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A Long Knight's Journey Into Day

Before Albert Pujols, the last visiting player to hit a game-winning HR at Shea Stadium in the 14th inning or later was Rondell White, for the 1997 Expos. That game, on September 12, was one in which the Mets also didn't hit with runners in scoring position (1-for-13) and left plenty on base (16).

Jerry Manuel would do well to know about that game, since White is Manuel's son-in-law. The good news for Mets fans is that the next day produced one of the great comebacks in Mets history, a rally from 6-0 down in the 9th, tying on Carl Everett's "brand new shiny" grand slam and winning on Bernard Gilkey's walk-off home run (we've written about that before).

Unrelated, both to Manuel, and to that series of notes, was the performance of Cardinals outfielder Skip Schumaker, who joins Bill Madlock (1975) and Willie Davis (1973) as the only players to get 6 hits in a game against the Mets. Funny thing though- the Mets won those other two games.

The most recent, amazingly, was 33 years to the day- July 26, 1975. The Mets survived a lot that day. Besides Madlock's 6-hit performance, the Mets also withstood a game-tying ninth-inning homer from future Met Jerry Morales. They blew an early 5-1 lead, but prevailed because RBI hits by Joe Torre and Felix Millan in the 10th inning gave them the edge needed to offset Madlock's RBI hit in the 10th.

True Mets fans still in the ballpark when the clock struck MidKnight know...The latest game-winning home run by an opposing player at Shea Stadium came from Giants infielder Jim Davenport, whose 17th inning home run beat the Mets at Shea on May 13, 1966.

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