Mets GM Omar Minaya called on legend Keith Hernandez to come to camp to help teach the club’s young first basemen to field the position.  Keith was down and met with Daniel Murphy and Nick Evans for two master classes earlier this week.  VIDEO of some of Keith’s instruction is below, including Keith’s offer to come back and help more during spring training because he is only a 40 minute drive south.

Hernandez believes people will be impressed with Murphy’s adequacity and effort:

“The way he works and as aggressive as he is, I expect him to be more than adequate.”

Hernandez also said he was impressed with Murphy’s play at first base last year — despite never having played the position before, the youngster started 97 games at first after Carlos Delgado got hurt.

“Under the circumstances — he had zero experience there — he was very decent. I like his hands; you can’t teach good hands. I like his aggressiveness. He played admirably.”

Hernandez also pontificated on the difficulties of playing first:

“It’s not an easy position. Outside of the pitcher and catcher, first base gets the most action in a nine-inning game [even if most of it is standing still and catching balls thrown directly to you]. You can lose a lot of ball games out there if you have a bad first baseman.”

And said there’s fat chance he’ll have time to help once the regular season starts and he’s super busy way up in the broadcast booth:

“I’ve got my duties up in the booth, and I don’t think it’s going to be something that you’re going to carry over to the season. This is the time to get the work in.”

VIDEO [via Metsblog]