George Foster's release was much more complex than Robinson Cano's

Any time the Mets have a really good team — as they certainly appear to have  this season — fans and pundits want to find ways to compare the squad to the 1986 Mets. 

And why not? The 1986 team was the last Mets  team to win the World Series. 

So when the Mets cut aging, underperforming former All-Star Robinson Cano on Monday, some made the immediate leap to compare that to when the Mets cut aging, underperforming former All-Star George Foster in 1986. 

There was more to the Foster story — a lot more, and we’ll get to that — but the perception that has lived on over the past 36 years is that the Mets cut Foster to give more playing time to a young Kevin Mitchell.  

It was seen as an expensive (for the time) move and proof that the Mets' owners were “going for it.” That they weren’t going to be tied to the past or past mistakes. That the owners were all-in and weren’t going to force the baseball people to keep an unproductive player on the roster just to save money. 

Sound familiar? 

There are significant similarities between the two moves. And significant differences. 

The owners of the Mets in 1986 were Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon, each of whom held a 50% share. They allowed general manager Frank Cashen to release the 37-year-old Foster on Aug. 6 even though the former Cincinnati Reds slugger had $1.7 million in salary and bonuses left on his contract. 

Foster was the highest-paid player on the team with a 1986 payout of $2.8 million. The only other player with a salary higher than $2 million was Gary Carter at $2.1 million. 

Cano was a highly-paid Met — the team is on the hook for about $37 million for this year and next — but he was not the highest paid. With a salary of $24 million ($3.5 million of which is being paid by the Seattle Mariners), Cano was third for 2022 behind Max Scherzer ($43.3 million) and Francisco Lindor ($34.1 million).  

Still, $37 million is a lot of money to eat, even for billionaire team owner Steve Cohen. 

The Mets didn’t cut Cano because they wanted to, necessarily. After MLB expanded rosters to 28 for the first month of the season following the lockout and shortened spring training, they had to reduce their roster to 26 by noon last Monday. 

But just as with Foster in 1986, cutting Cano is seen as proof that the Mets' owner is “going for it.” That he isn’t going to be tied to the past or past mistakes. That he is all-in and isn’t going to force the baseball people to keep an unproductive player on the roster just to save money. 

In some corners of the Internet, cutting Cano was seen as Cohen’s “Foster moment.” 

Others who are aware of the entire Foster saga saw it as something else. 

“It was under a totally different set of circumstances,” longtime Mets broadcaster and historian Howie Rose said. “You’re talking about a player [in Foster] who had worn out his welcome, who had criticized the front office, who’d accused them of being racist, and they were on cruise control in the standings [17 games up]. They didn’t have to abide by any of what he said or did, and so they cut the cord. This was different.” 

Ah, yes, what Foster said. The ’86 Mets were such a legendary bunch of characters that it’s almost impossible to keep all of their controversies straight. But the Foster controversy seemed at the time to be one out of his position — leftfield. 

Foster was the 1977 NL MVP for Cincinnati, when he hit 52 pre-steroid era home runs. He was traded to the Mets in 1982 and signed a five-year, $10 million contract extension, which was a huge outlay for the floundering franchise. 

But as the Mets got better, Foster got worse. At the time of his release, he was batting .227 with 13 home runs. He was not popular with the fan base or in the clubhouse. The Mets had more productive players on the roster and recently had signed Lee Mazzilli, their former shining star during the down years, to take over a pinch-hitting role that Foster didn’t seem suited for or to want. 

Still, would the expensive release have taken place had Foster, who is Black, not given an interview to a Gannett Westchester-Rockland newspaper reporter in which he accused the Mets of racism? 

“I'm not saying it's a racial thing,” Foster was quoted as saying then. “But that seems to be the case in sports these days. When a ballclub can, they replace a George Foster or a Mookie Wilson with a more popular white player. I think the Mets would rather promote a Gary Carter or a Keith Hernandez to the fans so parents who want to can point to them as role models for their children, rather than a Darryl Strawberry or a Dwight Gooden or a George Foster.'' 

The Mets reacted by releasing Foster. Cashen, who flew to Chicago to make the move after a doubleheader against the Cubs, said it was because of Foster’s on-field performance, even though manager Davey Johnson said Foster’s comments as they related to playing time “were an affront” to him. 

Said Cashen: ''Since July 11, George is 2-for-28 with 10 strikeouts and one RBI in 12 games. The move is being made to strengthen the club now and hopefully for things we would like to achieve in October. It's an expensive move.'' 

Foster, according to The New York Times account from that day, said: ''I never said race had anything to do with who plays — me or [Lenny] Dykstra or Mazzilli or Mitchell. I even prefaced my remarks by saying I didn't want it to be racial. How could it be construed as such when Kevin Mitchell isn't white? I was talking from a business standpoint about promoting players, marketing players. You can take it from a business or economic standpoint: What product will sell to the public? What section of people will it attract to the ballpark?'' 

After the Mets cut him loose, Foster was picked up by the Chicago White Sox and appeared in 15 games, batting .216 and hitting the last of his 348 career home runs before getting released again. He turned to youth coaching in Connecticut, and, for a time in the late 1980s, had a Christian radio ministry that was broadcast on Long Island’s WNYG-AM. 

The Mets have never invited Foster back to any of their alumni events and he is not expected to be among the 60 former players who will be invited to the club’s return of Old-Timers’ Day on Aug. 27. 

It’s unlikely Cano will be the first player Mets fans remember fondly when they recall this year’s team, regardless of where this seemingly charmed squad ends this promising season.  

Cano was unpopular with the fan base — many of whom cheered when he was officially designated for assignment on Monday — but the same cannot be said for the clubhouse, where he was well-respected despite missing the 2021 season for his second PED suspension. 

“He was 39,” Rose said. “To me, his roster spot had become a redundancy. It was purely a baseball decision. There are a lot of factors that went into the Foster decision.” 

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.