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Showing posts from June 5, 2005

Who's the Ross?

If I had to guess, I'd probably say that I've written 25-30 "Where are they now?" related pieces for the various journalistic endeavors in which I've been involved. There had always been one person in particular that I wanted to track down, and last year, by writing a "Where are they now?" for "New York Mets Inside Pitch," I finally had a legitimate purpose to try to find Ross Jones. In 1984, I was nine years old, and for the first time in my brief life, the Mets were a good team. They had a rookie pitcher named Dwight Gooden, a second-year slugger named Darryl Strawberry and a veteran star in Keith Hernandez. The Mets won 90 games that year and hung in the pennant race into September. They did so despite being outscored by 24 runs and because they got key hits in big spots. The Mets were 10-8 heading into a game with the NL East defending champ Phillies at Shea Stadium on April 28 1984. My dad and I went to this game, and if I recall right, we

For Quality Assurance Purposes...

Whenever I am informed during a phone call that the call is being "recorded and monitored for quality assurance purposes" I always make a point to say "hello to the person monitoring the call." The primary purpose is to get a laugh from the person on the other end of the call, though I've always wondered how the "call monitors" felt. I bring this up for two reasons. One is to alert you that traffic to my blog is being monitored "for quality assurance purposes" by StatCounter . The other is to say hello to the folks who came to this link via Blogger...I have discovered via "quality assurance monitoring" that I already have an international following, having received hits from people logged on in India, Spain, England, and Belgium. Granted, these people likely were on the site for no more than 5 seconds, but I appreciate the visit nonetheless (nice ego boost to see a big # in the counter). Also a hi to those that came to this link via

A couple of other things...

I welcome suggestions, comments, and other feedback. Please e-mail them to Metswalkoffs(at) AOL.com, as I am keeping this e-mail account specifically for this blog. A friend asked me what my approach was going to be. The simple answer for that is: It depends on the day. If I have the time, I will go into "full-journalist" mode, making phone calls, going through newspaper archives and so forth. On other days, I may just keep it simple and utilize easy-to-use references such as Retrosheet and The Ultimate Mets Fans Database . Time will also determine the number of hyperlinks I post.

And so we begin...

Hobie Landrith holds a handful of distinctions in baseball history 1- He is the only person to play in the major leagues named "Hobie." 2- He was the Mets first pick in the expansion draft, prompting the famous quote from Casey Stengel. "You gotta have a catcher or you're gonna have a lot of passed balls." (The Mets used seven catchers in 1962 and had 26 passed balls) Most importantly to us... He is responsible for the first walk-off win in Mets history... Landrith's pinch-hit two-run home run off Hall of Famer Warren Spahn enabled the Mets to beat the Milwaukee Braves 3-2, at the Polo Grounds, in Game 1 of a doubleheader on May 12, 1962. The book "The Complete Year-By-Year New York Mets Fan's Almanac" describes Landrith as laughing as he rounded the bases, because the distance on his homer was barely more than 250 feet, in the horseshoe-shaped stadium. Approximately four hours later, Gil Hodges launched the second walk-off home run in Mets his

Introduction

Ok...This is my 2nd attempt at writing a blog (my first one lasted approximately 4 hours before I realized that I wasn't motivated enough to do this). I don't profess to be an expert in this by any means, but I thought it would be worthwhile. In my job as a baseball researcher, I come across a lot of websites and do a lot of blog reading. A couple of months ago, I came across one that was very unique- Plunkbiggio.blogspot.com . It is rare to find such a cleverly done "niche blog" and in thinking about it, I decided that it is time to create my own. As someone who has followed and "quasi-covered" (from a journalistic perspective), the New York Mets, I am familiar with and a regular reader of many websites devoted to the team. Some of my favorites will be listed under "links." The people that run these sites and blogs do an excellent job and made it very challenging for me to think of a Mets-related blog that would serve as a nice companion to those