WHITESTONE, NY – At the ripe old age of 81, baseball lifer Sandy Alomar Sr. would still go and hit fungoes and offer his wisdom to the players on the roster of the San Juan Senators. The winter league team is owned by Sandy’s son, Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar. The last Major league team that Sandy coached was the N.Y. Mets. He was let go after the 2009 season being replaced by Dave Jauss, who never played professional baseball.
The N.Y. Mets ended a disappointing 2025 season and replaced their hitting coach Eric Chavez. They replaced him with a guy named Jeff Albert, who never had a professional at bat with any Major league organization. Albert has a Bachelor’s Degree in finance and a Master’s in Exercise Science.
The Mets also got rid of John Gibbons, their bench coach, and hired Kai Correa, who never played pro ball in any MLB affiliated organization. Correa has a degree in from the University of Puget Sound.
Back in the early 2000’s, when players were being signed to astronomical salaries, I used to wonder who was going to coach in the big leagues in the future?
Coaches are paid a fraction of what they made as a player, so who in their right mind would give up almost eight months of their year for such a low amount of salary? There’s plenty of ex-players who didn’t cash in and are fiending to put on a uniform again. Their experience and knowledge is a priceless tool, but for this new wave of non-baseball people who make these decisions, it’s a no-go.
It seems like experience and knowledge is categorized as intimidating. An ex-player that has these traits can’t be controlled by these ANALytical geeks. They fail to realize, or just don’t care, that a good coach is one who can communicate, motivate and share their past experience cause they’ve been there, done that.
Managers like Dusty Baker, Bruce Bochy, Buck Showalter, Rudy Jaramillo, Bucky Dent, Willie Randolph etc., etc. are being put out to pasture. To not employ the veterans of the past is a sin, especially when the current season ended with only 7 players batting over .300.
As a Mets coach, Sandy Alomar Sr. would tirelessly work out Mets shortstop Jose Reyes and David Wright way before game time. He would bark out instructions to them, as he hit grounder after grounder into their range.
God came calling for the Baseball Guru early this week and Baseball Heaven will appreciate him for Eternity.
