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Mets rookie left off SI cover?

Thursday, June 14, 2007

It's a smiling bunch of Mets featured on the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated. But perhaps the player most thrilled about being part of that experience never made it into the issue. Rookie reliever Joe Smith, last year's third-round draft pick out of Wright State, was supposed to be on the cover, according to the NEWARK STAR-LEDGER.

He was a part of the photo shoot, along with general manager Omar Minaya, manager Willie Randolph, pitchers Orlando Hernandez, John Maine and Oliver Perez, and outfielder Endy Chavez. But when the magazine, which features a profile of Minaya, hit the newsstands yesterday, Smith wasn't part of the group shot. He'd been cropped out.

The photo used for the cover originally had Smith laying on the floor in front of everyone else. "I guess it was a rookie joke or something," said Smith. "(The photographer) moved me around three different times. The last one he put me on the floor where they could easily say 'This kid does not belong.'"

A Mets spokesman said the photographer had apologized for leaving Smith on the floor, literally. To make matters worse, the reliever had alerted some of his friends that the magazine would be out this week and that "me and a bunch of the guys" might be on the cover. "Might be," as it turned out, was the operative phrase.