Let the Mets Bean People
It's not about promoting violence; it's about promoting fairness.
Mets players have been hit with 21 pitches over 24 games in the current MLB season. This is a record for the sport, but not particularly out of the ordinary for New York’s least embarrassing team.
“In modern MLB history, only 22 teams have been hit by at least 16 pitches over their first 20 games of a season,” Mets beat reporter Anthony DiComo wrote on Twitter last week. “Three of those on the list are the 2020 Mets, the 2021 Mets, and the 2022 Mets.”
This season the main Met targets have been, interestingly, the team’s two best players: Francisco Lindor, who suffered a cracked tooth after one of his multiple hits to the face, and Pete Alonso, who was recently in a major car accident and would be better off without people consistently hitting him in the head with 90-mph baseballs.
Have some of these hits been on purpose? In my opinion, duh; but this season none of the Mets-directed hits have been ruled intentional, and no one has been penalized. In fact, so far the only people to get penalized for intentionally attempting to bean a guy in a Mets-related incident are Mets relief pitcher Yoan López and Mets manager Buck Showalter.
In the incident that led to a bench-clearing and their suspension, yes, López was attempting to intentionally hit Phillies guy Kyle Schwarber, which he unfortunately did not even manage to do successfully. But who could blame him? The Mets are out here getting beaned.
“It’s funny, we’re the guys that have been hit and we’re the ones getting punished,” Showalter told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s kind of strange.” Yes, I agree.
Showalter’s punishment was that he had to miss a game and pay a fine. López’s punishment is more fucked up: he was demoted to the minors and will have a three-game suspension if he’s ever called back, which at this point is unlikely. “How do you call up somebody that can’t pitch?” Showalter said in that same Tuesday press conference, and uh, I know how: You consider whether he has been a fucking hero for the whole city and you call him up, you asshole. And yes I know Buck is not the one technically in charge of this decision, and I guess that would maybe be either general manager Billy Eppler or owner Steve Cohen. Still, I’m mad at him now. But I’m more mad at everybody else.
We’ve got to start letting the Mets bean people.
In order to soothe both Mets players and Mets fans in this time of obvious unfairness, this is what I’m proposing: The Mets get 10 free beans.
They’ll expire at the end of the season. Unfortunately we’ll probably have to count unintentional hits under free beans, because you know the umpires are out to get us, so it might make sense to use them sooner rather than later. Ideally, though, we’d keep at least one free bean on the table to scare people with, so they’re like, “You know, the Mets still have that free bean … let’s maybe not try to kill Pete Alonso.”
“But intentionally hitting people in the head and body with really fast baseballs is incredibly dangerous,” you’re thinking, and, duh, that’s why I don’t want people to keep doing it to the Mets. Keep up. The beauty (and additional fairness) of the free beans is that other teams will have the ability to plan ahead, so as to not get concussed.
I’m not going to give them many of my good ideas because I hate them, but one idea is other teams can put a pillow under their helmets:
Additionally, they could put pillows under their clothes. I’m not sure if putting a pillow under your helmet and clothes is regulation, but it’s also not regulation to keep intentionally hitting the Mets due to intense jealousy and feelings of emasculation, and everybody’s already all doing that, so I’m not too worried about them.
I’m trying to think if there’s anything else to the free bean rule that I’d need to explain before it’s implemented. Obviously, there would be a gentleman’s agreement to try to not give people brain injuries or fuck up their faces too bad. I trust the Mets to not exploit their free beans. It’s not about murder, it’s just about fairness.
What else? I guess nothing, except I think before they get their free beans the Mets have to agree to bring Yoan López back up from the minors. Again, this is an attempt to make things more fair. Yoan López is a hero. And the Mets deserve free beans.
Previously:
