Fry: When Your Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’ll Be the Mets

Pulling a Sarge rock.

Our team’s problem this off-season hasn’t necessarily been being outbid, though there are questions there, too. Rather, it sounds like it’s been basic communication and organization. Which is where Gary Matthews becomes an interesting bellwether.

No, not Junior, back for second tour of Met duty. I’m thinking about his dad, the Sarge — the ruthless outfielder who helped sink the 1984 Mets and liked slamming into Gary Carter at the plate and ripping him in national magazines.

Matthews has another infamous distinction in Mets history. He was one of the members of the inaugural free-agent class, post-McNally and Messersmith, and the player who seemed to interest the Mets the most. So in late 1976 Joe McDonald and M. Donald Grant made that interest plain — by sending Matthews a telegram asking him to contact the team. (He wound up signing with the Atlanta Braves.)

Another offseason, another front office that appears not to know what it’s doing, calls that don’t get made, players who move on. And the exact same name in the middle of it. Then it was the father, now it’s the son. I’m not much for superstition, but that doesn’t strike me as a good omen.