Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

I've been debating whether to purchase one of these CitiField bricks ($195 for a 3-line inscription, in case you hadn't heard), and to this point haven't been able to pull the trigger on a purchase. Being of a background in which both creativity and Metsitivity have been encouraged, I do have a few suggestions on brick phraseology, for those who may be contemplating their own purchase (15-character per line limit). I'd also encourage the Mets to include a smattering of bricks with these historic words of choice. Ya Gotta Believe Baseball Like It Oughta Be The Happy Recap (15 characters exactly) Ball On The Wall Gets By Buckner (15 characters exactly) Mets score 19 And win! Amazin' Amazin' Amazin' The Magic Is Back Welcome to Kiner's Korner (would also make a good name for a concession area) Shoe Polish Play Marvelous Marv It's Outta Here (another 15'er) and here are some that I don't think will slip past the censors Why didn't he swing???

Happy anniversary to the Grand Slam Single (October 17, 1999), and we'll make this the last of 3 straight days of Mets quizzes, with these questions specifically geared towards that game and series. If you want to read a remembrance of the game, go here http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/08/walk-off-most-foul.html Answers here: http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/10/our-special-bonds-grand-slam-single.html 1) Masato Yoshii started and pitched 3 innings, Octavio Dotel relieved and pitched 3 innings, but name the Met whose 3 1/3 inning stint was the longest for the Mets in Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS. 2) Three players for the Braves in that game also played for the Mets at one point in their career. Name the backup catcher, the starting outfielder, and the relief pitcher, the latter of whom was the losing pitcher in Game 4 of this series. 3) Name the (now-disdained) Met who had the team's highest batting average in the series (minimum 10 AB), though he played, but did not bat in

Today is a Sweet 16th in Mets history, as in a celebration of October 16th, 1969, when the Mets (the Colorado Rockies of their time) clinched the World Series with a win over the Orioles. We thought we could best commemorate that with a quiz. Answers here: http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/10/our-special-bonds-miracle-mets-answers.html Just a note: We hope you like these quizzes...expect to see a lot of them this winter. They're easy to write. They're entertaining. They're difficult (that's the point...you shouldn't be able to easily think of the answer). And they're the kind of clever discourse we like to encourage in this space. 1) The 1969 Mets won exactly 100 games during the regular season. How many teams prior to the '69 Mets won exactly 100 games in a regular season? Name them. 2) The Met who took the worst 0-for in the 1969 World Series (0-for-7) had the game-winning hit in the game in which the Mets won their 100th game. Name him. 3) Three Mets

Monday marks the 21st anniversary of "decision-day," in which I picked going to Hebrew School over watching the seventh through ninth innings of Game 6 of the NLCS between the Mets and Astros. In honor of the memory of that game, I figured it worthwhile to offer another of my trivia quizzes. This one is 6 questions, in honor of Game 6 (instead of 16, in honor of 16 innings). As always, thanks to Baseball-Reference.com for the assistance. Answers here: http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2006/10/our-special-bonds-1986-nlcs-game-6.html 1) Among players with at least 50 plate appearances against the Mets in 1986, this "player of significance" had the 5th-best batting average, .347. Name him. 2) Only two players hit walk-off home runs against the Mets in 1986. One was Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. The other was an infielder, who went 0-for-3 in this game, and struck out to open the 16th inning. Name him. 3) The Mets had two hits through the first eight innings against Bob Kne

On this, the anniversary of the unspeakable (bad things involving Kenny Rogers and Carlos Beltran), I think I have found one of the great statistical bizarre-ities in Mets history. The Mets are 1-2 in games in which their pitcher strikes out 16 and walks 0. The Mets are also 1-2 in games in which they have a pitcher strike out 0 and walks 6. How in the world am I supposed to explain that? Dwight Gooden had back-to-back 16-strikeout, 0-walk games, which I think is one of the most remarkable accomplishments in club history. Unfortunately, in baseball, as in life, Gooden won and then lost. The first of those games was a 2-0 win over the Pirates on September 12, 1984, in which Gooden was backed by Hubie Brooks' 4th-inning home run against John Tudor. Gooden allowed five hits, and the funny thing is that the only innings in which he didn't record a strikeout were the first and the ninth. He had a chance at a 19 K game had he struck out the side in the 9th, but instead, the Pirates w