TIME HEALS WOUNDS
Beltran set for happy marriage following ugly divorce
OF the dozens of meetings that took place over the past month regarding the Mets’ managerial opening, you could argue the most important one concerned a reunion and a reassurance.
“We had a very nice conversation,” Jessica Beltran told The Post of her get-together with Mets owners Fred and Jeff Wilpon, her first in over eight years. “We wanted to make sure that everything was left in the past and we’d move forward. It was very nice.”
The Mets introduced Jessica’s husband, Carlos Beltran, as their new manager on Monday, all of the standard festivities and hyperbole accompanying the announcement, and the shock from Friday’s news of a three-year agreement still hadn’t fully dissipated. How in the world did we get from one of the rockiest player-ownership discords in recent New York sports history to those owners’ profound entrustment in that player on Monday?
The simple answer appears to be that time healed enough wounds. You won’t find any equivalent of the Paris peace talks, one breakthrough moment. Instead, actions by both sides led them to this unlikely reconciliation and, of all things, escalation. Looking ahead, the onus falls on Beltran, clearly more sinned against than sinning in what went down, to maintain that inner peace and forgive, if not forget, sufficiently.
“I wouldn’t be standing here if everything wasn’t clear with the organization,” Carlos Beltran said. “I’m excited to be back, honestly. It was a situation that I was able to move forward. And I personally believe that you can’t progress in life if you think in the past. You have to be able to be conscious and live in the present moment.”
This relationship rocked to and fro for a long time. The most serious of the skirmishes, Beltran’s undergoing right knee surgery against the Mets wishes in January 2010, smoothed over a little in spring training when Beltran met with Mets ownership, without his then-agent Scott Boras present, and talked through some of the tension. Later that year, however, the two sides were at odds once again when Beltran missed a team visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center due to a previous commitment for his foundation, infuriating ownership. And in 2011, Fred Wilpon famously, publicly (to The New Yorker) lamented his $119 million investment in Beltran; an apology phone call from Wilpon to Beltran quickly took place.
On July 28, 2011, moments after the Mets traded him to the Giants for a highly touted pitching prospect named Zack Wheeler, Jeff Wilpon called Beltran to thank him for all of his contributions to the Mets’ success. It marked a nice parting touch given everything that had transpired.
Nevertheless, just as Jerry
Seinfeld once posited that “Breaking up is like knocking over a Coke machine. You can’t do it in one push. You gotta rock it back and forth a few times, and then it goes over,” the same goes for makeups. When Beltran signed with the Yankees in December 2013, he rehashed his past differences with the Mets and trashed them all over again at a Yankee Stadium news conference.
The return to New York led to a more long-standing decision, however. The Beltrans relocated to Manhattan and enrolled their children in school there; they stayed there even as Beltran ended his career with the Rangers and Astros. Beltran, upon his retirement as a player, returned to The Big Apple and resolved himself to scratch his managerial itch only in town.
Two years ago, in another sign of thawing, Beltran reached out to the Mets to recommend his good friend, Alex Cora, for their opening at manager; Cora instead went to the Red Sox and the Mets hired Mickey Callaway, whom Beltran now replaces.
“There are going to be some situations in any relationship,” said Mets special assistant to the general manager Omar Minaya, who signed Beltran as the Mets’ GM and worked in that role until 2010. “I feel like anything else, when you’re coming into New York, there are going to be some situations. The greatness of the man, the greatness of the organization, is that things happen and you move on.”
“I felt very comfortable about what Carlos’ desire was to be back here and what the ownership group’s desire was to have him here,” current Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen said. “There is harmony between the two sides.”
“This is a great metaphor for life and family,” Jessica Beltran said. “Sometimes we have miscommunication with our family that separates us. I think this is not anything different. We had our moments that we didn’t communicate well when Carlos was a player with the Mets organization with ownership. And I think we both took responsibility for the part that happened, and we moved forward.”
“I can’t wait to rewrite our story,” Beltran said. If he can’t control how it ends, he can do the most to ensure that the sequel doesn’t feature the same fight scenes as the original.