Mets alumni want to avoid a Mariano Rivera-type injury at Old-Timers' Day game
Mets starting pitcher R.A. Dickey in 2011 against the Astros. Credit: Christopher Pasatieri
The Mets are bringing back some of their former players for an Alumni Game at Citi Field on Saturday.
Those players are stretching and working out and getting their bodies ready even as we speak, because it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
No former Mets player wants what happened to Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera at the Yankees’ Old-Timers’ Day game on Aug. 9 to happen to him.
Rivera, the 55-year-old former closer who was playing centerfield in the Yankees’ first Old-Timers’ Game since 2019, tore an Achilles and underwent surgery a few days later.
The Mets’ alumni went on high alert once they heard about Rivera’s mishap.
“That was so sad,” knuckleballer R.A. Dickey told Newsday in a telephone interview. “Self-preservation at this point is what’s most important for me. I’ve also got my daughter, who’s getting married Oct. 4, on my property. I can’t be hobbling around all day.”
Ike Davis, the 38-year-old former first baseman, said: “I’m in good shape for a normal human being, for sure. I still can wear probably the same uniform. It’s not going to look as good. I feel like, if you just take it a little easier and not do anything dramatic, hopefully no Rivera stuff happens to any of us out there.
“Training-wise, I don’t know how much training is going to really help for this. Trust me, I think about it all the time. Do I really work hard for that one, maybe two, at-bats? Or do I just not work as hard and just try to see what inner baseball player’s still in there?”
Dickey, 50, said he regularly throws with his son, a non-knuckleballing high school pitcher who is committed to Jacksonville State.
“Thankfully, I’m able to keep my arm in shape by helping him keep his in shape,” Dickey said. “We throw a lot together. I do a lot of his training stuff just by default. That keeps me going. The other stuff — the cardiovascular stuff — I don’t need much for that. I’m only going to face a couple or three batters, maybe an inning. I’ll be ready for whatever they need. I also throw a knuckleball. That’s not as taxing. A lot of these guys are over 50. So still got to be careful.”
Lefthander Mike Hampton, 52, will play even though he recently had his appendix removed. Hampton, who has had knee and hip replacement surgeries, said he keeps in shape by coaching his son’s Little League team, “throwing BP to a bunch of 10-year-olds.”
Of Rivera’s injury, Hampton said: “I don’t want that to happen. Hopefully they don’t put me in the outfield. Maybe I get on the mound for a few batters and get off. But super-sad that happened to him.
“We see a lot of that in fantasy camps. Guys are pulling hamstrings and tearing stuff. But I think us as a whole want to go out there and have a lot of fun and put on a good show for the fans.”
One former player who will play the outfield — and maybe try to recreate a famous catch from the 2006 NLCS by scaling the leftfield fence — is 47-year-old Endy Chavez.
“Right now, I’m hitting the gym,” said Chavez, who said he played at “about 40%” when the Mets last had an Old-Timers’ game in 2022. “Doing some stretching and some running after my 6-year-old daughter. She keeps me in shape.”
The teams for the three-inning Alumni Game are separated into Team Shea Stadium (co-managed by Bobby Valentine and Willie Randolph) and Team Citi Field (co-managed by Terry Collins and Jerry Manuel). Players scheduled to participate for Team Shea include Hampton, Chavez, Mike Piazza and Jose Reyes. Team Citi Field is headed by more recent retirees such as Dickey, Davis, Matt Harvey and Bartolo Colon.
Davis said he wasn’t 100% sure he wanted to play when he was first approached by the Mets.
“It was a thought just on, like, could I play without embarrassing myself or hurting myself?” Davis said. “But then I thought about it. What if I strike out or make an error in an Old-Timers’ game? It’s not really that embarrassing, considering I haven’t thrown or hit a ball since I retired. I thought about it. I saw some of the people that were going to be invited, and I was like, dude, this could be a really cool experience.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
