Quick -- who is the most hated baseball player in New York?

Betcha didn't say Carlos Beltran:

"Carlos Beltran signed with the Yankees rather than the Diamondbacks or Royals because he believed the big city and the short right-field porch might enrich his Hall of Fame candidacy.

Instead, Beltran is in peril of putting himself in a more unusual category than those who reach Cooperstown — an enemy of both New York fan bases."

Enemy?


"Now, I always have been a Beltran defender."

Hey, everybody, guess what?

Purveyor of Taste, Joel Sherman, has always been a Beltran defender.



"I could never understand the Mets fans’ irrational distaste for the switch hitter. The overreaction to him taking a called third strike against Adam Wainwright in NLCS Game 7 in 2006 has been misplaced. He was great for the Mets in that season and that series, and Wainwright threw a hammer-from-hell curve that pretty much would have frozen every hitter in history from Aaron to Zobrist."

I think it's his aloof personality.

A lot of fans are dumb that way.

Intelligent fans realize that he played very well for the Mets (after a slow start) and he is one of the top postseason performers in baseball history.


"However, no matter the case for Beltran, there is a significant phalanx of Mets fans whose minds I am not changing. He kept the bat on his shoulders against Wainwright, and that’s that. Enemy of the Mets state."

That particular play was memorable, but I think Sherman simply doesn't understand why Beltran is disliked.

Beltran's aloof personality, like I said before, and he got off to a slow start. Intellectual laziness, intellectual inertia, cognitive dissonance. For many fans and writers, sports fandom has deteriorated into keeping score of opinions and predictions. So you form an opinion about Beltran after half a season -- "he's overpaid" or "he can't handle New York" -- and then that's that.


"It would be harder, at this point, to make a case for Yankees fans restraining their anger. Beltran was mostly injured — particularly his elbow — and ineffective last year in his Bronx debut. This season, he says he feels great, but the results so far have been even worse. He went 0-for-3 with a walk in the Yankees’ 6-1 triumph over the Mets in the Subway Series opener, dropping his season numbers to .173 without a homer."

Well, OK.

Your finger isn't really on the pulse of Yankees fans.

Beltran is a drop in an ocean of bad contracts. Beltran might prefer it if he was despised by Yankee fans because that would mean they're paying attention.