I think the Mets are safe. I really do.
No, not the 2022 Mets, though 19-9 entering Saturday is a nice record, but hardly enough to start calculating magic numbers.
The ’62 Mets. You know, the patron saints of losing? The gold standard (or is it zinc standard?) of ineptitude? The team that went 40-120 and finished a mere 60 ½ games behind the Giants and Dodgers in the National League?
The Reds, right now, seem committed to making a serious run at the ’62 Mets. Entering Saturday, Cincinnati was 3-22, and that’s a winning percentage of .120 (so they actually win at half the rate of the ’62 Mets!). Regardless of the record, they have already humiliated themselves with their strip-down, and by this outrageous comment, delivered by team president Phil Castellini (which he later apologized for) in response to outraged Reds fans:
“Well, where are you going to go? Let’s start there. I mean, sell the team to who?” Castellini said. “That’s the other thing — you want to have this debate? If you want to look at what would you do with this team to have it be more profitable, make more money, compete more in the current economic system that this game exists? It would be to pick it up and move it somewhere else.”
Talk about tire fires. And the Reds, by all accounts, are every bit as bad as their record. And that record, again, was 3-22 — 3-22! — heading into the weekend. Spread out across 162 games that projects to 20-142, which would mean the ’62 Mets would look like the ’27 Yankees by comparison.
The Reds aren’t going 20-142.
The Reds have been historically bad to start the 2022 season. APAnd they probably won’t much scare 40-120. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from sports in recent years, it’s hard to be the best at being the worst. Maybe that’s not the case in the NFL since the only two teams to go 0-16 have done so in the last 14 years — the 2008 Lions and the 2017 Browns. But most football historians will agree those two teams, woeful as they were, weren’t as bad as the 0-14 Buccaneers of 1976. So there’s that.
Since 1962 there have been some horrible teams with horrible records — starting with the Mets, who never quite duplicated their 120-loss masterpiece but did lose 111, 109 and 112 the next three. The team that gave the Mets the best run (or stumble) for their money was probably the 2003 Tigers, who went 43-119 — and were sitting at 38-118 with six games to go before gagging and spitting the bit and winning five of those games.
It’s not just baseball.
1962 Mets pose ahead of the team’s inaugural season. Bettmann ArchiveNo team seemed more destined for great, awful things than the 2009-10 Nets. They started 0-18. They were 2-29. They were 3-40. They were 4-48. They made losing look as easy as breathing. Since 1973, the 76ers have been the team that held the title as worst ever across 82 games, going 9-73. The Nets seemed a shoo-in for that.
Then, tragically, still holding down a 7-63 record — so close! — the Nets somehow crinkled the universe’s axis plan and won three out of four. That stalled the tank in its tracks. They finished 12-70, and were even exceeded in their haplessness a few years later by the Sixers, who went 10-72 in 2015-16.
The NHL is never going to have to worry about this because their system is now set up for overtime wins, and even really bad teams have a hard time finishing under .500 (bad as the Islanders were this year, they finished two above .500). So it’s unlikely that anyone will ever approach the expansion Washington Capitals of 1974-75, who went 8-67-5. That’s 21 points across 80 games. That a level of brilliant incompetence that’s hard to fathom.
So good luck to the Reds. Bad as things are, they aren’t likely to be bad enough to make anyone forget the ’62 Mets. So at least they have that.
Vac’s Whacks
He’s got some big shoes to fill. But I think Fordham got it right elevating Keith Urgo as its men’s basketball coach. And Fairleigh Dickinson made a fascinating hire giving its job to St. Thomas Aquinas’ Tobin Anderson.
For someone who is so often accused of being too laid back for his own good, Aaron Boone sure gives an entertaining show when he’s angry at an umpire.
Aaron Boone argues with umpire Marty Foster. API am a “Godfather”-phile, admittedly, but the “The Offer” on Paramount+ about just how the movie got made is some must-see TV.
Man. I’m going to miss “Ozark.”
Whack Back at Vac
John Cobert: Since MLB continues to let Angel Hernandez stink up the joint, why should any of the other umps worry about the quality of their work?
Angel HernandezAPVac: There really have been some brutal moments for the umpires all around baseball this week. It’s like a fungus.
Richard T. Monahan: Great column on the Rangers postseason. But my God, Michael, you left out the Molly Wee in your pregame/postgame watering hole references.
Vac: That is kind of like forgetting that Mark Messier was on the 1994 team.
@Metfan73: Ya gotta believe … that this is the year Buck Showalter leads the Mets to their first world championship since 1986!
@MikeVacc: It’s a little jarring seeing so many happy Mets fans around town. Good for you all.
Kenneth Meltsner: Another set of soundalikes: Todd Zeile and Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman).
Vac: I mean … he’s not wrong!
