MLB denies threatening Mets with fines

Catcher Josh Thole said Monday night that the Mets backed down from wearing caps honoring first responders during Sunday night's 9/11 game because Major League Baseball had threatened to fine the organization and the individual players "crazy amounts" if they defied a mandate to wear specially designed American flag caps.

"It was coming down from the top that the fine to the ballclub was going to be significant," Thole said. "That was something that nobody wanted -- to overstep the bounds there."

According to MLB spokesman Pat Courtney, however, fines were not threatened, neither to the organization nor the players. "We never discussed ramifications," Courtney wrote in response to an emailed question, "and offered to work with the club on other ideas to honor first responders."

MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Joe Torre also denied "a heavy-fisted fine" was threatened.

Torre took to the airwaves Monday to explain the decision to forbid the players to wear caps with "NYPD," "FDNY" or "PAPD" on the front (honoring the New York City police and fire departments and Port Authority Police Department) during the Mets' extra-inning loss to the Cubs.

"By the time it got to me, I knew the Mets were wanting to do this," Torre said on Sirius XM's MLB Network Radio. "It was more or less that even though the Mets are based in New York [and] so are the Yankees, I just felt that we should all do the same thing."

All 30 teams wore caps with an American flag patch on the side Sunday. Replicas are on sale on MLB.com for $36.99, with a portion of the proceeds going to 9/11 charities.

The Mets wore those caps during the game. Before the game, they wore the first responder caps during an emotional ceremony. So did the Yankees during their ceremony in Anaheim, Calif. -- one attended by Torre, the Yankees manager in 2001. He wore a suit and tie as he lined up on the field with the team.

Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey, in a Twitter post yesterday, wrote: "For all those upset that we didn't wear the hats, I understand your anger. However, they physically took them from us after the ceremony."

It's not as if MLB goons ripped them off the players' heads, though. The caps were collected by an authenticator so they could be stored and eventually raffled off on the team's website, with proceeds going to 9/11 charities.

So then how were David Wright and other players shown on TV during the game wearing first responder caps in the dugout? According to Wright, he simply put on an FDNY cap he already had in his locker.

Thole said he spoke with people in the union in an attempt to get MLB to allow the Mets to wear first responder caps during future 9/11 games.

Courtney said the league "would certainly be open to discussing ideas and tributes that all 30 clubs could participate in for the future."

The Mets declined to comment on whether the organization was threatened with a fine and were understandably annoyed the cap flap had taken attention away from the 9/11 ceremony.

Said manager Terry Collins: "Whether we wore the hat was not the issue. It was not what was on our heads. It was what was in our hearts. I think that ceremony pretty much portrayed what was in our hearts."