Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Bill Buckner is in the Hall of Fame. For that matter, so is Bill Buckner, the pitcher, with whom the research librarians in the Hall of Fame Library in Cooperstown, made sure I wasn't looking for when I asked for the Buckner file. Every major league player has a file in the Hall of Fame Library, filled with newspaper/magazine clippings, photos, correspondence, signature samples, and all sorts of other goodies. These are of great value to folks such as myself. You have to wear white gloves when handling the contents. When I went to Cooperstown about a week or so ago, near the end of my visit, I stopped in the library. There was only one file I wanted to see, and it took me an hour to sift through everything in the folder. Its contents were fascinating to me. And two nuggets in particular stood out. On April 4, 1981, the New York Daily News headline read "Mets may acquire Cubs' Buckner." Jack Lang quoted a source that the Mets were talking to the Cubs about trading Joe...

It's a good thing those 3-way rumors between the Mets/Dodgers/Red Sox involving Tom Seaver, Don Sutton, and Jim Rice, never came to anything. Otherwise, the Mets may never have won the 1986 World Series. Jim Rice, a legit inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame played a significant role in Mets history, albeit one overlooked because of the actions of others. Rice went 9-for-27 with 6 walks and 6 runs scored in his only World Series appearance. But most significant were his 0 RBI, and the runs he didn't score. The Red Sox scored five runs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. If Rice was a little faster, they might have scored seven. Rice had two chances to add to the Red Sox tally on a day in which he went 0-for-5. His first inning walk put runners on first and second with two outs. On a 1-1 pitch, Dwight Evans launched a double to left center field, plating the first run for Boston. Rice held at third after Len Dykstra played the carom off the fence perfectly. Rich Gedman flied ...

Long Island Ducks manager Gary Carter recently wrote on his blog about how he's sure the Mets would have beaten Mike Scott in Game 7 of the 1986 NLCS , had the Astros beaten the Mets in Game 6. To a man, every member of the 1986 Mets says that. And I have no problem with that, other than that I've heard it a million times. But let me ask this: Would the Mets have won Game 4 of the 1986 World Series if Tom Seaver had been healthy and had started for the Red Sox? Carter had two home runs against Red Sox starter Al Nipper in that Game 4 win(he also hit his 300th homer off Nipper, noted in a subsequent blog entry ). But is there any guarantee he or his teammates would have had the same success against Seaver? Not at all. Take a look at this: Tom Seaver vs Key Members of the1986 Mets Gary Carter: .188 BA, 1 HR, 64 AB Keith Hernandez: .196 BA, 0 HR, 46 AB Mookie Wilson: .267 BA, 4 K, 15 AB Ray Knight: .300 BA, 10 AB Granted, the Tom Seaver of 1986 was on his last legs and wasn'...

Part of an ever-continuing series of stories related to the baseball game played on October 25, 1986. The first 10 games in which Mookie Wilson (and Wally Backman) played for the Mets, the team did not win. Thankfully, management was not discouraged by this in any way. Mookie Wilson had a fine Mets career, one best remembered for one moment about which we can all reminisce fondly. It's my understanding that he's recently had a falling out with the organization, and that's too bad, because there are other stories that Mookie could tell about his Mets career as the (now second) greatest base-stealer in team history. One you won't get to hear is about Mookie's first Mets win. It came on September 14, 1980, and revealing the opponent partly gives away the punchline, so I won't do that just yet. Mookie Wilson had 11 four-hit games, as well as one five-hit game for the Mets, and this was one of his finer performances. He showed off his speed at every opportunity, firs...

Part of a continuing, neverending series, related to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Nineteen dollars and 95 cents provides you the ability to purchase 50 archived newspaper articles within a 30-day span at NewsLibrary.com. Guess what I used it to find? Shocker, as Billy Wagner might say, that I purchased 41 articles published on October 26, 1986. You may recall that I've done this with newspaper databases before, but I found the archives at NewsLibrary to have a little more variety to them. I was able to span the Boston Globe, get my curiosity satisfied by the Philadelphia Inquirer, and breeze through the Torrance (Calif.) Breeze among others. They fill 77 pages of 12-point Times New Roman type in my word processor, and without indented paragraphs, they're going to be a pain in the arse to sift through. But I've begun to peruse. Here are some of my favorite sentences. "Bill Buckner has bone spurs on his ankles, an Achilles stretched like linguini and feet as sore as ...

Part of a continuing series of articles related to the events of October 25, 1986. Bill Buckner played in 2,541 games, combining regular season, postseason, and All-Star Games. Two of them ended with him making an error. This is the story of the other one. It took place on July 13, 1985 at the Kingdome in Seattle, and I'm guessing that not many people remember it, since it was fairly inconsequential to the pennant race. Brian Snyder might be the only one. It was a game in which he earned his only big league win, one that snapped his team's six-game losing streak. The pitching matchup was Bruce Hurst against Matt Young, a battle of lefties, and Alvin Davis struck the first blow against Hurst with a second-inning homer to give the Mariners a 1-0 lead. Seattle added to that advantage when future Buckner teammate Spike Owen doubled home a run in the third. Boston answered with a run in the fourth, and then another in the fifth on Dwight Evans' 10th home run of the season. Tied ...

