Why did the Mets randomly announce Keith Hernandez 17 Retirement at 6:25pm?

So here’s the thing I can’t get out of my mind.

We wait 30+ years for the Mets to retire 17, most of that on the Wilpons but it’s not like Steve bought the team yesterday, but put all that aside…

..the Mets finally decide to do it….

…on a random Tuesday in January…

….at 6:25pm??????

What?

Now to me, you announce this in-season when everyone is in Mets mood and you create some buzz and you let the WFAN types talk about it all day.  They won’t even get that today because the Football Giants fired their head coach.

I was on social media last night and I think people were done talking about this by 7pm.  All that’s a shame.

Looking to the past….

This should have been done in like 1995 but it was not.

More recently, Jeff Wilpon randomly retired Koosman’s number right before game 160 or something….that was also at like 6pm and odd.

Then we had Covid and they had to wait to get on the other side of Koosman Day.

I guess that Mets Super Committee (not the proper name) that Howie is on advocated for this during the off-season.  Maybe Steve had a “what’s next” meeting.  Good.

But THEN Keith stepped in book-gate…

…which was not well received, so that could have paused this a bit.

And then randomly yesterday they announce it.

As for the DATE – the leading theory is that since the Mets can’t market the current players during the lockout, they need SOMETHING, so this is SOMETHING.  Now your ticket rep can call you and have SOMETHING to say.  That makes sense even though it’s pretty desperate, but I am not the one who locked the players out.

As for the TIME:  Having spent some years in corporations, I imagine this was a factor of “We need Steve to sign off” and that some poor PR lackey was sitting around all day waiting for Steve to get around to reading the press release and saying it was OK to send out.  Steve isn’t doing that when the markets are open, then we have to count the winnings, hop in the limo, talk to Mrs. Steve…and then finally check email around 6:15, suggest some changes because that’s what bosses do, back and forth on the revisions, ok hit publish.

All that would be my guesses, unless you think the Mets had a really well thought out strategized plan to announce this on a Tuesday at 6:25pm.

Congratulations to Keith.  Start the clock on everyone complaining about Gary Carter’s number.