On May 25, 2016, Madison Square Garden erupted with warmth and excitement upon welcoming Yeshiva University’s commencement speaker: Robert Kraft. “Well, thank you,” the owner of the enemy Patriots said as he took the stage, and then he quipped: “That’s not the reception I typically get when entering sports arenas in New York.” What happened …
On May 25, 2016, Madison Square Garden erupted with warmth and excitement upon welcoming Yeshiva University’s commencement speaker: Robert Kraft.
“Well, thank you,” the owner of the enemy Patriots said as he took the stage, and then he quipped: “That’s not the reception I typically get when entering sports arenas in New York.”
What happened that day will look like a golf clap compared to the next time Kraft sets foot at a Big Apple athletic facility.
What happened last week, in fact, has me thinking bigger than treating Kraft as a regal rival.
As big as this: Robert Kraft, Mets owner.
Yes, Kraft should ride his wave of New York love all the way to serious discussions with the Wilpons, whose efforts to sell the Mets to Steve Cohen unraveled worse than Rich Kotite’s tenure as Jets head coach. The 78-year-old Kraft could be just the savior the Mets and their emotionally weathered fans need.
Last week, in case you somehow missed it, Kraft arranged for the purchase of 1.4 million N95 masks for his home state of Massachusetts and then another 300,000 for New York, sending the Patriots’ plane to China to procure them, at a time of dire need in the battle against COVID-19. What a gesture. As The Post’s Mark Cannizzaro wrote, Kraft has earned family status here.
Imagine if he built on that profound generosity by turning the Mets into the Patriots of Major League Baseball. He wouldn’t be a mere family member. He’d be the godfather of every National League household from New Haven to Trenton.
Appreciate what Kraft would bring to Citi Field.
Wealth: If he can’t quite match up with the uber-rich Cohen, The Street website last year estimated Kraft’s fortune between $6.35 billion and $6.9 billion. That gives him more than enough to purchase the Mets, be it at the $2.6-billion figure Cohen had agreed to pay for 80 percent of the club or a lower number acknowledging these tough times, and to operate them in the deep end of the industry’s pool alongside the Yankees and Dodgers. Baseball’s economic system, more capitalistic than the NFL’s salary cap, shouldn’t faze him.
Experience/Competence: Kraft just pummels Cohen in this head-to-head comparison. It’s hard to overstate the job that Kraft has done with the Patriots since purchasing them in 1994. Between his brilliant acquisition of Bill Belichick from the Jets in 2000, at a time when major doubts loomed over Belichick’s ability to run a football team, and his construction of Gillette Stadium, Kraft transformed the Pats from the least popular professional sports operation in the Boston area to the North American gold standard for all sports. He also has taken a leadership role in the NFL, which should make him more palatable to Major League Baseball’s lords of the manor.
If you wonder about Kraft’s age as it pertains to long-term stewardship, his oldest son, Jonathan, serves as president of the Patriots as well as the Kraft Group, which controls the Pats and the stadium in addition to other holdings like Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution.
New York ties: It’s worth repeating, and illustrating, just how much this city means to Kraft. He attended Columbia University, which now plays its football games on Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium. He owns an apartment in Manhattan. He received Carnegie Hall’s Medal of
Excellence for his philanthropic work and business success.
Given his high New York IQ, Kraft surely knows that many Jets fans also support the Mets, making for a rather masochistic subculture. Surely the decades of beatings their Jets have received from Kraft’s Pats would only enhance these folks’ desire to have him on their side for once, right?
He has earned New Yorkers’ trust and gratitude, no small feat for a New England sports owner. Fixing the Mets, enabling them to reach their vast potential, should be relatively easy. It would be awfully fun to see him give it a shot.
