There is even the chance that Harvey could get a nod in the All Star game which is at Citi Field in less than a week.
So what's not to like about where Matt Havery is at this point in his life?
Well, apparently the Mets ace, or at least Harvey and his agent, feel that he has achieved enough stardom that it requires him to make a clown of himself with GQ-like spreads in the New York Post and ESPN the Magazine.
There was Harvey sporting himself either half naked, or in cloths that probably cost more than the contract that he is currently in with the Mets, posing for pictures with an erotic blonde bombshell. Broadway Matt Harvey has arrived!
“I’ve always wanted to be in the spotlight,” Harvey tells The Post. “I’ve always wanted to be that guy — and that comes with fans approaching you and media being all over you and paparazzi. At the same time, everybody says how annoying it gets, but I understand it comes with the territory, and I’m not one to shy away from that. I don’t want to be the starting pitcher for the Mets that nobody knows. Being able to put on a uniform that says New York has been a dream come true.”
“[Acting] is something that has been interesting to me. I wouldn’t do the modeling stuff, but definitely movies. Even now, I’m not really afraid of a camera,” he says, adding, “Obviously I don’t have a lot of time, but Tom Brady showed up on ‘Entourage,’ and I always thought that would be really cool.”
Now is the time for the Mets to clamp down on their young pitcher before he gets really carried away. The Mets and Havery have been obsessed with his rise to stardom, begging San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochey to start him in the All Star Game, even though Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers is probably more deserving, and on a contender.
The Mets have also refused to stop the comparisons to Seaver, which, in all honesty is not fair considering Harvey hasn't won 10 games in a season yet, nor has he yet to win a Cy Young award.
It is ironic that these photos come out with Harvey in the midst of a slump. He gave up five runs to the D-Backs two starts ago, and served up three runs to the Giants this week. The Mets are using a blister on Harvey's pitching hand as an excuse for his recent struggles; heck they won't even start him in Pittsburgh because of the blister, yet have no qualms about him starting a meaningless All Star game.
Let's put two and two together and relaize that perhaps this rise to fame, glitz and glam might be getting to Harvey's head a little, and the Mets might be skipping him as a lesson.
The entire spread in the Post with Harvey, which extends for three pages, not to mention about a half dozen photos of Harvey making himself out to be a "movie star" is simply embarrassing. While the Mets need Harvey to rebuild the image of the team, they don't need him to rebuild it in the image of the Mets and also Matt Harvey.
In short the last thing they need Harvey to become is their version of Alex Rodriguez.
What the Mets should do, especially the veterans on this team, such as David Wright, is to sit Harvey down and ream into him that he has to slow it down about 90 mph with the public appearances, and modeling photo shoots.
As a professional baseball player, getting lost in New York is very easy. This town will welcome you in one minute, and chew you up and spit you out the next. Maybe Harvey should ask Mark Sanchez about that. Remember when Sanchez was the Sanchise? Remember when Sanchez had to appear in all the same GQ shoots Harvey is in?
This is not to say that Harvey is destined for failure; quiet the opposite. He is going to be a very good pitcher for a very long time. But to become that, he has to learn to say NO, when it comes to making a public fool of himself in tabloids and magazines.
He's 24, so he has time to learn, but the Mets have to ring him in and tell him to stop it first.
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