Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

It seems reasonably safe to say that the Atlanta Braves will not be winning the NL East this season and their remarkable run of consecutive seasons with division titles will conclude, perhaps by the weekend. It has been 16 years since the phrase "The Braves have been eliminated from winning their division" was uttered and chances are that in 1990, it wasn't, as Atlanta was a rather insignificant speck of dust on the baseball universe back then, finishing the campaign in last place in the NL West. It pleased me to know that on the particular day in early September, I happened to be in the stands with my dad at Shea Stadium, for a game between the Mets and St. Louis Cardinals, which had significant ramifactions in the battle for the NL East lead. This was one of those games in which you were glad to be the team that batted last, particularly considering that the pitching matchup pitted neophyte Julio Valera against Ken Hill. Todd Zeile's second-inning home run gave the

It makes sense, at least to me, that since I wrote about the quickest Mets walk-off wins a few weeks ago, that on Labor Day, it is appropriate to write about the slowest Mets walk-off wins (or rather, the ones they had to work the longest to get). Having already penned a lengthy essay on the true longest walk-off (Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS vs the Braves, 5 hours and 46 minutes), I shall skip that contest for now and limit my lookings to regular-season contests only. In their 44-season history, only twice have the Mets won via walk-off in a regular-season affair that required more than five hours to consumate. The first took place on April 28, 1985, with my best recollection being that I attended a Sunday street fair and listened to the conclusion on the radio. I missed quite a bit that day, apparently, 18 innings worth of baseball as a matter of fact. Though if I had watched just the beginning and ending, I would have been rather satisfied, though I would have missed a lot of minutiae