Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

I'm a little slow to react as I've been quite busy, but I see that on Wednesday the Mets lost a spring training game against the Red Sox via walk-off grand slam. For the record, this is a fate that has befallen the Mets on six different occasions in regular season play. The culprits have been, for the most part, as unlikely as Boston's wannabe rookie Ed Rogers. Most will probably single out the walk-off grand slams by Bo Diaz (1983, trailing by 3 runs), Tom Herr (1987, set the tone for the season) and Brian Jordan (2001, basically finished off hopes of a miracle finish) as the least Metmorable in team history, but there's another one that stands out in my mind as having caused great anguish. I'm referring to the particularly painful clash with the Phillies on Friday, August 13, 1993. That, for those who forget, was a misery-filled campaign, which hit the lowest of low points on this unlucky day. I was a few weeks away from going off to college for the first time in

OK, I've returned from my hiatus. Let's review what happened while I was away. * Gil Hodges didn't get into the Hall of Fame That's unfortunate, because he deserves it, and I have a feeling what's holding him back is a lack of appreciation from those whose careers began after Hodges' untimely death. Perhaps Tom Seaver would be wise to educate them on facts such as this, gleaned from Hodges' Wikipedia bio: Of the 21 players who had 300+ career home runs at the time of Hodges' retirement, Hodges is the only one not in the Hall of Fame. True Metges know: Hodges had the second walk-off hit in Mets history, just a few hours after the first, a game-winning home run against the Braves, in game 2 of a doubleheader on May 12, 1962. * Spring Training games began, and the Mets got a walk-off win We don't count spring games in our tally, but if we did, we'd probably spend some space singing the praises of Carlos Gomez, who we got to see in one appearance for