Appropos of nothing, other than that I haven't written one of these in awhile. Part of our continuing series regarding Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Other stories in the series can be found here: http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/search/label/Bill%20Buckner I just noticed that if you include the World Series in your tally, Bill Buckner played in 162 "other" games against the Mets. That is the equivalent of a full major league season. So how did he fare? Among our discoveries: * Bill Buckner had 174 hits in 623 at-bats in those "other" 162 games against the Mets, good for a .279 batting average. That's about 10 points below what he normally hit, so the Mets did a good job of keeping him in check. * Bill Buckner had 8 home runs and 55 RBI in those games against the Mets. He played at least 140 games against 9 other teams. The Mets held him to fewer RBI than any of those teams. * Of the 8 home runs that Buckner hit against the Mets, 7 gave his team the lead. ...

I haven't written one of these essays, devoted to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series in quite some time, partly due to the many stories I've already penned on that game, and partly because I've found the conjuring of trivia quizzes to be more entertaining and less time-consuming. I was in the midst of preparing another trivia quiz when I came upon a piece of information that just had to be shared. I'm a little puzzled that I hadn't previously read about it, so if someone is aware of a source for more information on this matter, please share it. September 21, 1969, is a significant day in Mets history in a rather peripheral sort of way, far beyond the Mets recording a doubleheader sweep against the Pirates, three days before clinching the NL East. It marks the major-league debut of one William Joseph Buckner for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The action for that day took place in San Francisco, appropros for the moment since the teams of those two cities meet this week (albei...

Among the sightings at Shea Stadium on Tuesday were a fan in a Joe McEwing jersey, what I'm guessing was the father of two children wearing a t-shirt that read "I love my (balls)," a teen sporting a "Please hold this beer while I f*** your girlfriend" t-shirt, and a brawl between a mother-daughter combo more fit for Jerry Springer than the returning No. 7 train. Other than the McEwing jersey, I found the other sites rather discomforting, particularly that of baseball clearing fence in the 11th inning. Tuesday was the first time all season that the Mets were tied entering the 9th inning and failed to win, basically meaning that it was the first time they'd had an opportunity for a walk-off in which they failed to convert. It was an odd night, one in which I'm embarassed to admit that I got stumped by a between-innings trivia question for which I should have known the answer, and I'll post it here as a public service to those who may also be uninformed...

Part of a continuing series of essays within this blog related to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series There was a brief discussion the other day, when I told the story of a Mets loss on the night of Richard Nixon's resignation announcement, of other significant events to take place on the date of momentous Mets victories. Loyal reader Barry Federovitch pointed out that the famous "Ball on the Wall" victory over the Pirates took place the same day as the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Fellow blogger Greg from "Faith and Fear in Flushing" noted how Matt Franco's game-winning hit against Mariano Rivera in 1999 took place the same day of Brandi Chastain's goal that gave the United States women's soccer team victory in the championship game of the World Cup. While I haven't been able to find many events of historical or sporting significance, I did come across one of particular importance to some. If...

So I'm eavesdropping on a conversation between two people the other day, one famous and one not, and the celebrity says to the non-celeb that the greatest relief of his career is that he never had a "Bill Buckner moment." But others have. I did a number of googlings to try to find references and wasn't particularly satisfied when I searched for "Bill Buckner moment" or "Bucknerian." The best results came from trying to find Bill Buckner equivalents, ie: "The Bill Buckner of..." Here's what I found. *When 1996 Team USA Olympic softball player Dani Tyler was called out for failing to touch home plate after hitting a home run, Peter King's story in Sports Illustrated said "She may go down as the Bill Buckner of fast-pitch softball." * Television reporter Andrew Gilligan has been called "The Bill Buckner of the BBC" due to some unsual blunder of which I'm not aware. * A Massachusetts News headline regarding go...

The hubbub surrounding Tom Glavine's re-signing failed to intrigue me enough to cure my case of blogger's block and in search of inspiration, I went to my freshly purchased 1986 World Series DVD set. My viewing of choice was Game 7 and the "Extras" bonus collection that adds some fresh perspective to the memories. The most entertaining viewing on the latter came in the form of a discussion between Mike Piazza and Mookie Wilson in which Piazza asks Mookie just what it was like to be a part of the most memorable moment in Mets history. Mookie recounts the usual stories and mentions that he and Buckner chat about their most significant encounter and tells how Buckner has made good money by turning a negative situation into a positive one. I wonder if they ever got around to discussing their come-togethers in Game 7, lesser appreciated than that in Game 6, but each bearing some significance on the final outcome. For those who forget, the first came in the second inning, a...

