was much more about egocentrism than ethnocentrism.

Wilpon presides over a house of dysfunction.
(Kathy Willens/AP)

Beltran, Perez and Castillo may or may not have been acting out against the Mets for injustices the club may or may not have perpetuated. The necrotic relationship between the sides, borne of mutual mistrust and betrayal, was simply given a context beyond baseball with the Walter Reed flap, and the Mets were more than happy to let the brown-skinned men catch verbal shrapnel.

That is the way of owner Jeff Wilpon's Mets: Hope that someone else's bad decision overshadows your own. The Mets' stupidity goes beyond the $119 million they lavished on Beltran and the $30 million they bestowed upon Perez and the $25 million they gave to Castillo. Overpaid malcontents act out. Such is the order of the world. To suddenly demonize them, though – to use an event that fosters goodwill as the hollow-point bullet in their character assassination – is low even by Wilpon's standards.

It was no accident that word of Wilpon's anger at Beltran, Perez and Castillo filtered through the clubhouse and leaked to New York reporters. He wanted them to savage the fiends who dared not show up to an event that was voluntary, and one that hadn't been nearly as well-attended in the past. Never then did Wilpon make a public fuss.

Were it anyone else skipping out on the event, the story would've been a non-story. Instead, it became an opportunity. The state of the Mets' organization demands scapegoats, and with Wilpon backing general manager Omar Minaya as he bungled his way from the NLCS in 2006 to today's catawampus mess, other targets were necessary. Beltran was an easy one, his body unable to hold up, as were Perez and Castillo, neither of whom deserved such deals in the first place.

Never mind that Wilpon approved those contracts, that he spent wildly on major league personnel while the Mets' draft budget withered to one of the lowest in the big leagues, that he kept Minaya in power when the organization so obviously needed a top-to-bottom overhaul. Closer Francisco Rodriguez is on the disqualified list after he hurt himself in a fight with his father-in-law at the ballpark. Big-money free agent Jason Bay(notes) is on the disabled list with concussion symptoms after the Mets' training staff let him play for two games following the head trauma.

The only thing saving Wilpon is that owners can't get fired.

The Mets didn't need to point fingers in the Walter Reed flap.
(Noah K. Murray/The Star-Ledger via US Presswire)

And here was his chance to deflect all the bad press, gifted to him via a trio of millionaires who couldn't bother to give a couple hours to soldiers. No matter where someone is from, it is universal: Wounded veterans deserve respect, and the ability to brighten their day is a unique opportunity. The players deserve embarrassment for their pettiness.

The Mets can't skate free, though, not when they turned good into bad. Wilpon could have ignored the players' actions and played up the stories of David Wright's(notes) work with soldiers or R.A. Dickey's(notes) emotional connection. Wilpon’s father, Fred, the Mets' principal owner, co-founded Welcome Back Veterans, a charity that deserves positive press. Now, we're talking about how Beltran said he was busy with his own foundation, and how Castillo said the sight of injured soldiers would have bothered him, and how Perez wouldn't even address his playing hooky. Wilpon cared more about the excuses of some than the actions of others.

It gives a wonderful view inside the Mets' world, where pervasive negativity poisons everything from decision making to fan relations. There's a reason why, despite a two-year-old stadium, attendance isn't even at 80 percent capacity: The fans see through the bad decisions, the poor excuse for ownership, the ruin of a franchise that should be one of baseball's standard bearers yet has a 69-70 record, mediocrity personified.

As long as Wilpon continues to run the Mets with the inability to accept blame for decisions that go bad, the environment will remain as toxic as it is now. Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo were dolts to skip the Walter Reed visit. But they're not the biggest problem with the Mets. Not by a long shot.