Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

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 ...

The Mets clinched the NL East on Monday, but if you're coming here, chances are that you knew that (and a whole lot more) already. So we do as we usually do in these circumstances- try to provide a perspective with which you may not be familiar. To do so, we offer up the following pieces of information, and yes, we try to work in some walk-off notes on occasion. PLEASE NOTE: That we are referring only to NL East clinching information and thus minutiae related to the wild card clinchings in 1999 and 2000 is not being utilized. * This win marked the fifth time the Mets clinched the NL East title, with the previous opponents being the Cardinals (1969), Cubs (1973 and 1986) and Phillies (1988). The Marlins are the third team against whom the Mets had both a walk-off victory AND an NL East clinching victory in the same season (1969 Cardinals, 1988 Phillies are the other two) * September 18 marked the second-earliest division clinching in Mets history, trailing only 1986 (September 17)....

We are on the precipice of a scenario by which this ballclub could become, by process of elimination, champions of the NL East. This is a feat, previously accomplished on four occasions, and it seems likely that this clinching, as we like to call it, will not come in walk-off fashion. That's perfectly acceptable, even here. The Mets have never cinched a division championship in walk-off fashion, though their first such celebration came a day after such an event. The baseball game of September 24, 1969 is well remembered for its conclusion, with Joe Torre hitting into a 6-4-3 double play, assuring the Mets of their first NL East crown. The contest of the previous day isn't as easily recalled, so we'll educate you in this space. The Mets entered September 23 with a magic number of three, and when Bill Stoneman and the Expos topped the Cubs that afternoon, the super-digit was sliced to just two. In order to reduce it to one and guarantee at worst, a tie for the title, the Mets...

The 2006 Mets aren't the only squad in team annals that had to deal with shoulder woes. On April 29, 1969, Jerry Koosman suffered a shoulder injury while pitching against the Montreal Expos, noting that something snapped like a piece of elastic. The resulting tenderness sidelined Koosman for nearly a full month, but the good news was that he returned as good, if not better than ever. In his first start back, on May 24, against the Houston Astros, he allowed 2 runs and 3 hits over 7 innings, in what turned into an eventual 5-1 defeat. In that era, there was no hesitation, once a pitcher was healed, to throw him fully into the fire. Koosman's next start came on 3 days rest, on May 28, against the Padres. The Mets had lost five straight and while there were promising signs of progress there were also indications that this was going to be a troublesome season. If there was any concern over whether Koosman could handle the physical and mental pressure, it was erased with this game, ...

The first time that the Mets and Cubs convened in 1969 came at the end of April and didn't exactly serve as a foreshadowing for what was to come that season. The Mets opened the weekend four-game series with a pedestrian 6-8 mark, while the Cubs held first place with a surprising 11-5 start. The Cubs won the first two games of the series as Ferguson Jenkins edged Tom Seaver, 3-1, and Bill Hands followed by going the distance in a 9-3 pasting of Don Cardwell. A Sunday doubleheader concluded the matchup and in the first game, the Mets got off to a quick start and led 6-3 in the 8th inning. Chicago scored once in the 8th and with the aid of two errors and a subsequent Randy Hundley home run, struck four times in what the Chicago Tribune described as the "ludicrous" 9th. The Mets went down rather meekly in their half as Phil Regan struck out the side, including Cleon Jones to end the game. So through three of the four games in this series, we knew this much: The Cubs were bot...

Before Francisco Cabrera and Jerry Willard, there was J.C. Martin. I'm talking about no-name backup catchers who became noteworthy (at least in my eyes) for their walk-off accomplishments (Cabrera in the 1992 NLCS preceded by Willard in the 1991 World Series). Martin, the Mets primary caddy to Jerry Grote for two seasons, only got one plate appearance in the 1969 World Series, but he made the most of it. The Mets had already surprised many by taking a 2-games-to-1 series lead on the mighty Orioles, doing so on the strength of a ninth-inning RBI by Al Weis to win one contest and a one-man offensive and defensive show by centerfielder Tommie Agee to win another. In Game 4, played on Wednesday, October 15, they had their ace on the mound in Tom Seaver and Baltimore had a worthy counterpart in southpaw Mike Cuellar, who like Seaver, would go on to win his league's Cy Young. Let's appreciate the rarity of that because it marks the last time a World Series pitching matchup featur...

I can remember several occasions when, as a little boy, I fell in the playground and scraped my knees. The pain usually stung and lingered for a few days and the reminders of what happened came in the form of scabs and scars, both physical and mental. Mets fans are probably feeling like that little boy who scraped his knees, based on the recent occurrences combining a long road trip, some bad fortune and a dash of incompetent play. We tried to remedy the wounds with stories from a quarter-century ago but I don't know if those did the trick. Band-aids can cover up the wounds, but there's always the temptation to pull them off too soon, before the healing is completed. The best cure I know for scraped knees came from Grandma Sophie, played so well by Marion Ross on the television show "Brooklyn Bridge." When Sophie's young grandson, Nathaniel Silver, scrapes his knees while playing ball in the street, she comes quick to the rescue, with some yummy desserts. Nathanie...

For those discouraged by the recent prospects of the Flushing 9, it is important to remember that a lot of good things can happen to a baseball team in a rather short period of time. It was 36 years ago Saturday that the Mets had one of their most significant regular-season victories and conveniently for us, it happened in walk-off fashion. The Mets entered September 10, 1969 on the precipice of great things, just 1/2 game out of first place after beating the first-place Cubs twice at Shea Stadium. Chicago travelled to Philadelphia afterwards while the Mets caught a scheduling break, with a doubleheader against the expansion Expos. The first game started in twilight and the Mets, winners of four straight, put Jim McAndrew on the mound against rookie Mike Wegener. Neither a first nor second inning run by the Expos dampened the Mets spirits, as they responded with unearned runs in the first and fifth to knot the game at two apiece. The game evolved into a pitchers duel, albeit a rather o...

The 1969 Mets had not yet reached their turning point on August 4, 1969, when they faced the Atlanta Braves in the finale of a three-game series. It was evident that the Flushing 9 were closing in on something special though, having taken two straight one-run affairs from the NL West leaders to stand at 57-44 and in second place in the NL East. The Mets had succeeded in making their opponents nervous, because they were a squad capable of doing anything. This contest was another example. The Mets were shorthanded, with a couple of pitchers out on military duty, according to newspaper stories, so when the Braves tallied four sixth inning runs against Gary Gentry, extending a 1-0 lead to 5-0, the outcome for the day looked rather bleak. The Mets hadn't managed a hit in the previous three innings against veteran hurler Milt Pappas, and with the Braves needing the game to maintain sole possession of the top spot in their division, it seemed like this one was all but in the books. Or may...