Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

It's a weird world when Alyssa Milano sticks around at a Mets-Yankees game longer than Tom Seaver, who walked-off after just 2 1/2 innings, including a rather odd stint in the WB 11 broadcast booth in which he seemed more interested in talking wine than baseball. That's alright though because the Mets needed a little magic to show who was boss on Friday and got it in the form of yet another walk-off win. For the record, and for Mr. Seaver, who noted that he still enjoys reading game recaps and boxscores, we offer up the following... * Mets walk-off win #335 was their fourth against the Yankees and second against Mariano Rivera (the other was July 10, 1999, in the game in which Matt Franco got the winning two-run pinch-hit in the 9th inning). * It's the 5th walk-off win this season and the 4th this month. The last time the Mets had four walk-off wins in a month was October of 1999, but we cheat a bit here since we include postseason games. * The last time the Mets had four r

Regardless of whether it's spring training, a Mayor's Trophy exhibition, a regular season interleague game, or a Subway Series matchup, every game against the Yankees is significant. The proof of that comes from page 470 of this year's media guide, which lists the Flushing 9's all-time record against the Bronx Bombers as 63-92-1 (the tie came in a Mayor's Trophy match) and offers a thorough breakdown of the win-loss mark. The first meeting was significant enough that it warranted nine lines of mention in "The Complete Year-by-Year N.Y. Mets Fan's Almanac" from which we learned it deserves mention on this site. It was March 22, 1962 that New York's rivals first met in an exhibition game at Al Lang Field in St. Petersburg, where more than 6,000 came to watch. The Mets treated this contest more seriously than the Yankees, as both the almanac and newspaper stories indicate how manager Casey Stengel and president George Weiss was angry at their former e

From The Parenting Casebook, a how-to manual on child discipline by the author of Metswalkoffs and Other Minutiae Rule 18, Section II The Walk-0ff Exception Doug Flutie's retirement announcement on Monday reminded me of November 23, 1984, a Friday afternoon in which this nine-year-old caught the end of Boston College vs Miami and saw the dramatic walk-off touchdown pass to Gerald Phelan that concluded the contest. I was only 9 years old but knew from the way the play was celebrated that I had just seen something significant and I relayed the information to my father rather excitedly (considering I had no rooting interest) when he got home later that day. "That's great" was his reply, "but you weren't supposed to be watching television today." In fact I wasn't. I had committed some inane offense in the previous 48 hours or so for which my punishment was a TV-free day. Normally, such a rules violation would lead to further discipline, but if I recall c

I mentioned recently that I didn't know whether 19 men left on base was some sort of a Mets walk-off record (that's the total they had in their marathon win over the Pirates a week and a half ago). Well, this morning, I happened to stumble upon notice of another such contest in which the Mets stranded 19, and by happenstance, it took place 44 years ago this May 15. I imagine the frustration of Mets fans over the teams recent play is rather significant and perhaps it matches that of Lou Klein, the skipper of the day in the "College of Coaches" system, who was running things that day for the Cubs in this ninth-place showdown. The Cubs led this game 1-0, 4-1 (against first-time Mets starter Vinegar Bend Mizell) and 5-4 but did not win it. The Mets did and did so in rather ugly fashion, as the game stories of the day explained. The first four runs came home on a wild pitch, a sacrifice fly, an infield single that barely reached the pitcher, and a bad-hop single by Gus Bel