Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Traffic on this blog tends to be weakest during weekends. So, rather than do a writeup of a Mets walk-off win, I once again treat you to the second part in a series of ramblings on how walk-offs have affected my life. Regular blog programming should resume Monday... One of the key moments in my life as a baseball fan came for my 13th birthday, when, as a bar mitzvah gift, my cousins, John and Deanna bought me a Laser 128 computer. A Laser 128, in case you didn't know, was a cheap Apple clone (affordably priced at $399) that was perfectly sufficient at the time for someone who didn't know any better. In other words, it was great for game playing. To that point, I had grown up on Strat-O-Matic Baseball, an excellent baseball simulation, that taught me about the likes of big-eared Tigers pitcher Don Mossi (whom I had to know more about...Mossi came within 2 outs of a Strat perfect game before 1983-84 Mariners catcher Orlando Mercado broke it up with a triple) and more importantly

Got an e-mail yesterday from a fellow fan, about 20 minutes after the Mets-Nationals game ended asking "Can't they ever do anything the easy way???" in reference to the Flushing 9. Must I remind you that it wouldn't be as much fun if they did. I harken back to a Mets-Phillies game on May 23, 1999, one that this e-mailer and I declined to attend because the presumption of a rainout would make my three-hour commute into New York not worthwhile. There was a delay, in fact, one that lasted nearly two hours prior to first pitch, and it looked like we made a wise decision, as the Phillies scored twice in the third, once in the fourth, and tacked on an insurance run in the seventh for a 4-0 edge. The pitcher that day for the Phillies has had his name in the news the last couple of days. Turns out that Curt Schilling wants to be the Red Sox closer, at least for the next few weeks, much to the chagrin of a couple of his teammates. Schilling entered this particular game with a

I got into a discussion at work on Wednesday about the idea of leaving a baseball game early. Let me say that I am EXTREMELY opposed to ever doing so (Would you walk out in the middle of a Broadway show???), but have, on two occasions missed a walk-off due to early departure. In one case, staging my own walk-off was justified. It was a game that bore little significance to the standings, and I had to be at work by a certain hour. I was already on pace to be an hour late, and didn't think it appropriate to risk job status for my Mets fanhood. I have a harder time with my other memory of walking-off prior to a walk-off, because the reasons for which were never explained to me. It was June 4, 1988 a Saturday afternoon, and my Uncle Zachary and Aunt Carol took me and my friend David Cooper to see the Mets take on the Cubs. Aunt Carol used to get great seats through the company she worked for, and we were sitting in box seats, guessing maybe 15 rows off the field, on the left field line

One of the fun things about this project is going through my visitor log each day on statcounter, to see where people are coming from geographically, how they got to my site (webographically?), and how long they're staying. With that in mind... If you link from overseas, e-mail me ...I'd love to hear from the folks in South Korea, Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the Phillipines, and find out why you're reading my site. If you got to me via "Next blog" on "Blogger," at least this blog isn't an advertisement for a real estate firm To the person looking for the definition of "walk-off home run" try your Google search again without the word "define" and lastly, to the person who found my site on the 9th page of their google search for "David Wright dating girlfriend baseball," good luck to you... True Metwhackers know... The combination of "Katie Holmes" and "Rodney McCray&qu

It has been a regular complaint of New York Yankees fans that Alex Rodriguez doesn't get enough meaningful RBI to justify his financial compensation. Carlos Beltran has gotten booed (in Saturday's case, for lack of hustle running out a popup, rightfully so) for his lack of production in the first three months of what will be a long Flushing tenure. New York is a city of great expectations, and those who fail to fulfill them immediately(read Bobby Bonilla, Roberto Alomar and Kaz Matsui) get swallowed up by the waves of negativity. Those who can survive the initial barrage tend to do alright. Beltran's situation reminds me a little bit of what it was like for one of his current teammates, Mike Piazza, after he was traded to the Mets in May, 1998. In Piazza's first 27 games as a Met, he had hits in 22, and was batting .364. However, he only managed three home runs and 10 RBI and was not producing in big spots at the rate at which fans thought he should. The result of this

Basically I'm looking for a little filler material here, because I plan to write about another Mets walk-off that involves Mike Piazza, but I don't want to be accused of writing too often about recent events rather than nostalgia. That prompted a "What looks interesting here?" search through my database, and "This Date in New York Mets History" and the walk-off win that caught my eye took place on September 16, 1975. It was a 4-3, 18-inning triumph, tied in the ninth and won in the 18th, by the same man, outfielder Del Unser. Unser capped a two-out rally in the ninth with an RBI single to even the score, than won the contest nine innings later by walking on four pitches with the bases loaded and two outs. Other than that it was the year I was born, 1975 doesn't stand out in any particular way for the Mets, save for one or two statistical measurements. One was that for a stretch of three weeks or so, a rookie outfielder named Mike Vail "went DiMaggio

Belated congratulations to Houston Astros do-everything man, Craig Biggio, for surpassing Don Baylor as the modern record-holder for most times hit by a pitch. It is a mark that is painful to think about, but admirable because it takes a heck of a lot of courage to stand in at home plate and get plunked 268 times for the good of your team. I have a feeling that Daryl Boston is aware of that because he is the holder of a significant Mets distinction. To this point, he is the only player in team history to win a game via a walk-off hit-by pitch. It took Boston more than 500 big league games and 1500 plate appearances before he was tagged for the first time, in the second game of a Mets doubleheader with the Cubs, on June 13, 1990, by pitcher Mike Harkey. Boston made up for years of lost time by getting drilled again, two days later, against the Pirates. Those are not the HBPs of which we speak. Boston would not get zinged again until nearly two years later (April 17, 1992) and it is the