In Celebration (Sort of) of Matt Harvey (FanGraphs)
May 8, 2023
In Celebration (Sort of) of Matt Harvey (FanGraphs)
1 comment
>When Harvey came along, the Mets had not yet morphed into baseball’s answer to Newcastle United (the richest team in the sport, financed by ridiculously wealthy but morally suspect ownership). Instead, they were Newcastle United (a historically important but underachieving big-market team with embarrassingly inept ownership). As David Wright aged into the second decade of his career, Harvey was the new and exciting Met.
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>Only that sort of undersells what Harvey was. New York has amplified ballplayers’ profiles in the 21st century, but not to the extent that it once did Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio. And while Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and to some extent Aaron Judge now, have picked up the local halo, it’s been in a Yankees-specific way — “classy,” if you can say that without wrinkling your nose in irony. Famous, but in a studiously, almost uncannily mannered way. Harvey embraced New York. As a young player, he was not only excellent but also brash, fearless, and unapologetic.
And like the city, he never slept. Even at the time, much of the fascination with Harvey, even among his supporters, involved speculating about how long he could keep going. How long he could go on pitching like this: high-velocity, high-spin, high-effort. Off the field he was equally high-effort: seeing last call at nightclubs, dating models, showing up on Page Six nearly as often as on the tabloids’ back pages.
1 comment
>When Harvey came along, the Mets had not yet morphed into baseball’s answer to Newcastle United (the richest team in the sport, financed by ridiculously wealthy but morally suspect ownership). Instead, they were Newcastle United (a historically important but underachieving big-market team with embarrassingly inept ownership). As David Wright aged into the second decade of his career, Harvey was the new and exciting Met.
Really loved this paragraph
Edit: these also
​
>Only that sort of undersells what Harvey was. New York has amplified ballplayers’ profiles in the 21st century, but not to the extent that it once did Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DiMaggio. And while Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and to some extent Aaron Judge now, have picked up the local halo, it’s been in a Yankees-specific way — “classy,” if you can say that without wrinkling your nose in irony. Famous, but in a studiously, almost uncannily mannered way. Harvey embraced New York. As a young player, he was not only excellent but also brash, fearless, and unapologetic.
And like the city, he never slept. Even at the time, much of the fascination with Harvey, even among his supporters, involved speculating about how long he could keep going. How long he could go on pitching like this: high-velocity, high-spin, high-effort. Off the field he was equally high-effort: seeing last call at nightclubs, dating models, showing up on Page Six nearly as often as on the tabloids’ back pages.