According to recent wire reports, Jeff Kent, 40, will retire tomorrow (Thursday, January 22). Let us therefore briefly take stock of this somewhat controversial player's career, although mainly from a Met perspective.
Admittedly never the most popular guy in any clubhouse, the man's stats do speak for themselves: 377 home runs (best all-time for second basemen), 2461 hits (96th all-time), 537 doubles (27th all-time), just to throw a few out there. In addition, Kent was a five-time all-star and the 2000 NL MVP.
This résumé (which is, of course, considerably longer than the above-referenced "nuggets"), I submit, will earn Kent a place in Cooperstown. And as alluded to above, he won't get there by being popular with voters, either.
Kent, whose MLB career started with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992, always struck me as an intense straight-shooter with a burning desire to win, not the ill-tempered diva others labeled him as. After all, the guys he famously tangled with include the likes of Barry Bonds and Milton Bradley -- neither of whom would win a Mr. Personality contest, except maybe in San Quentin.
In a 2003 New York Times interview, Kent referenced his oft-mentioned feud with Bonds.
"I think we motivated each other. We elevated each other's game. We elevated our team's game. That'll be a time in my life that I'll never forget. I don't worry about the relationship that Barry and I have. You worry about being a better player and Barry made me one.''
This quote, I think, speaks volumes about what made Kent tick, that is, being the best that he could be, and, of course, winning.
With the Mets for four years, '92-'96, a woeful period in the team's history, Kent really was up against it from the start with the fans. Having been traded (along with the ubiquitous "player to be named later," which turned out to be the anonymous Ryan Thompson in this particular instance) for David Cone, one of the most distinguished and popular hurlers in franchise history, Jeffrey Franklin Kent was quickly dubbed "Jeff Can't" by the Shea faithful. However, the epithet was decidedly undeserved, although Kent's tenure with the Metropolitans never foreshadowed the amazing seasons he would later have with the Giants.
To make matters worse as far as his Met legacy is concerned, Kent's departure from New York was effectuated through one of the most infamously poor trades of the '90s, namely, Kent and Jose Vizcaino (to the Indians) for Carlos Baerga and Álvaro Espinoza.
In a piquant episode illustrative of his unique brand of principled
-- some would say arrogant -- intransigence, Kent, as a 24-year-old "rookie" in '92, refused to submit to standard hazing practices by insisting that his teammates return his street clothes, which had been absconded with and replaced by a garish getup designed to make Kent the object of ridicule. In the end, then-Manager Jeff Torborg had to intervene, ending the stand-off with a proverbial hail storm of expletives.
A "nicer" guy surely would have gone along and worn the hilariously inappropriate outfit, right? Surely. But nice guys finish last.
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