While Ted Berg finds Matt Harvey’s bird-flipping instagram portrait (taken by the injured hurler’s mom, no less) something than scandalous (“it depicts exactly the defiant, enthusiastic mentality fans have come to appreciate from the rehabbing young ace…Harvey’s innocuous shenanigans — even if they somehow upset people — are entertaining”), WFAN’s Mike Francesa spent portions of Tuesday and Wednesday’s programs arguing such actions were unbecoming a player who aspires to be the face of the franchise.
Surely Francesa, despite his oft-noted distaste for social media, is aware that New York sports fans in general (and perhaps Mets fans in particular) aren’t so easily offended by transgressive behavior. This is a fan base that loves Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, despite whatever chemistry experiments they performed on their own bodies in the 1980’s. Manhattan’s basketball franchise might soon offer a max contract to a player who once appeared in a “Stop Snitching” DVD. The Mets’ former tenants at Shea will soon employ a backup quarterback guilty of mass murdering dogs (and he’ll play under the supervision of a head coach whose tenure was punctuated by a cameo in a fetish video).
This is a team that allowed Vince Coleman to pelt children with firecrackers, permitted Bret Saberhagen to spray reporters with bleach and actually brought back Bobby Bonilla after he threatened Bob Klapisch.
I realize the modern world is a mysterious and scary thing for WFAN’s afternoon drive host, but by any historical measure, Matt Harvey kidding around (WITH HIS MOM) on Twitter, Instagram, etc., is the very definition of no big deal. Let us know when he gets his cock out (again).