Mets willing to take a risk on Backman
Photo credit: AP | Wally Backman will be managing the Brooklyn Cyclones. (November 1, 2004)
Fiery. Combative. Scrappy.
All were words used to describe Wally Backman during his 14-year playing career in the majors and even in subsequent gigs as a manager at the lower levels.
But now, as the Mets plan to introduce him this week as manager of the Class A Brooklyn Cyclones, there is another adjective that could be added to that list.
Risky.
For an organization up to its eyeballs in bad publicity after a humbling season, Backman is a curious choice.
He certainly has got street cred among the fan base as a popular member of the immortal 1986 Mets, and he was a rising star in the Diamondbacks' system before legal problems toppled him from the position of D-Backs manager only four days after he was hired in November 2004.
Backman has paid for those sins, and it's not as if they occurred yesterday. In 2001, he was arrested for domestic abuse and charged with misdemeanor harassment in an incident involving his wife, Sandi, and her friend, Sherrie Rhoden, in Princeville, Ore. A year earlier, Backman was arrested for DUI. In 2003, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.
The Diamondbacks ultimately fired Backman after learning of his arrest record from reading about it in The New York Times. The details were damaging. He suffered a broken arm in the domestic scuffle when Rhoden struck him with one of his own used bats from that '86 World Series.
"I'm terribly embarrassed it has come back to hurt Wally," Rhoden told the Arizona Republic at the time. "It was not his fault."
At first, Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick was satisfied after talking with Backman, his wife and Rhoden in separate interviews about that day. But he later changed his mind, and the Arizona situation made Backman radioactive. That was the last time he had a legitimate shot at a big-league managing job, although the Mets considered him before hiring Willie Randolph in 2004.
Backman managed in independent leagues for the past three seasons. The Brooklyn job is his first with a major-league organization since the D-Backs dumped him.
Backman couldn't figure out why. "I'm stumped why I can't get a job, even on the minor- league level," he told the Bergen Record in 2006. "It's not like I robbed a bank or did drugs. The whole thing boils down to a lousy divorce and a DUI. I've paid for that mistake. The president of the United States has a DUI on his record and he's still president. I made a mistake and learned from it. I've grown up."
That's what the Mets are counting on three years later. Always tuned into the public perception, they've apparently listened to the outcry for more throwbacks from their glory days. Just as the team has promised a Hall of Fame for next season at Citi Field, the Mets have promoted Tim Teufel - another '86er - to Double-A Binghamton as well as hiring Backman. Now they must hope that Backman's past is, well, history.
"If I could have two days back in my life," Backman told the Chicago Tribune in 2008, "it'd be the DUI and the domestic incident, [but] I don't think two days of anybody's life should cost them his career.''
