Owners who oppose Steve Cohen will feel his wrath

Steve Cohen is no saint. You don’t get as rich as him without rolling over a few souls in a dump truck during the process. The owner of the New York Mets has been well-behaved on the baseball side of things, something originally speculated about as a potential problem.

In fact, not only has Cohen been on his best behavior, he has been a shining example of what fans want from the owners. From public outreach to charity to simply trying to put the best product on the field, what’s not to like about Cohen the baseball owner?

As you may have been following, he’s the posterchild for what owners like Arte Moreno don’t want in the league. I doubt it’s a morality issue either. Moreno has certainly pealed enough bodies from his steamroller as well.

Mets owner Steve Cohen has shown a tendency to take things personally and do something about it

There’s a double edge sword when it comes to Cohen and other MLB owners. On one hand, it’s such a petty thing to pay attention to. But we know with his Twitter presence, sometimes Cohen cannot resist the pettiness of life.

Meanwhile, the other hand should have Mets fans hoping Cohen pays attention to it all. They should hope he went to the Marcus Stroman School of Following Yourself on Social Media. That’s because when Cohen feels slighted, he does something about it.

During his tenure as owner of the Mets, there was one moment that I think we got to see the more red-faced and violent side of him. It happened when Steven Matz turned down the idea of returning to the organization with supposedly the best offer on the table. Cohen ranted. He raved! Some professional sports owners would have left it at that.

Cohen didn’t.

This led to the Mets doing all they could pre-lockout to improve the roster with four free agent additions, including Max Scherzer. If Cohen felt like things were going his way, it may never have happened. Feeling slighted, his sports rage came out and with action.

Cohen is the kind of guy who would carry around a list of names. Moreno is right there at the top. Jerry Reinsdorf, one of the bigger names to vote against Cohen buying the Mets, is in a close second-place. Along with them, there’s also Bob Castellini of the Cincinnati Reds and Ken Kendrick (didn’t he sign the Declaration of Independence?) from the Arizona Diamondbacks. Those four were personally responsible for trying to keep Cohen away from the Mets.

Surely, there are other ownership groups out there not so fond of him. The Milwaukee Brewers, as an example, repeatedly denied the Mets an opportunity to talk with several of their front office personnel. How much of this was protecting their guys and how much was making sure they didn’t leave for Flushing?

Most of us grow up thinking billionaires behave like adults. Not always. Sometimes they can be childish, vindictive, and vengeful—maybe more so than people making far less money.

The more other owners push against Cohen and his ways, the more we should hope he takes it personally. You better believe when those teams target a free agent in the future or need a vote in their favor, Cohen will look at his list. He won’t need to check it twice.