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Ex-Met Backman has had one wild ride of late

Ken Davidoff

June 15, 2008

Wally Backman has experienced one of the most bizarre post-playing careers in recent baseball history. The second baseman for the 1986 Mets served as the Diamondbacks' manager for just four days in November 2004, getting fired because he didn't disclose past arrests and financial troubles during his interview.

It doesn't end there, however. Backman, currently managing the Joliet Jackhammers in the independent Northern League, spent last year leading the South Georgia Peanuts in the now defunct South Coast League. It proved to be anything but a peaceful attempt at career rehabilitation, however. Fairly or unfairly, it probably damaged his chances at getting back into a big-league manager's office.

"Do I have regrets for doing it? Absolutely," Backman told Newsday yesterday in a telephone interview.

As Willie Randolph writhes on the Mets' skillet, his job in serious jeopardy, it's interesting to wonder whether Backman would be a candidate to replace him had he made different choices - and whether the Mets should give him a job somewhere in their organization now.

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A blog called "Lion in Oil" ran a post last year documenting a series of transgressions that Backman committed while leading the Peanuts, and the post gained enough momentum that someone sent it to my highly popular (not really) blog. It makes Backman look terrible, as it features umpire ejections, failed drug tests by his players and a confrontation with an opposing broadcaster highlighting the list.

But filmmaker John Fitzgerald, who got our attention here last year with his documentary "The Emerald Diamond," the story of the Irish national baseball team, reached out to us Friday to defend Backman. Fitzgerald spent the year with Backman and his players, filming a documentary called "Playing for Peanuts" that is airing locally Sundays on SNY. (Check playingforpeanuts.com for a listing near you.)

Fitzgerald described a league run by dishonest people and populated by inexperienced umpires and executives. He went over the "Lion in Oil" allegations one by one with us, and offered his version of the truth - all of which, he says, he has on tape to back up.

In short:

Backman threw 22 bats and a bucket full of balls onto the field in a June 26 game, following an ejection. After the game, Backman visited with the opposing team's broadcaster, who had called him an "embarrassment to the game" for his behavior. But there was no "melee," Fitzgerald reported. Backman made his point - a profane one, Fitzgerald confirmed - and walked out.

Backman did receive an ejection for going to the broadcast booth. Yet the umpire - who boasted to friends that he would eject Backman, Fitzgerald asserts - was fined and suspended, and then quit, never to ump in the league again.

Two of Backman's players were suspended for violating the league's drug-testing program. However, the league blew up its own agreement, by which a first offense wasn't supposed to be publicized. That infuriated Backman enough that he took on the league over it and wound up getting fired, before the league allowed him to come back.

Perhaps the greatest fact in Backman's favor is that people who invested in the South Coast League own the Jackhammers, his current employers. He couldn't have been that awful last year if he's working for the same people.

Backman is anything but a saint, and he clearly has self-control issues. Yet maybe it would be worth a team's while to give him a low-level managing job.

"Let me work with an organization right now and prove myself," Backman said. "I needed just one year to prove myself to the Diamondbacks. I just want the chance."

You get the feeling Backman's odd tale isn't close to finished yet.

HELP WANTED

The Mets aren't the only club in desperate need of outfield help. The Royals, not getting much from Joey Gathright, and the Braves, missing Matt Diaz (torn ligament, left knee), are also asking fellow general managers what they have to give.

There's not much, as exemplified by the Mets' acquisition of Trot Nixon late Friday, and you wonder when an interested club will cave in to the demands of veteran free agent Kenny Lofton. It won't be the Braves, as manager Bobby Cox had Lofton in 1997 and doesn't want him back.

The White Sox have signed Estee Harris, the Central Islip native whom the Yankees selected in the second round of the 2003 amateur draft, to a minor-league contract.