Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

I'm going to interrupt my Mets-related chatter to tell a brief story and perhaps it explains my interest in all things walk-off and buzzer beater. Basketball is a hot topic in New York City with the Knicks hiring Larry Brown as their head coach earlier this week, so we'll tell a hoops-related tale for this weekends entry. The date was January 30, 1975 and the Knicks were on the road, taking on the Atlanta Hawks. My mom and dad were big basketball fans during the glory days of New York's basketball franchise. My dad was at Madison Square Garden when Willis Reed limped on to the court for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals and not long after that he met my mom. They got married on November 8, 1970, better known as the day that a New Orleans Saints kicker named Tom Dempsey set an NFL record by kicking a 63-yard field goal to beat the Detroit Lions. My dad's job on Wall Street enabled him easy access to Knicks tickets and I've been told the story on more than one occasion of...

If we're going to talk about violent swings, as we did yesterday, former Met Tony Clark's was one that got my stamp of approval. It probably helped that I had an experience with Clark that shaped my viewpoint. During the 2002 season, I was at Fenway Park, gathering some information for my real job, and it just so happened that Clark had a terrific game. My familiarity with Clark came from his early days in the minors, with the Tigers Double-A affiliate, the Trenton Thunder, where he became famous for his long home runs. The media gathered around his locker after the game, but Clark wasn't there. Maybe he had ducked out, but that seemed unlikely since he played well. The wait got to the point where most of the other Red Sox were on their way out. Finally, Clark arrived fresh from a long shower. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said deliberately to the reporters he had kept waiting, "I would like to apologize." That was a new one for me. A player apologizing to ...

Bringing up the name Jeromy Burnitz in my family and you'll start an interesting debate between me and my dad as to whether Burnitz (who has been Mr. Walk-Off in two of the last three Cubs games,) was a quality Met. I tend to take the opposing view in this debate. I can remember plunking down a quarter for a Burnitz rookie card at a baseball card show sometime in 1993 or 1994 when Burnitz was a touted power prospect. The problem came when I initially saw him play. This author generally doesn't like violence, be it in real life, on television, or in baseball games. Jeromy Burnitz has had the most violent swing in baseball for 13 years. Yes, he played as hard as anyone, and hustle is wonderful, but the results didn't impress me in either his 1993 or 1994 tenure, or his stint with the team in 2002-2003. The high strikeout total (301 with the Mets) cost the team scoring chances in numerous key situations. Burnitz batted .237 with the Mets, and .225 with runners in scoring posit...

For easier access to archived posts...(oldest posts listed first) Links Last updated: Thru November 5, 2006 (will update again in near future, really) And so we begin (Hobie Landrith) Who's the Ross? (Ross Jones) Cliff Notes (Cliff Floyd) Hendu can Do (Steve Henderson) Hendu Part II Name in the News (Esix Snead) Inspired by Charles Schulz (Howard Johnson) Rocky Mountain High (Ron Swoboda) A Father/Son Walk-Off Memory (Dropped Popup, 1986) Dyer Straits for No-No Nolan (Duffy Dyer) Win like Flynn (Doug Flynn) His Old Friend John (John Stephenson) Let's Hear it for Mr. D'Agostino (1969/This Date in NY Mets History) Bring in Yoshii (Mets/Yankees) Walk-off Hype (Gregg Jefferies) Moonlight Mets (Rodney McCray/Kenny Greer) The Walk-Off That Wasn't (Blown umpire call) Kenny Rogers Roaster (Robin Ventura) Fireworks Knight (Ray Knight/1986) Clairvoyance, Prognostication and Walk-Offs (Predictions) Boston Bean Party (Daryl Boston) Don't Call Him Iron Mike (Mike Vail) You Gotta...

In the Mets early days, they had a willingness to bring back some of New York's baseball heroes of the past. Management had a sentimental side for people like Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, and Willie Mays, who were on the down side of their careers, but had something to offer to fans from the good ole' days of city baseball. Let's focus on 1980 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Edwin Snider, better known as "Duke," "The Duke of Flatbush" and "The Silver Fox," today. For those too young to remember him, Snider starred for the Brooklyn Dodgers, particularly during their glory years. From 1953 to 1957 Snider put up unbelievable numbers, including a career high 136 RBI in 1955 when next year finally came for the Dodgers, who beat the Yankees in the World Series. In that five-year span, Snider averaged 41 home runs and 117 RBI, hit better than .300 on three occasions and played a fine defensive centerfield. Basically he was the equivalent of ...

It is fascinating to me how "Google" and other search engines work, and how people go about finding others on the internet. My statcounter hit tracker allows me to find the hows and the wheres regarding visits to this site and it has been an interesting experience to go through that data. Within the last week, this site has been found via internet searches for Chuck Hiller, Ken Boswell, Ed Kranepool, Bruce Berenyi and Rodney McCray (!). I've also been visited by people searching for my longtime friend David Cooper (alas someone looking for one based in Michigan) and even Luke Linder (referenced in my Little League walk-off story...unfortunately, that person hasn't written with the answer in regards to the questions about my final Little League game). I've been visited by folks from Alabaster, Alabama, Oxford Ohio and Castaic, California, three allitterative cities I never would have known the existence of otherwise. And once again, I've been targetted by some...

