Frankenstein Playoff Game

By color and logo, the Mets are a Frankenstein monster, their creator at least in part being the Giants.  Met “orange” is San Francisco orange, the Met “NY” on the cap once belonging to the Giants.  (If you believe Wikipedia, Met “blue” comes from the Dodgers.)  The Mets’ first home was the Polo Grounds, which also happened to be the Giants’ last New York home.   The very Mets’ franchise exists to fill the void caused by the Dodgers and Giants moving to the West Coast.   It was fitting, then, that creator and creation squared off in last night NL wildcard “play-in” game.

That ex-White Sox third baseman Conor Gillaspie hit the winning three-run homer for the Giants is just a bizarre detail.  Gillaspie is a good contact hitter playing out of position at third.  If everything went right in Gillaspie’s baseball life, he’d be another Bill Mueller.  Both Gillaspie and Mueller started their careers as infielders with San Francisco.  Mueller went on to win a batting title with the Red Sox in 2003.  Gillaspie comes back to win a big game with the Giants after stops with the White Sox and Angels.  It all makes perfect sense somehow.

Gillaspie got the big hit because the Giants are an organization that sets their players up to succeed.  In contrast, the White Sox point players to their position and say “good luck.”  That’s the extent of their player development.  Maybe that’s a reason why we haven’t made the playoffs since 2008.