Burying the Hatchet Job

Tim Kurkjian can come back in off the ledge. We finally have some news about Roberto Alomar that doesn't involve him spending time at Hivvy's. He's been voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility. Congrats are in order. I guess.

As the wee Mr. Kurkjian proclaimed in his squeaky soprano after last year's snubbery, the numbers on Alomar as compared with his fellow second basemen through the years are unbelievably strong. Only he and Joe Morgan manned baseball's "diamond tip" with such four-tool prowess in the last 60 years of the game.

.300, 210 HRs, 1134 RBI, 474 SB, 10 Gold Gloves, 12 All-Star appearances, 2 World Series, 1 spitting incident. One of the best 2B's of all time for sure.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

While there is not, to my knowledge, a website called www.firerobbyalomar.com, there did used to be a little blog in a quiet corner of the 'sphere (inappropriately) called Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball. Over there, someone took great delight in briefly chronicling, then lamenting ad nauseum the eerie transformation that Alomar underwent when he arrived in Queens in 2002. Someone with some serious deep-rooted issues. Someone like me.

Everything good you will hear about Roberto Alomar happened in San Diego, Toronto, Baltimore, and Cleveland. Everything bad that can happen to a baseball player's skill set happened in New York. And it drove us fucking nuts. But before I fall into another rant, I'll stop. Because (a) I've done this too many times already, and (b) let's face it, he's kind of gotten a whole lot of bad press elsewhere lately.

Go type "roberto alomar" into the Google bar, but like The Rear Admiral, don't enter it. See what comes up in the suggested searches:

• roberto alomar
• roberto alomar hiv
• roberto alomar aids
• roberto alomar gay
• roberto alomar stats

Oof. By comparison, a similar test with "rogers hornsby" gets you:

• rogers hornsby
• rogers hornsby stats
• rogers hornsby quotes
• rogers hornsby baseball card
• rogers hornsby biography

Yes, it seems as I was tearing Roberto Alomar a new one over at MLC, someone was tearing up his old one just as frequently in the back room at Tavern on the Brown. Not that anyone's surprised. Word always was that the spitting fiasco stemmed from Hirschbeck hurling a gay slur at Alomar. And to see Robby Alomar... well, he's the negative image of Gorman Thomas not merely because of his complexion and fluid turn at 2B.
And so I come here today not to bury Roberto Alomar any deeper than I have, but to acknowledge that the ulcer-inducing level of angst he singularly injected into the guts of Mets Township in a season and a half of stank may be evened out with the public rear-ending he's getting in the media. He may have already paid his debt to (our little socially inept slice of) society, and as such, I invite him to enjoy the accolades freely without further barrage from us Mets fans.
As an added bonus, when your name is looked up, Robby, may "infected" and "HIV" be supplanted by "inducted" and "HOF" in search engines everywhere from Fire Island to Key West to the Mission.
Not so fast, my friend. Before we go, let's run the highlight reel on Robby Alomar's time in the spotlight of MLC. I have culled out dozens of remarks in the interest of saving space, so this is just a smattering. Reprinted with permission.

“...lest they fester like Robby Alomar all season.”

“All-Star Voting: The only Mets on their respective positional leader charts are Piazza (hurt since May, still out) and Alomar (crappy since last May, still crappy).”

“In his last three years with Cleveland, Alomar put up an average season that looks like this: .323, 21 HR, 103 RBI, .405 OBP, .516 SLG. Awesome, Hall of Fame-type numbers, from a guy who was also one of the league's slickest fielders. In the two years he's "played" with the Mets, his numbers look like this (with '03 projected based on current stats): .264, 8 HR, 49 RBI, .333 OBP, .367 SLG. That's not bad, it's falling-off-a-cliff awful. Man, Mets fans must be happy to get this stiff gone.”

“It's still a kick in the groin, but at least it's not with a stiletto heel (raided from Robby Alomar's locker).”

“Forgetting the season-and-a-half-long enema that was Robbie Alomar…”

“December 11, 2001: Received Roberto Alomar, Danny Peoples, and Mike Bacsik from the Indians Matt Lawton, Alex Escobar, Jerrod Riggan, Earl Snyder and Billy Traber. Stink. Stank. Stunk.”

“Win it for Robby ‘Bait and Switch’ Alomar, who just retired Saturday after taking his career from ‘sure-fire Hall of Famer’ to ‘not so much,’ mostly while in New York. He would especially enjoy this -- not the winning of the World Series, but this teary, pouty discussion of it.”

“Of course, every time in the past two seasons that I've proclaimed that it was ‘Go Time’ for the Metropolitans, they've answered the call with all of the verve and vigor of a tea party with doll-babies in Robby Alomar's basement. Tea for two - and two for tea - I hit .332 - then .233 . . .”

“After the beauty of Games 1 and 2 of this series, watching last night's contest was like tweezing my eyebrows out hair by hair. (Robby Alomar used to do exactly that in the Mets' clubhouse, coincidentally.)”

“You've known since your first month in New York that the only 'run support' in that clubhouse involved Robby Alomar's pantyhose and not hitters driving in runners for you.”

“Aflac Trivia Question: Who was the last Pirate to lead the league in hits? I’m saying a pre-bloat Bonds. Of course, Robby Alomar used to be up there in hits, and he was a pirate of sorts.”

“Liken ourselves as we do to large-scale journalists (Rob, there's a bump-set there waiting for you), we get to enjoy some freedoms not known to mass media writers. We can bash people sans recourse: Roberto Alomar (‘horrid,’ ‘falling-off-a-cliff awful,’ ‘Bait and Switch,’ ‘the season-and-a-half-long enema,’ ‘fair Spanish lady,’ ‘the little boy down the street who plays with dolls’)”

“the Beelzebub of Flushing, Robby Alomar…”

“…we can only hope for an Alomarian plummet down the stairs, though the manhole, and into the sewer.”

“…Roberto Alomar’s singular disemboweling of not only the 2003-04 New York Mets (a.k.a. dues-paying time at MLC) but also the future general management of the Metropolitans organization as a whole”
“Being able -- obligated, even -- to come up with new and creative ways to explain Robby Alomar's putrid plummet into doldrumville kept me going.”