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 and favorites.
The Totals
Let’s get the basic details out of the way.
By Retrosheet’s account, there have been 382 documented ejections in Mets history, with at least one in each season since 1962. The 2 seasons with the most ejections are 2 of the most dismal in Mets history – 1979 (18) and 1993 (17). The seasons with the fewest are 1968 and 1972 with one each.
The overall leader is Joe Torre with 25. He had 24 of those as a manager and one as a player. Terry Collins and Valentine rank tied for second with 20. Davey Johnson and Jerry Manuel (13 each) round out the top five.
There have been 201 player ejections. The leader among players is Darryl Strawberry with 7, one more than Todd Hundley. The most among pitchers is John Franco with 3.
Here's the player leaderboard:
| Darryl Strawberry | 7 |
| Todd Hundley | 6 |
| Bobby Bonilla | 5 |
| John Stearns | 4 |
| Daniel Murphy | 4 |
| Kevin Elster | 4 |
| Lenny Dykstra | 4 |
| Mike Piazza | 4 |
| Paul Lo Duca | 4 |
| David Wright | 4 |
| Eddie Murray | 4 |
| Jeromy Burnitz | 4 |
There have also been 145 managerial ejections, with Torre leading with those 24. There have also been 34 coach ejections led by original Mets coach Solly Hemus with 4.
The players, coaches and managers add up to 380 ejections … but we told you there have been 382 ejections. We’ll get to the other 2 in a little bit, but we’ll tell you that they’re not the batboy, not the trainer and not the owner.
You probably won’t be surprised by this: The umpire who ejected a Met the most often is Joe West, 14 times. He factors in those two mystery ejections as well.
The first
The first ejection of a Met was coach Hemus on May
6, 1962 against the Phillies, a game the Mets won 7-5 in 12 innings. This was
the game I noted in
my previous piece on 7-5 Mets wins – it went so long that Philadelphia blue
laws didn’t permit Game 2 of the doubleheader to be played.
As the New York Daily News reported Hemus was talking to pitcher Craig Anderson when Anderson came up in the 12th inning. Hall of Fame ump Jocko Conlan broke up the discussion. A few minutes later, the umpires were conferring about the blue-law scenario when Hemus teased them saying “Who’s doing all the talking now?”
Conlan subsequently tossed Hemus.
Hemus was actually ejected from games three times in that inaugural season, the most of any Met. Casey Stengel was tossed only once that year.
The first for a player
The first for a player was more straightforward.
Shortstop Elio Chacon thought he had Maury Wills picked off second base in a
game between the Mets and Dodgers in Los Angeles. Al Barlick called Wills safe
and Chacon argued until Barlick tossed him. Chacon was not around when the game
ended at 2:42 AM eastern, a 17-8 Dodgers “schalumping,” as Daily News writer Dick Young called it.
The most
The Mets record for ejections in a game is five in a
dramatic win over the Cubs on May 11, 1996.
The five ejections all game as the result of one incident. Cubs reliever Terry Adams threw a pitch behind Mets pitcher Pete Harnisch in the 5th inning. Harnisch and catcher Scott Servais had some unpleasant dialogue, resulting in Harnisch throwing a punch.
This led to a 16-minute brawl after which Frank Pulli ejected Harnisch, Todd Hundley, John Franco, and Blas Minor, along with bullpen coach Steve Swisher.
Rico Brogna emerged with a bruised elbow but by game’s end that was of no matter. After Doug Henry blew the save, Brogna won the game with a walk-off home run off Doug Jones in the bottom of the 9th.
The latest (by inning)
The Mets and Cardinals played a ridiculous 25-inning game
on September 11, 1974.
This was another for the #LOLMets books. The Cardinals tied the game on Ken Reitz’s barely-clearing two-run home run off Jerry Koosman with two outs in the ninth inning. Neither team scored again a good while. The game went 7 hours and 4 minutes, featured a couple of great defensive plays by Cardinals first baseman Joe Torre, and included a 21st-inning stretch.
If Mets manager Yogi Berra was stretching, he was doing so in the clubhouse. He got tossed in the 20th inning for kicking dirt on home plate ump Ed Sudol while arguing a catcher’s interference call. He didn’t last as long as the commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, who sat with his wife in the stands until the last out.
The Cardinals won in the 25th when Bake McBride ran through a stop sign and scored all the way from first base on a pickoff attempt. In true Metsian fashion, the throw home by John Milner was dropped by catcher Ron Hodges, preventing any attempt at a tag.
Honorable mention to the infamous Mets-Braves game of July 4, 1985. Darryl Strawberry and Davey Johnson were ejected from that one for arguing balls and strikes in the 17th inning, an inning before Rick Camp’s home run, two innings before the game ended, and (guessing) 45 minutes to an hour before the 4 a.m. fireworks.
Never Throw In The Towel
Here’s one for the #LOLMets crowd and for those who
always worry about having to use an emergency catcher. On July 27, 1967 with the Mets trailing the
Dodgers 3-2 in the seventh inning and runners on the corners with two outs,
manager Wes Westrum went for broke.
He sent Jerry Grote to pinch-run for starting catcher John Sullivan at first base, then pinch-hit another catcher Greg Goossen for the pitcher. Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale struck Goossen out. So Westrum inserted Grote to catch and brought in a new pitcher, removing Goossen from the game.
Guess what happened.
Grote got ejected in the eighth inning for throwing a towel and a shoe in protest of the home plate umpire’s call in the bottom of the seventh. With no catchers left on the roster, a number of players told Westrum they could catch – Tommy Davis, Ron Swoboda and Ed Kranepool. Westrum plugged in Tommie Reynolds to make his pro catching debut(!) because Reynolds had experience catching in the Mets bullpen.
As fate would have it the game went 11 innings and the Los Angeles Times noted that there were only 1,000 fans left at the end. With Dodgers runners on first and third, Jack Fisher’s pitch appeared to tick Bob Bailey’s bat. The ball went past Reynolds to the backstop, allowing the winning run to score (Retrosheet lists it as a passed ball, newspaper accounts describe it as a wild pitch – it’s possible that call was changed).
The Mets were understandably displeased, though given their history it feels like a very apropos kind of defeat. Grote was fined $100 and got an angry phone call from GM Bing Devine.
This was the next day’s Peanuts comic. Appropriate.