PORT ST. LUCIE — "I can't stand this any longer. Somebody please pay attention to me! Hello! Pay attention to me! Look at me!"
Who said this?
A) Bart Simpson in 1994
B) Donald Trump in 2004
C) Matt Harvey in 2014
The correct answer is A. But B and C would be good guesses.
The stupidest rehabilitation stint in baseball history reached an end of sorts Saturday when Matt Harvey participated fully in the 2015 Mets' first official pitchers and catchers' workout.
"I'm excited to be here and be able to do everything like everybody else, not be on my own program," the right-hander, who will mark the 16-month anniversary of his Tommy John surgery Sunday, said in a news conference.
Now the fun part should begin for Harvey and the Mets. For if the soon-to-be-26-year-old yearns for the spotlight on the mound as much as he did while on the sidelines? Look out, National League East.
"I don't put a muzzle on anybody. Everybody's allowed to say what they want," manager Terry Collins, having returned from a brief leave to deal with his father's passing, said of Harvey. "Every fifth day, he doesn't say much. He lets the actions speak.
"He wants to say stuff. … That stuff doesn't bother me. Because I know he shows up when he needs to."
This naturally evokes the legendary line that Ed Wade, then the Phillies' general manager, used to describe his noisy ace Curt Schilling: "Every fifth day, Curt's our horse. The other four days, he's our horse's ass."
Harvey hasn't approached Schilling's toxicity level. Then again, he hasn't approached Schilling's accomplishments, either. It feels like we all — the media, Mets fans, Mets employees and Harvey himself — need to remind ourselves Harvey has pitched in 36 major league games, totaling 237 ²/₃ innings, numbers Nolan Ryan frequently exceeded in one season. He has yet to complete a major league campaign, starting line to finish line.
Matt HarveyPhoto: AP
So when Harvey repeatedly sought out publicity last year, tweeting a photo of him flashing his middle finger, and conducting a radio interview during a Mets game and talking of his desire to pitch in a 2014 game even though the club and Harvey's agent Scott Boras thought such an idea to be ludicrous, his lack of service time made his actions all the more galling. He clearly had slept through his Baseball 101 class that teaches the art of staying quiet while inactive.
(To be fair, the Mets initiated the brouhaha a year ago at this time, when they moved Harvey's locker to the boondocks of the home clubhouse here and discouraged him from doing interviews. Had they let nature take its course, Harvey's rehab quickly would have turned into a boring story. However, Harvey responded to this slap with a beat down reminiscent of Johnny's beach attack on Daniel in "The Karate Kid.")
"We're good. There was really nothing," Harvey said of last year's tension with his employers. "I think some of that stuff was all made up. Internally, we were fine. Everything was good. Once the year was over, it's time to play and get ready for the season, so that was the main focus."
Though none of it was made up, it is the kind of nonsense from which reasonable people should be able to easily move forward. And in a perfect world, Harvey can take that energy, that lust to not be ignored, and carry it onto the field as he attempts to approach his superb performance in 2013 (2.27 ERA, 191 strikeouts and 31 walks in 178 ¹/₃ innings pitched).
"Not only is he a great pitcher, but you know what? He portrays what you want in a leader in the clubhouse, and that is he does things by example," Collins said. "He's in the weight room, he's running. … He's a professional. He goes about his job professionally. I think that's very important for those young pitchers to see."
In 2014, Harvey too often set the example for what not to do in his specific situation. Now, utilizing the same personality, he can do just the opposite. It's a tradeoff the Mets and Harvey, the silliness seemingly behind them, gladly will accept.
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