June 13, 2008
THIS is what you want to see, right?
You want to see passion, and anger, and anguish, and torment, all of it etched into Billy Wagner's face. You want to see him slam his glove against his left hand, a public acknowledgment of failure. You want him to cut himself and bleed? He might actually do that, too, if it would ease the distress coursing through his veins.
PHOTO GALLERY: D'backs Beat Mets
Well, there he is: there's Wagner, a tightly-wound coil of frustration, standing in front of a bank of cameras and an army of notebooks, a thick chaw of tobacco in his cheek and a mountainous wrap of ice swaddling his shoulder, a bleep-you scowl attached to his face, with the brunt of the bleep-you directed right at himself.
"I [stink]," Wagner said, after another blown save, another unbearable loss, another wretched afternoon when the Mets have found a way to kick away a baseball game. This time it is 5-4, in 10 innings, to an Arizona Diamondbacks team that knows well it could have been swept and actually left town angry that it couldn't do the sweeping.
"I just can't get the job done right now," Wagner lamented, and we have heard time and time again that this is the way we want to see the Mets react after losses, this is the fire we want to see, this is the sound and the fury we just don't see enough of from the center fielder or the second baseman or the others.
"They don't care!" has been a principal rallying cry among Mets fans as they have rapidly fallen out of love with their baseball team.
Well here is Billy Wagner. Look at him. He cares. You can believe that he tossed and turned last night the same way you did. You can bet he replayed that ninth inning - walk, scratch hit, double, force play, fielder's choice - a thousand times on his drive home, during dinner, while he was watching the Celtics-Lakers game.
