I’ve written before that there was something about Yoenis I didn’t care for. While I was certainly pleased to see him in the lineup for the COVID-shortened season that is 2020, honestly I was so happy to see a lineup period that it probably didn’t matter if the canary yellow-wearing moose of a man was in the lineup or not. I would have been happy. In the midst of a miserable 3-6 stretch, I tuned in to today’s 1:05 start against the Braves to see Cespedes not in the lineup, and apparently, not anywhere. The superstar player chose not to show up at the field today, nor to let the Mets know he wouldn’t be there.
Unless he’s dead in his hotel room, there is no acceptable excuse for such behavior. He’s part of a team and a well payed part of that team to boot. The Mets are counting on him, as are the fans, and this kind of flagrant disrespect has no place in the professional world. Hell, it has no place in the personal world.
I was going to wait to express my thoughts on this until more was known, but I just heard on the Mets radio call that someone close to Cespedes has said that he’s not in a “health situation,” whatever that means, but I can only assume that means he’s still among the living, so he should be at Truist Field with the rest of the Metropolitans. If I was in charge of the Mets franchise, I’d have a very difficult time accepting any reasoning from Cespedes’s camp and would plant his ass on the bench for the foreseeable future. In fact, I may be unable to overcome my impulse to release him from his contract. Probably a good thing I’m not in charge.
Gary and Keith have been respectfully quiet on the issue today, but we’ll see how they respond once more is known about his no show today. He could be having COVID-19 second thoughts about the season, which would be completely understandable. I’ve read that Lorenzo Cain has opted out of the rest of the season, although I didn’t go deeper than the headline. But no communication is not an acceptable path to have taken, raging pandemic or not.
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