WHAT AN AMAZIN’ FIT!
Getting Mesoraco in uniform quite a task for Mets staffer
PHILADELPHIA — By 6:40 p.m. Tuesday, Devin Mesoraco was in the tunnel to the visitors’ clubhouse at the Great American Ball Park, dressed in a brand-new grey road Mets jersey. He had just been dealt from the Reds for Matt Harvey, right before the teams played against each other.
The front offices had finished the deal about an hour and a half before the game, but Mesoraco couldn’t be activated for that night’s game unless the Mets could actually get him into uniform in time.
That was up to Dave Berni, the Mets’ assistant clubhouse manager who was on this road trip. Minutes after Mesoraco was called into interim manager Jim Riggleman’s office and told of the trade, Berni was discreetly walking into the Reds clubhouse, with a blank Mets jersey, the letters to spell out Mesoraco’s name and the number two and nine folded under his arm.
“I was kind of in daze,” Mesoraco said. “It was a whirlwind with everybody working fast to get everything done.”
Berni was not allowed to comment for this article, but people familiar with the details of Tuesday’s trade and how teams deal with a trade on the road provided information.
Most teams always travel with extra jerseys in case of call ups or trades. The Mets’ clubhouse staff travels with a jersey for every player on their 40-man roster and extra blank jerseys in every size as well. They also carry a full complement of lettering and numbers in case of a trade while the team is away from home.
So, Tuesday, when the deal was done, the final call from the Mets front office was to Berni, to see if he could get everything together to get Mesoraco into uniform in time for the game. He took the challenge and the Mets activated their new catcher right away.
The transaction turned out to be one of the easiest ever for the Mets traveling secretary, Brian Smalls, who arranges the travel and logistics for players being traded. Harvey was in Los Angeles at the Boras Institute, which is run by his agent Scott Boras. The Reds were heading to LA to play the Dodgers, so the former Met simply had to meet them there.
That night, Mesoraco simply had to make the awkward walk from the home clubhouse down the corridor to the visitors clubhouse.
Back in New York, Mets’ head clubhouse manager, Kevin Kierst, had a relatively easy assignment: get Harvey’s necessary equipment to LA. The right-hander had been designated for assignment on Friday, so his locker at Citi Field had already been packed up, but he needed some of his stored equipment forwarded. Specifically, Harvey had been using a black-blue-and-orange glove this season, which would not have been appropriate with the Reds uniform. Kierst found a new tan glove Harvey had ordered with just a little orange on it and over-nighted it to the Reds at Dodger Stadium. You could hardly notice the orange when Harvey pitched four scoreless innings in his Reds debut Friday night.
Berni, however, was under a much tighter deadline Tuesday night.
At the trade deadline and in September when trades and call-ups are more frequent, the Mets clubhouse staff travels with a sewing machine. Berni did not have one on this trip.
The Reds offered their sewing machine and the woman they keep on call to sew all their own jerseys.
Berni wanted to keep it lowkey, worried some had not yet been informed of the news, but as the seamstress began putting together the letters on the back of the jersey, she noted to Berni that the Reds had a player by the same name.
Well, at that point, they used to have a player by that name.
Berni rushed the jersey back to the Mets clubhouse to let Mesoraco get dressed.
“I practiced with the Reds. I took BP in a Reds uniform,” Mesoraco said. “And about an hour later, I am looking at a locker with another jersey.”
When he walked out of the tunnel and into the dugout wearing his new No. 29 Mets jersey, Mesoraco was officially a Met.