Mets fans' Baseball Talmud and other tales

The last few years have been painful ones for fans of the New York Mets. For sportswriter Howard Megdal, 31, the disappointment was tolerable—until his daughter was born. Wanting to spare his child the sadness of cheering on a losing team, Megdal did the only thing he could think of: he ran for general manager of the Mets. Megdal wrote a book about the experience, “Taking the Field: A Fan’s Quest to Run the Team He Loves,” which was published in May.

“I realized that few other aspects of our lives impact us the way our favorite baseball teams do: 162 games a year, three hours at a time, not to mention all the time we spend talking baseball, thinking about it,” said Megdal. “Well, wouldn’t it be irresponsible not to do everything I could to make that experience better for my baby daughter?”

General manager is not a publicly elected position, and Omar Minaya occupied the position at the time. But Megdal plowed ahead with his campaign, built on the pillars of logic, transparency and passion. “In retrospect, all the years I didn’t run for general manager of the New York Mets seem absurd,” Megdal writes.

At the beginning of his campaign, in June 2010, the Mets were on a surprising winning streak. Because of this, the initial responses to Megdal’s campaign weren’t all favorable, as many fans saw no reason to change anything about their team. But Megdal understood that there is a big difference between a winning streak and a winning team, and he saw that there were deep structural problems within the Mets.

“I knew I’d have a more receptive audience for my campaign if the Mets lost more than they won,” wrote Megdal in his book. “But I’d have happily sacrificed my general manager ambitions for the chance to see playoff baseball come to Flushing.”

Ultimately, Sandy Alderson was chosen to replace the previous general manager, Minaya. The experience taught Megdal a lot about the team and their fans. “Mets fans don’t want to be relentlessly negative. All we want is a positive vision to believe in,” Megdal said.

As a sportswriter, Megdal has been able to combine his love of baseball with his love of writing. He is Editor-in-Chief of The Perpetual Post, and has written for many other publications, including The New York Times and ESPN.com. “Ultimately, I love writing for a living, and right now, baseball is the area where I’m enjoying the most opportunity,” said Megdal.

Taking the Field was Megdal’s second book, following The Baseball Talmud, which was published in 2009. As its name implies, The Baseball Talmud deals with Jewish players throughout the history of Major League Baseball in America. “Baseball Talmud represents the idea that I wished to begin a conversation over the greatest Jewish players, not end one,” said Megdal.

The book shows people that there is more to Jewish baseball than Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax. Megdal forms a Jewish All-Star team, and uses statistics to pit them against the greatest teams in baseball history.

Megdal plans to continue writing, and he is currently plotting his next book while sharing his Mets passion with Hudson Valley readers at LoHud.com’s Mets Blog, which is run by The Journal News. When he is not writing about his team, The Rockland County resident passes on the support to his baby Mirabelle. “I’ve taught my 16-month-old daughter to say base, ball, gee and bay,” said Megdal. “No luck yet on Isringhausen.”