Skip to main content

Our Special Bonds: Ron Darling (answers)

answers to the trivia quiz posted here

http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2007/09/our-special-bonds-ron-darling-questions.html

1) The leadoff hitter in Ron Darling's major-league debut was Joe Morgan and Darling struck him out. The winning pitcher in that game? Former Met Tug McGraw.

2) Telling you it was a Hall of Famer that Darling whiffed most should narrow it down enough such that one of your first couple of guesses should be the correct one, Ryne Sandberg.


3) The first three batters to HR off Darling were Claudell Washington (10 of the Mets 61 HR in 1980), Gary Carter (4 grand slams for the Mets) and Juan Samuel (traded for HR-hitter of significance Len Dykstra)


4) The other Yale-educated Mets pitcher was an original Met, Ken Mackenzie, who was 5-4 for the 1962 Mets (others were 35-116) and 3-1 for them in 1963.


5) The two future Mets drafted between Terry Blocker and Ron Darling were Kevin McReynolds (6th by the Padres) and Darryl Boston (7th by the White Sox).


6) The last out of the 1988 division clincher was, like Gary Carter, a catcher, Lance Parrish, and it's kind of neat that both finished their careers with 324 home runs.


7) Terry Pendleton had the tying home run, but it was Tom Herr who had the go-ahead hit that day and Vince Coleman who scored the go-ahead run. The Cardinals starting pitcher that day was one of the greats Mets nemesises of the era- John Tudor.


8) Ron Darling's first major-league shutout concluded when New Orleans Zephyrs (the team's Triple-A affiliate) manager Ken Oberkfell hit into a double play.


9) Jason Jacome didn't get many wins after pitching a shutout in his 2nd MLB start, but he did get the win for the Royals in Ron Darling's last MLB start.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Been There, Won That

The Dodgers had 19 hits in their loss to the Mets on Thursday night in a game that, no offense (pardon the ironic pun), was excruciating to watch for many, many reasons, none of which I feel like getting into at this hour. Willie Randolph summed it up in his press conference afterwards, saying simply "It's not fun!" I wonder if Tom Hanks, Alyssa Milano, Ray Romano and Kareeem Abdul-Jabaar (all in attendance) stuck around for the finish? I do wish to note briefly, again with the aid of Baseball-Reference, that the last time the Dodgers had 19 hits and lost a game, it was to the Mets. The difference between that game and this one was that this contest, of May 24, 1973, lasted an interminable 19 innings., with the Mets winning, 7-3. Rusty Staub's fifth hit of the game drove in the go-ahead run. Ken Boswell added an RBI single and Ed Kranepool salted the game away with a two-run double. Some other noteworthy anecdotes from a quick box score gleaning: * Like Thursday's...

The best Mets ejections I know

When you think of the Mets and famous ejections, I'm guessing you first think of the famous Bobby Valentine mustache game, when after Valentine got tossed, he returned to the dugout in disguise. You know it. You love it. I remember being amused when I asked Bobby V about it while we were working on Baseball Tonight, how he simply said "It worked. We won the game." (true) But the Bobby V mustache game of June 9, 1999 is one of many, many memorable Mets ejection stories. And now thanks to Retrosheet and the magic of Newspapers.com , we have a convenient means for being able to share them. Ever since Retrosheet's David Smith recently announced that the Retrosheet ejection database was posted online , I've been a kid in a candy store. I've organized the data and done some lookups of media coverage around the games that interested me post. Those newspaper accounts fill in a lot of blanks. Without further ado (and with more work to do), here are some of my findings ...

Best Games I Know: Phillies (Updated)

  The best wins against the Phillies in Mets history …   May 5, 2022 – Mets 8, Phillies 7 The Mets score 7 runs in the 9 th inning to overcome a 7-1 deficit and win in Philadelphia.   April 29, 2022 – Mets 3, Phillies 0 Tylor Megill and 4 Mets relievers combine on the second no-hitter in franchise history.   September 22, 2016 – Mets 9, Phillies 8 (11) The Mets tie it in the 9 th on a Jose Reyes home run and win it in the 11 th on a 3-run home run by Asdrubal Cabrera.   July 17, 2016 - Mets 5, Phillies 0 Jacob deGrom pitches a one-hitter. Only hit is a single by Zach Eflin in the 5 th inning.   August 24, 2015 – Mets 16, Phillies 7 David Wright homers in his first at-bat in more than 4 months. The Mets hit a team-record 8 home runs.   July 5, 2012 – Mets 6, Phillies 5 The Mets score 2 runs with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9 th to beat Jonathan Papelbon. The winning run scores on David Wright’s bloop down the...