Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

In 2009, I did a project for my website, Mets Walk-Offs and Other Minutiae, celebrating the best home runs in Mets history. I selected the top 60 regular season home runs and the top 15 postseason home runs. The reason I picked 60 was because it represented the top 1% of home runs in Mets history (and 15 just felt right for postseason). This was fun to do, but it was imperfect. I had one egregious omission. I tended to favor oddities. It’s time to give that project an update. And why not do it as a top 100? The Mets have hit 7,671 regular season home runs. The top 80 represent about the top 1%. And the top 20 postseason home runs get us to an even 100 to celebrate. Come along for the ride. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the reminiscing. Hopefully you’ll find it Amazin’. No. 76 to 80 can be found here 75. Darryl Strawberry’s debut goes bonkers!  (May 6, 1983 vs Reds) Darryl Strawberry’s Mets debut was a HUGE deal. I can remember the Daily News begging him to ...

It seems a little too easy for me to write about former Mets Bobby or Ellis on this day of amore, so I shall look for something a little more challenging. There is another former Met with a name connection to this date and his place in team history is underrecognized. That's expected when your big league career consists of but one major league hit and your only baseball card is put out by "The Wiz." Those are the kind of Mets who are among my favorites- the Mike Glavine's and Ross Jones' of the world. For every superstar, there is someone like this, whose name is meant to be kept alive through the magic of blogs like this. The fellow of whom I speak today is Greg Harts, who I imagine from time to time wonders what might have been, with his three-game major league career. I can fill you in on what was. Here's what I know. * Greg Rudolph Harts was born on April 21, 1950 in Atlanta. He was a scholastic MVP in baseball and football at David Howard High but went un...

So, yesterday at work, I heard a colleague commenting about some piece of baseball minutiae that intrigued him (the Marlins having a good record in series finales since the All-Star Break). His last words on the subject, before moving on to other matters were: "I don't know what that means, but it's an interesting fact." That's kind of how I feel about what I'm going to share with you today, which feels particularly pertinent since I'm still a little groggy from watching last night's Yankees-Red Sox debacle. Be forewarned that this is a rather lengthy tale that begins with the following piece of information. True Metophiles know: 3 of the 5 quickest walk-off wins in Mets history ( asterisk game not included) took place on August 21, and they occurred over three consecutive seasons (1971, 1972 and 1973). We got cutesy a couple months ago and wrote about the quickest of the quick, a 1-hour, 58-minute affair that took place against the Dodgers on August 2...

The writer at " Them Mets " has intrigued me on several occasions, both with the on-site "Kudos Board" (definitely worth checking out) and with a series of queries in the comments section of a couple of different postings on this site. This rather inquisitive person asked a dandy of a question a few days ago: Has there ever been a game that featured a walk-off double play? Now, via my memorization of the Shakespearian work "This Date in New York Mets History" I was able to recall one possibility and sure enough, hit paydirt with the entry listed for June 21, 1973. For those familiar with the " Ball on the Wall " classic against the Pirates later that season, think of this contest as its polar opposite. It came during a period in which the Mets were struggling, finding improbable ways to lose at every turn. The gory details take us to the last of the 9th at Three Rivers Stadium, of a pitchers duel between since-removed Jerry Koosman and Luke Walke...

In their esteemed history, the New York Mets have had three players do what this Big Papi fellow on the Red Sox has done, get walk-off hits in back-to-back games. The first to do it was Jerry Buchek, and I've written about his feats here. http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/07/baseballs-been-jerry-jerry-good-to-me.html The last to do it was Mike Cameron, and I wrote about that accomplishment here http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/11/cameron-yards.html The middle man in this trivia trove is John Milner and I suppose it's time I wrote about him. On August 21 and 22, 1973 Milner got the decisive hit in walk-off wins over the Dodgers. I'm only going to write about the first one today and due to various constraints, I'm going to be rather brief about it. I shall summarize in 118 words, one for every minute it took for that particular game to be played. The quickest walk-off win in regulation time, in Mets history was one in a series of comebacks during the run to the 1...

September 20 marks the 32nd anniversary of one of the most famous walk-off wins in Mets history. During the 1973 pennant race, the turning point came in a Mets-Pirates game at Shea Stadium. As I was not born until 16 months afterwards, I didn't feel I could do the game justice by rewriting the details. So I've brought in a guestwriter today. Barry Federovitch is a sportswriter/copy editor at the Trenton Times. This game has a special meaning for him, and I'll let him explain... Thirty-two years later, Met Nation is beaten down. Another September of Atlanta supremacy, of Yankee backpages. Another fall without the postseason, of autumn fades and bullpen implosions. How long must it go on? Whose soul was sold and for what to suffer this fate? They are called Amazin's, but what does that mean? Is it a joke for a tortured fandom? Static-filled WFAN programs fill depressed nights and then we remember when those Met flags on the pole were earned. They were not just pennants, b...

On a side note...I've changed the settings to allow comments from anyone...thus anyone who wants to make remarks regarding "The Tidrow List" (see prior post) can do so in an easier fashion...back to walk-offs today. Had there been a wild-card race in 1973, the Mets would have been 18 games behind the Cincinnati Reds at this juncture, so as it was, it was best that they set their sites on winning the NL East title. Their predicament was slightly similar to both the current Mets (on the brink of escaping last place) and the present Diamondbacks (11 games under .500 entering the day). August 24, 1973 was a few weeks removed from Tug McGraw's "Ya Gotta Believe!" rallying cry and the Mets had shown flashes of being a better team. They had back-to-back walk-off wins over the Dodgers on August 21-22 (we'll write about those another time) and had developed a penchant for playing in one-run games (they were in the midst of a run of seven straight such contests). ...