So I had this piece in mind, a multi-thousand word reminiscence of the 2006 season and its most memorable moments. It was going to be called "Coming Full Circle," referencing how a sportswriting colleague of mine talked about circling all the meaningful games that your team plays during a season, so that it's easy at the end of the year to go back and refresh your memory. Then reality, in the form of work and other obligations set in. Thankfully, a fellow blogger has penned a work of a similar nature. I strongly recommend you check it out, as it will totally be worth your time. Part I is here and I imagine part II is forthcoming http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/11/2/2467800.html and when you're done with that, check out a few more links to some of the 20th anniversary stories regarding the game of October 25, 1986. Each offers its own unique, worthwhile perspective. Enjoy! http://www.boston.com/sports/nesn/wilbur/sports_blog/blog/2006/10/25/an_er...

Continuing our everlasting series on the events of October 25, 1986... Michael Tucker got hurt as a young player creating his own walk-off scenario but perhaps a far more dangerous proposition for a player is celebrating the actual walk-off moment itself. Though the post walk-off scenario is certainly fun and entertaining, caution must be exercised to prevent accident and injury. Consider the Mets mini-pummeling of Jose Valentin a few weeks ago, which was actually mild in comparison to what the Dodgers did to Cookie Lavagetto after his walk-off hit broke up a no-hitter and won a World Series game back in 1947. "They are beatin' him to pieces," said Red Barber on the radio broadcast. "It's taken a police escort to get Lavagetto away from the Dodgers." Or consider the story of current Norfolk Tide Tagg Bozied . In July of 2004, while playing for the Padres Triple-A squad, Bozied hit a walk-off grand slam. When the team converged on Bozied, as he jumped on home...

* From a story in the October 28, 1986 edition of the Boston Globe , the day after the World Series concluded...really! It came from a notes column co-written by Dan Shaughnessy, Jackie MacMullan and Larry Whiteside. "Trade talks at the World Series are at best preliminary, but one source says the Red Sox have now added backup first baseman Danny Heep to the deal in which outfielder Mookie Wilson would come to Boston...The Mets want a middle reliever in return and have their sights on Bob Stanley."

I'm sure I won't be the first and I likely won't be the last to tell you that Roger Clemens is pitching today...on 6/6/06...how appropriate! It came to my attention that Thursday marks 25 years to the day that the Mets selected that particular righthander, out of Spring Woods High, with the 288th overall pick in the 12th round of MLB's Amateur Draft. I do not begrudge him for choosing not to sign. He told the New York Times in 1986 that Mets manager Joe Torre and pitching coach Bob Gibson had watched him pitch in 1981 and neither came oaway particularly impressed. That apparently was a turn-off and enough reason to walk-off. However, there are plenty of reasons to dislike Roger Clemens and I could easily list 100 why, but I'll simply choose to discuss one. There is strong reason to believe that the man is a vandal. I harken back to October 25, 1986, the sixth game of the World Series, which I do every so often in this space, and a particular camera shot not long aft...

Part of a continuing series of posts related to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. I don't remember if it was during the initial viewing or one of the many reruns of the events of October 25, that my dad and I became rather puzzled by the judgement of NBC's broadcast crew. "The Miller Lite Player of the Game (portrayed humorously in the " RBI Baseball Reenactment of Game 6 ") is Marty Barrett," Vin Scully declared with two outs, nobody on, and Gary Carter up in the last of the 10th inning. Scully proceeded to run down Barrett's credentials- three singles, two walks, two RBI, and "handled everything hit his way" (one putout, four assists). Several issues come into play here. One is that the game was not over yet, but that one's so obvious that it goes without saying? The other issue is this: By citing Barrett aren't you slighting the man who, had the Red Sox won, would have had the biggest hit in franchise history? It's not like Dave H...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8547285560243429315&q=RBI+baseball&pl=true The above is a link to an amazingly done reenactment of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 WS, using the video game RBI baseball. I suggest you check it out while waiting for my next posting. I'm planning my own version, using sock puppets...

Continuing our series of essays tying in various aspects related to Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. We've talked in the past about the signs indicating that its your year and how so many events foreshadowed the end result for the 1986 New York Mets, but those same mysterious powers were at work for a couple of other baseball teams that season. That's what I like so much about that particular season. My fellow bloggers over at Faith and Fear in Flushing are relating, on a weekly basis, their favorite thoughts about that campaign and I encourage you to indulge them every Friday. I don't know what their topic of choice is this week, but I'm going to write about one of my favorite 1986 games, one that I've never even seen, other than in boxscore form. If you thought the Mets comeback on October 25, 1986 was improbable, fasten your seatbelts, as a wise man once said, for one that surpasses it in terms of amazingness and includes a couple of Metsian blasts from the past....

Continuing along our series related to the baseball game between the Mets and Red Sox that took place on October 25, 1986. Sometime around 3 a.m., after 482 pitches of a wacky Game 3 of the World Series, I asked a couple of folks I knew which game they considered to be crazier- the one which they had just viewed on October 25, 2005, or the one that they had the chance to view on that date 19 years previous. Both selected the one from the past, which pleased me, but it also reminded me of a blog post I wanted to write, about another baseball game that took place on an October 25. The game of baseball was so much different in 1911 than it is today that it's staggering to think this was the same sport. Ninety four years ago there were only 16 teams, and as basketball was played in its infancy on the ground instead of the air, so too was baseball. No American League club hit more than 35 home runs. The National League had the power hitters. The Phillies slugged a major-league best 60 l...