Skip to main content

Peachy Minutiae

Random Things I Learned While Trying To Kill Time in My Hotel Room

* If we're gonna talk Mets killers, let's not just talk Jeter and Chipper. Let's talk Dave Kingman
Dave Kingman hit .219 as a Met, but hit .303 against them. In fact, the Mets are responsible for raising his career batting average from .233 (what he hit against teams other than the Mets) to .236.

You may have read or heard this weekend how Derek Jeter has the highest career batting average against the Mets. Well, check out who has the highest slugging percentage. Better yet, look who ranks second.

Highest Slugging Pct vs Mets
All-Time, minimum 200 plate appearances

Dave Kingman .632
Mike Piazza .624
Todd Helton .614
Rico Carty .607
Derek Jeter .598
Willie McCovey .597

* 2 members of the 1986 Mets ended their careers with the 1991 Braves

A real challenging game you can play with your Met-fan friends, or even with yourself is to try to name the final major-league destination for the various members of the 1986 Mets.

The most challenging ones are these 7. Two of these magnificent men closed things out on the 1991 Braves. Each appeared in 14 games. See if you can name them. I'll answer at the end of this piece.

Rafael Santana
Danny Heep
Bob Ojeda
Kevin Mitchell
Roger McDowell
Doug Sisk
Terry Leach

* You can sponsor Tom Glavine's page for $95 on Baseball-Reference.com

I spent $25 on dinner tonight, which is a once-a-decade thing (Pasta Da Pucinella at 1123 Peachtree Walk....chicken, ricotta, spinach in crepes, with a piece of chocolate cheesecake. VERY good). I can't bring myself to fork over the money to insult Glavine when I can do so for free here.

If I was going to sponsor the page, here are some messages I'd consider, if I wasn't fearful of the karmic retribution that came from being nasty :)

- Spy! Spy!
- Now pitching...Lefty Williams
- Christine would have pitched better in Game 162
- My book will be a best-seller before yours will

One other aside: Remember the Mike Myers "Linda Richman Coffee Talk" skits on Saturday Night Live? He/She'd have a field day with this. Peachtree Street (of which there are many variations in Atlanta) is not named after a peachtree ("Discuss!")... at least according to Wikipedia.

To quoth the Wiki, it's named "for a large Creek settlement called Standing Pitch Tree after a tall lone tree. Reportedly, the Creek used trees with fresh pitch (the sap of a pine tree) for solemnizing vows and treaties. The "pitch tree" was corrupted to "peach tree", perhaps by mistake, or because it sounded better to English speakers. While peaches are so widely feral they seem native to northern Georgia and the Atlanta area, and though Georgia is the "Peach State", there was apparently no historical peach tree that led to the name."

* There have been a lot of no-hitters since 1962

I'm hoping I'm not missing any, but my count (I know I'm not missing any by the Mets), Jon Lester threw the 117th no-hitter (9+ innings)to take place in the majors since the Mets began play in 1962. I got to see the last 2 outs. Good for him. It's a nice story.

* For all his goodness the last 2 days, David Wright still has a shortcoming

I think I mentioned the other day how much I like the "Bill James Online" website (An 8-month subscription costs less than my dinner). James has devised a means to evaluate clutch hitting, and though he hasn't published the formula or rules yet, I find it to be trustworthy. Remember that James said on "60 Minutes" that David Wright was his favorite player. Well, take a look at James' evaluation of Wright's clutchness.

David Wright H-AB
Clutch Situations, defined by Bill James

2004 9-20 (.450 BA)
2005 23-71 (.324 BA)
2006 26-85 (.306 BA)
2007 28-71 (.394 BA)
2008 1-14 (.071 BA)<< >> If it's any consolation, he does have 7 walks, but I think James may have jinxed Wright

Maybe Tuesday is the day, maybe against Glavine. Remember that Wright struck a blow for Mets fans everywhere when he homered against Kenny Rogers in the All-Star Game. David's got a pretty good sense for that sort of thing, and a clutch hit against Glavine would be worth 5 clutch hits against any other pitcher at this point in the year.


--------
The answer to the trivia

Final team for 1986 Mets
selected members

Rafael Santana- 1990 Indians
Danny Heep- 1991 Braves
Bob Ojeda- 1994 Yankees
Kevin Mitchell- 1998 Athletics
Roger McDowell- 1996 Orioles
Doug Sisk- 1991 Braves
Terry Leach- 1993 White Sox

Comments

Dave Singer said…
Great read....totally brought back some awful Rico Carty flashbacks of his destroying the Mets.

Have fun today Amigo!
Anonymous said…
Great stuff. Enjoy the games!

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

The 'Duca of Earl (and walk-offs)

If I told you that the Mets had just obtained a guy who is a career .316 hitter with runners in scoring position? How about if I told you that the Mets just traded for a hitter who has consistently ranked among the toughest in baseball to strike out? Or if I mentioned that the Mets just dealt for a player who was selected to the NL All-Star team the last three seasons, with the last honor coming via a vote by his peers? So, although he's on the down side age wise, his throwing arm isn't as good as it used to be, and he doesn't provide much power, there are a lot of good things that Paul Lo Duca brings to the New York Mets. For example: He'll sacrifice his body for the good of the team The Dodgers and Braves squared off on August 23, 2002 and Lo Duca made an impact both on the start and finish of this game. Three pitches after being dusted by Greg Maddux, Lo Duca made him pay with a first-inning home run. The Braves rallied to tie the game, 3-3 in the ninth, but their bu