Baseball

On Second Thought...

The Met front office was blasted by the New York media for trading popular pitcher David Cone to the Blue Jays for prospects Jeff Kent and Ryan Thompson on Aug. 27, 1992. Now Al Harazin, who was the Mets' general manager at the time but is no longer working in baseball, looks like a genius.

At week's end second baseman Kent and centerfielder Thompson, both 26, were New York's most productive players and were two reasons why the Mets, who lost 103 games last season, were off to a surprising 9-9 start. Thompson was hitting .321 with five home runs and 16 RBIs, and his effervescence had helped turn a bunch of grumblers into a fun, energetic team. Kent has simply been the National League's best player in the first month of the season, tying for the lead in home runs (eight), ranking second in RBIs (23) and standing fifth in hitting (.380). And this comes on the heels of last season, when he had 21 homers and 80 RBIs.

"We were just kidding in the clubhouse the other day, and I said, 'That trade doesn't look so lopsided now,' "says Cone, who once won 20 games for the Mets but was 17-18 through Sunday as a Blue Jay and now a Royal. "The trade is always in the back of my mind, but I don't compare what I do to what they do. I prefer to think of it this way: The three of us are where we should be."

General manager Pat Gillick, who pulled the trigger on the deal for Toronto, says he thought Kent would be "a 15-to-20-homer guy, but we didn't think he'd do what he's doing." Kent played third base in 49 games for the Blue Jays in '92 but, according to Gillick, had no future at that position because he was a defensive liability. And with Roberto Alomar at second, there was no room for Kent in the Toronto infield. "If he were here now," Gillick says, "he wouldn't be playing."

Gillick also thought Kent was a little flaky. "You didn't know what he was thinking," Gillick says. "He had a faraway look in his eyes. You talked to him, and he would be staring off someplace else."

Was that a fair assessment? "Probably so," says Kent. "That's just me focusing on the game. In the minor leagues everyone has a piece of advice for you. But you can't listen to everyone. I get this dull look on my face. It's not that I'm not listening. I'm just thinking about what I have to do. I'm not Hollywood. I'm not flashy. I just like to play hard."

Kent's hard-nosed style comes from his father, Alan, a police lieutenant in Costa Mesa, Calif. "He pressured me into doing things right," Jeff says. "It's inbred in me. I don't have the God-given ability of a lot of players, but I like to work hard."

That toughness makes him one of Met manager Dallas Green's favorite players. "If Dallas asks me to take a day off," Kent says, "I'm saying no." He probably doesn't have to worry about that question coming up anytime soon.

Something's Burning