Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Before we welcome Ruben Sierra in and out the same door through which Andres Galarraga and Bret Boone walked, we welcome him to the fold, at least temporarily, while gawking at a career that has produced a dozen walk-off RBI. Sierra has been playing baseball long enough such that he impacted our favorite season, 1986, ever-so-slightly and we revel in the accomplishments in one particular game that year. Bobby Valentine was managing the Rangers in 1986 when Sierra, then a raw rookie came through. Back then, Sierra was a wower, with a nifty combo of power and speed and a penchant for extra-base hits. He homered in his major-league debut on June 1 and became a Rangers regular pretty quickly. Flash forward to August 25 in Arlington and a Monday Night Baseball matchup between fireballing youngsters Bobby Witt and Roger Clemens, who was bidding for his 20th victory for the Red Sox. For seven-and-a-half innings this was a pretty good battle, with the only runs coming in the fourth on RBIs by

Before we begin, I must admit to pilfering this idea from the website Bleed Cubbie Blue , which went on a similar venture in search of the Best Cub Ever. That website is worth a visit when you finish here. A fellow blogger is doing a rather comprehensive analysis of the 50 greatest Mets of all-time at the website Amazin Avenue (also recommended for visitation), and my friends at Faith and Fear did a wonderful job with something similar not long ago. I must admit that I don't have the time or patience to attack that cumbersome a project at the moment, so I prefer to cut right to the chase. I have a write-in candidate whom I feel is as worthy as the likes of Seaver, Strawberry, Hernandez, and Piazza. His name is John DeMerit. John DeMerit, an outfielder from Wisconsin played 93 major league games, mostly for the Milwaukee Braves and hit .174. He raised his average over the final 14 games of his career by going 3-16 (.188) for the 1962 Mets. In those contests he had one home run, one

I typically pay respect on January 31st to those of baseball fame born on this date- most notably Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks and Nolan Ryan but it occurred to me today that there are some other fine folks who celebrate January 31 with me and I thought it apt to pay tribute to those with a Mets connection. I offer congrats on another year of life to Rafael Santana, the only player among the regulars on the 1986 Mets not to have had a walk-off hit for the team at some point in his career (though he did win a game via walk-off error). If you were going to salute what I call the "best-worst" Mets of all-time, Santana is a good place to start. His .218 batting average was acceptable for that season because of those who preceded him in the lineup. Santana filled his role legitimately. After struggling through the first four months with a sub-Mendoza batting line, Santana hit a rather robust .295 in August to bring his numbers to a more respectable level. It's oft-forgotten th