Skip to main content

Bragging Rights

So I'm reading the newspaper in the local pizza place on Monday and there's a story about former Met Darren Bragg and his post-retirement adventures playing in an adult baseball league in Connecticut.

That which most interested us wasn't referenced until near the very end in the print version, when it mentioned that Bragg, who primarily pitched (he only batted once in the league's regular season) hit a walk-off home run to win a league playoff game within the last few days.

Bragg wasn't a Met long enough to have had many important moments. His stint in 2001 lasted three weeks and 18 games, enough to tally five RBI before being claimed off waivers by the Yankees. His was a journeymans career of 11 seasons and 916 games with nine different teams, not particularly memorable to us, with one exception.

Bragg had one walk-off home run in his major-league career (he told newspapers at the time that it was the only one he'd ever had in his life). It came on July 7, 1999 for the St. Louis Cardinals, a 2-run shot to right field in the bottom of the 9th that spared Darren Oliver the pain of a 1-0 defeat. The significance of this was who it came against: Scott Williamson of the Cincinnati Reds, those same Cincinnati Reds with whom the Mets finished tied at the conclusion of 162 games.

"He's a tough, little dude," teammate Willie McGee told the media about Bragg following the game. "He just comes and plays hard. He's got a good attitude."

No doubt that Bragg's current teammates feel the same way

Those who Bragg about the Mets know...That Darren Bragg was a Met long enough to play in two of their walk-off wins (May 20 against the Dodgers and May 25 against the Marlins)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Best Games I Know: Phillies (Updated)

  The best wins against the Phillies in Mets history …   May 5, 2022 – Mets 8, Phillies 7 The Mets score 7 runs in the 9 th inning to overcome a 7-1 deficit and win in Philadelphia.   April 29, 2022 – Mets 3, Phillies 0 Tylor Megill and 4 Mets relievers combine on the second no-hitter in franchise history.   September 22, 2016 – Mets 9, Phillies 8 (11) The Mets tie it in the 9 th on a Jose Reyes home run and win it in the 11 th on a 3-run home run by Asdrubal Cabrera.   July 17, 2016 - Mets 5, Phillies 0 Jacob deGrom pitches a one-hitter. Only hit is a single by Zach Eflin in the 5 th inning.   August 24, 2015 – Mets 16, Phillies 7 David Wright homers in his first at-bat in more than 4 months. The Mets hit a team-record 8 home runs.   July 5, 2012 – Mets 6, Phillies 5 The Mets score 2 runs with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9 th to beat Jonathan Papelbon. The winning run scores on David Wright’s bloop down the right field line.   August 13

The best Mets ejections I know

When you think of the Mets and famous ejections, I'm guessing you first think of the famous Bobby Valentine mustache game, when after Valentine got tossed, he returned to the dugout in disguise. You know it. You love it. I remember being amused when I asked Bobby V about it while we were working on Baseball Tonight, how he simply said "It worked. We won the game." (true) But the Bobby V mustache game of June 9, 1999 is one of many, many memorable Mets ejection stories. And now thanks to Retrosheet and the magic of Newspapers.com , we have a convenient means for being able to share them. Ever since Retrosheet's David Smith recently announced that the Retrosheet ejection database was posted online , I've been a kid in a candy store. I've organized the data and done some lookups of media coverage around the games that interested me post. Those newspaper accounts fill in a lot of blanks. Without further ado (and with more work to do), here are some of my findings

Walk-Offs in Movies, TV, and Other Places

Note: I'm leaving this post up through the end of the week, a) because I don't have time to pump out something new and b)because I was hoping to build a really good list of entertainment industry walk-offs...so if you're looking for something new, check back on Monday or so... Of course, if there's a major trade or move, I'll adjust and try to post something... In the meantime, click on the "Table of Contents" link as well. It has been updated. SPOILER ALERT: Read at your own risk Caught the ending of "A League of Their Own" on one of the movie channels the other day and it got me to thinking that it would be fun to compile a list of walk-offs from movies, television, and other forms of entertainment. Here's the start, and only the start, as I spent about 30 minutes or so thinking it over Help me fill in the blanks by filling out the comments section. "A League of Their Own"-- Racine beats Rockford for the All-American Girls Profess