Buck Showalter is the right guy in Queens

If it feels a bit like the end times lately, that feeling probably isn’t helped by the New York Mets — yes, the New York Mets — conducting themselves as a competent organization with a legitimate plan and hopes.

Hiring Buck Showalter as their new manager is a perfect fit. While the 65-year-old former Yankees, Diamondbacks, Rangers, and Orioles skipper is known as an old schooler who runs a tight ship, he also has decades of players who rave about him, from Deion Sanders to Adam Jones. Plus, after consecutive rookie managers — the disgraced Mickey Callaway, the never-got-a-game Carlos Beltran, and the forgettable Luis Rojas — the Mets can use a voice with experience. (They messed up by not hiring Dusty Baker to succeed Callaway, but that’s another story.)

Because Showalter is just the latest good addition by the Mets, he’ll be joining a team that, before the lockout, signed Starling Marte, Eduardo Escobar, and Mark Canha to address holes in their lineup, then made up for the disappointment of losing Noah Syndergaard by signing Max Scherzer to pair atop the rotation with Jacob deGrom.

There’s still more for the Mets to do once there’s a new CBA, having also lost Javier Baez, Aaron Loup, Marcus Stroman, and likely Michael Conforto (he’s still a free agent, but the Canha and Marte signings mean he’s gone) in free agency. It should help any further recruiting efforts that their manager is the one guy who got the Orioles to the playoffs this century. Heck, he’s the only guy who managed the Orioles to a winning season this century.

Showalter is a terrific hire by the Mets. The global implications of that are frightening.

Tyler Bertuzzi is unvaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In fact, he is reportedly the only unvaccinated player in the NHL. This became a point of on-ice trash talk on Saturday, and it was beautiful.

Congratulations to our new favorite Devil, Mason Geertsen.