Hour 1: Alonso's Ovation

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Michael Kay (0:41)

And good afternoon, everybody. This is indeed The Michael Kay Show. We thank you for joining us on this Tuesday, September 15th, 2026, me and you for two. Those are the rules of engagement. It's the fastest moving two hours in Sports Talk Radio, and it's fast moving because of my co-host, and the co-host is, in fact, you and the membership number to be a co-host 1-800-919-3776.

We're so glad each and every day from 1 to 3, you can join us on the Espn New York, the app, 880 Espn New York, the radio station, and of course, the Espn New York YouTube channel made possible by the Parisman firm. We've got a lot to talk about today. Every Tuesday during the football season, we are going to talk to Paul Feindam. He will join us at 2 o'clock. Lots of stuff going on in college football, so we'll hit him with some of that. But we start off with baseball. And what we'll do is we'll obviously give credit to the Yankees making the postseason with their victory last night over the Minnesota Twins. So it's 61 years of making the postseason for the New York Yankees, and that's the most of any team of baseball. The Dodgers clinched yesterday as well, and the Brooklyn and the LA Dodgers have made the postseason 40 times. So that's 21 more years the Yankees have done it. But I want to start off with what happened at Citi Field yesterday. The Mets ended up losing to the Orioles 2-1. But the story of the day, and really an encapsulation of an entire horrendous season for the New York Mets, was the King's greeting given to Pete Alonso. Pete Alonso was a very special player for the Mets. He was home grown. The fans loved him. He obviously wanted to stay there. And the Mets, most likely David Stearns, did not want to give him a five-year contract at his age, feeling that it would age poorly.

I ask you all this, if Pete Alonso's 35 home runs and 100 runs batted in, were on the Mets this year, and not missing a game, would they be in a better situation than they are right now? And I think the answer is clearly yes. Would they be a playoff team? I'm not so sure about that, but their situation would be much better than it certainly is. But yesterday was a troubling night for the Met franchise. And it's a night that might be an inflection point for them. Because every time Pete Alonso showed his face, he got a huge ovation from the crowd of over 35,000. It's the biggest crowd at City Field since the Dodgers were in town. So they came out to pay homage to Pete Alonso and to tell him how much they appreciated him and how much they missed him. And the Met's did the tribute video and all that. Very rarely does an athlete come back to a team that he left and get this sort of hero's welcome. You can go back if you're a hockey fan when Eddie Jockeman was traded and he came back, I think it was a couple of days later, and the garden crowd was going crazy for him. Then it was Tom Siever, after he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds, came back, I think, two and a half months later, and he was treated to a hero's welcome. Then you look at a guy like Darrell Strawberry, who ended up signing a long-term contract with the LA Dodgers. And the Met's essentially wanted him back, but he didn't want to stay with the Met's. So when he came back, he got booed. On the on-deck circle, he was pelted by Strawberries. The crowd was not happy with him because they felt that he left. They didn't lose him. They did not want him. He left. He wanted out. And then there's Pete Alonso. Now, before anybody gives me the nonsense about, well, he turned down long-term deal with the Met's. They turned down undervalued long-term deals with the Met's. And if you look at the contracts that he got, the five years 155, last year's one year pillow deal with the Met's, he ended up making, I think, $47.5 million more than what the Met's had offered him over their long-term deal initially offered him. So, he wanted to stay with the Met's, but he wanted what he thought was his true value. And you know that once he hired Scott Boris, that was exactly what he was going for. He was going for the most money that he could possibly get. And the Orioles were there, they needed him, they needed his power, and they gave him a five-year deal for $31 million a year. It seems like David Stearns is afraid of long-term contracts and afraid of contracts that age poorly. And I think that's going to be an inflection point for the Met's moving forward. Because unless there's a distinct change in the CBA, and the amount of money that can be offered in a contract, and the amount of years that can be offered in a contract, you are always going to have to give more years than you want to. You just are. And I don't know how he feels like he's a conquering hero by, you know, saving the fourth and fifth year on the Alonso contract, where there might be a deterioration of skills. Doesn't make sense. You think that the Yankees wanted to give Aaron Judge nine years? Do you think that Aaron Judge is going to be the same probably when he's 38 or 39 years old? No, but that's the price of doing business. Do you think the Yankees wanted to give eight years to Max Freed? Do they think they're going to get top level Max Freed in year seven and eight? Of course they're not. They might not even get it in year six, but they wanted him and that's the price of doing business. So, the Mets thought they'd get cute and stand firm at a three year offer for Pete, and Pete didn't want that. He wanted a five year deal. And with an agent like Boris, Boris is going to find you, it might take a year or two, but he's going to find you the deal that you want. He's going to find you the weakness in the negotiating of a certain team, and he's going to exploit it and get you the money that he wants. And you look at the deals that the Mets made.