Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

I am a graduate of Stuyvesant High School (Class of 1993, the first to graduate from the "new building" in Battery Park) and that is a label I sport with pride. Stuyvesant is not only one of the best high schools in New York City, it is one of the finest academic institutions in the country. Stuyvesant has graduated many Nobel Prize winners (forgive me for not knowing their names), TV and movie stars (Tim Robbins, Lucy Liu, and Paul Reiser), sportscasters (Ted Husing, Len Berman, and Sam Rosen) and even baseball executives (Mets president Saul Katz and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria). I really enjoyed my time at Stuyvesant, and I always get a kick out of pulling out my high school yearbook and reading some of the inscriptions from my fellow alums, ones that would have to be explained if I ever showed them to my grandchildren. There's "Yellow Team!!!" (the name of our gym class championship co-ed lacrosse squad, a.k.a. the "Running Slashers")"I'm

It is a reminder at this time of the baseball season, when wheeling and dealing is a prominent subject matter, that it's just as easy to make a bad trade as it is to make a good one. The Mets didn't face any sort of major deadline after the 1969 World Series, but they felt confident enough in the play of Tommie Agee, who shined throughout 1969, especially in the postseason, that they had room to maneuver to better themselves by trading a talented young outfield prospect, who had a brief, unimpressive audition at third base, Amos Otis. In December, general manager Johnny Murphy decided to pull the trigger on a deal sending Otis and minor league pitcher Bob Johnson to the Kansas City Royals for third baseman Joe Foy. This seemed like a logical way to fill what had been the Mets most glaring weakness in their brief history, the play of those stationed at the hot corner. Foy was a New York City native who was very happy to be coming home, had been a regular for the 1967 AL champion

Because I'm feeling like I need to do more to live up to Metstradamus' billing... Three things you should know about Chris Woodward Woodward was a 54th round draft choice by Toronto in 1994 and survived hitting .232 and .224 in his first two minor league seasons. He hit three home runs in a game against Seattle on August 7, 2002 Earlier this season, Willie Randolph described him as "studious" in talking about how Woodward has learned to play the outfield and first base. That's not a word often-used to describe baseball players. Three things you should know about walk-off # 325 The only other Chris to hit a walk-off home run for the Mets (or get any type of walk-off hit) was Chris Jones The only other Mets walk-off to end with a 3-1 score came on September 17, 2002 against the Cubs, on a walk-off home run by Jeromy Burnitz. The Mets have had 5 walk-off two-run home runs against the Padres, but only one walk-off solo home run, and only one walk-off three-run home ru

Thanks to Metstradamus for bringing some attention to this site (welcome new readers!)...Hope the post below lives up to his billing...Gonna have to do some homework to see if I can do better.

Trips to my aunt's apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, often necessitated pulling a book off the shelves to cure boredom (before she had kids). One paperback in my uncle's library was a history of David Letterman Top-10 lists. I'm not a huge fan of Letterman, but there was some good humor within that tome. Apparently during the mid-80s/early 90s, Letterman developed an obsession with the name Mookie. One Top 10 featured a list of made-up words, and the No. 1 selection that night was Mookie-proof. If ever there was a baseball nickname with which you could have some fun, it is Mookie. Let me show you what I mean. On September 20, 1981, the Mets found themselves playing in an important baseball game with the St. Louis Cardinals. Because of the players strike, the season was Mookied into two halves (after the first half was already concluded). The second half would be composed of 50-or-so games, which represented less than a third of the season. The Mets had a chance to sham thei

I'm waiting to hear back from a couple former Mets that I've tried to contact, so I'm basically in stall mode today. While I'm biding my time, I figured perhaps I should answer a question or two that I had when I began this project. Today, we'll go with "Who was the worst Mets player to ever get a walk-off hit?" Well, if you've read me previously, you know I'm not going to say "Ross Jones," so I've made the qualifier such that he isn't in the mix. If you look at it from a statistical perspective, the worst single-season batting averge by a Mets position player, with a minimum 0f 100 plate appearances, is .136, by catcher Norm Sherry in 1963. That's convenient, because we just passed the anniversary of Norm Sherry's moment in Mets walk-off history. The 1963 Mets were almost as bad as their predecessors from the season before, only not quite as entertaining. On July 16, they were matched up with a squad of equal mediocrity

The NHL is unofficially officially back and I have to imagine that Mets radio broadcaster Howie Rose is grateful for that, because it provides him with employment calling New York Islanders games during the winter months. Rose, for a long time, was the New York Rangers radio voice, splitting duties with Marv Albert. It was in this job that he crafted one of the most famous goal calls in all of sports. If I may digress for a moment and talk hockey (a sport I covered very intensely at the minor league level), Game 7 of the 1994 NHL Eastern Conference Finals is basically the equivalent of Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS and Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS wrapped into five gut-squashing periods. The best word to describe that game would be "Metsian." I watched Game 7 of that series, one in which the winner would go to the Stanley Cup Finals and the loser would go home, with my dad and three good friends, the previously-mentioned David Cooper, Daniel Gordon and Hubert Chen. I am an extraordinari