If the rest of Joe Torre's reign had gone half as well as the first eight games did, perhaps Mets history would be a little different. After a 15-30 start to the 1977 season, and much dissension between players and ownership, Mets management axed manager Joe Frazier and named Torre, still an active player, to his first managerial gig. The 1977 Mets were not a happy bunch and couldn't carry over the late season success of the previous year, other than in Torre's first week on the job. "We're not as as bad a team as the record indicates," Torre said at his first press conference, and for a few happy days, he was right. Torre decided to play an aggressive style of baseball and that seemed to wake the Mets out of their doldrums. They swept a series at Montreal, than took three of four from the defending NL East champion Phillies. The last two wins of that series came on June 5, in a doubleheader sweep, one that included the first of many walk-off wins in Joe Torre...

"I wonder if I should try to steal home?" -- Charlie Brown, pondering the hero/goat possibilities at the pivotal moment in a baseball game. July 24 marked the 35th anniversary of one of the most amazing and also most underappreciated walk-off wins in Mets history, a day when the Mets played 'Willieball' long before it became known by that name in 2005. On that date in 1970, the Mets and Dodgers were knotted at one through nine innings after a pitchers duel between Mets southpaw Jerry Koosman and Dodgers hurler Bill Singer. Koosman allowed six hits and sidestepped his way around six walks to hold the Dodgers to a lone tally, escaping a bases-loaded jam in the eighth inning when Bill Russell was barely thrown out at first, bidding for a two-out hit. Singer, coming off a no-hitter in his previous start, was a little sharper, allowing only five hits and walking three. Gil Hodges was first to go to his bullpen, calling on Tug McGraw, who set the Dodgers down 1-2-3 in the 1...

I am a graduate of Stuyvesant High School (Class of 1993, the first to graduate from the "new building" in Battery Park) and that is a label I sport with pride. Stuyvesant is not only one of the best high schools in New York City, it is one of the finest academic institutions in the country. Stuyvesant has graduated many Nobel Prize winners (forgive me for not knowing their names), TV and movie stars (Tim Robbins, Lucy Liu, and Paul Reiser), sportscasters (Ted Husing, Len Berman, and Sam Rosen) and even baseball executives (Mets president Saul Katz and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria). I really enjoyed my time at Stuyvesant, and I always get a kick out of pulling out my high school yearbook and reading some of the inscriptions from my fellow alums, ones that would have to be explained if I ever showed them to my grandchildren. There's "Yellow Team!!!" (the name of our gym class championship co-ed lacrosse squad, a.k.a. the "Running Slashers")"I'm ...

It is a reminder at this time of the baseball season, when wheeling and dealing is a prominent subject matter, that it's just as easy to make a bad trade as it is to make a good one. The Mets didn't face any sort of major deadline after the 1969 World Series, but they felt confident enough in the play of Tommie Agee, who shined throughout 1969, especially in the postseason, that they had room to maneuver to better themselves by trading a talented young outfield prospect, who had a brief, unimpressive audition at third base, Amos Otis. In December, general manager Johnny Murphy decided to pull the trigger on a deal sending Otis and minor league pitcher Bob Johnson to the Kansas City Royals for third baseman Joe Foy. This seemed like a logical way to fill what had been the Mets most glaring weakness in their brief history, the play of those stationed at the hot corner. Foy was a New York City native who was very happy to be coming home, had been a regular for the 1967 AL champion...

Because I'm feeling like I need to do more to live up to Metstradamus' billing... Three things you should know about Chris Woodward Woodward was a 54th round draft choice by Toronto in 1994 and survived hitting .232 and .224 in his first two minor league seasons. He hit three home runs in a game against Seattle on August 7, 2002 Earlier this season, Willie Randolph described him as "studious" in talking about how Woodward has learned to play the outfield and first base. That's not a word often-used to describe baseball players. Three things you should know about walk-off # 325 The only other Chris to hit a walk-off home run for the Mets (or get any type of walk-off hit) was Chris Jones The only other Mets walk-off to end with a 3-1 score came on September 17, 2002 against the Cubs, on a walk-off home run by Jeromy Burnitz. The Mets have had 5 walk-off two-run home runs against the Padres, but only one walk-off solo home run, and only one walk-off three-run home ru...

Thanks to Metstradamus for bringing some attention to this site (welcome new readers!)...Hope the post below lives up to his billing...Gonna have to do some homework to see if I can do better.

Trips to my aunt's apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, often necessitated pulling a book off the shelves to cure boredom (before she had kids). One paperback in my uncle's library was a history of David Letterman Top-10 lists. I'm not a huge fan of Letterman, but there was some good humor within that tome. Apparently during the mid-80s/early 90s, Letterman developed an obsession with the name Mookie. One Top 10 featured a list of made-up words, and the No. 1 selection that night was Mookie-proof. If ever there was a baseball nickname with which you could have some fun, it is Mookie. Let me show you what I mean. On September 20, 1981, the Mets found themselves playing in an important baseball game with the St. Louis Cardinals. Because of the players strike, the season was Mookied into two halves (after the first half was already concluded). The second half would be composed of 50-or-so games, which represented less than a third of the season. The Mets had a chance to sham thei...

I'm waiting to hear back from a couple former Mets that I've tried to contact, so I'm basically in stall mode today. While I'm biding my time, I figured perhaps I should answer a question or two that I had when I began this project. Today, we'll go with "Who was the worst Mets player to ever get a walk-off hit?" Well, if you've read me previously, you know I'm not going to say "Ross Jones," so I've made the qualifier such that he isn't in the mix. If you look at it from a statistical perspective, the worst single-season batting averge by a Mets position player, with a minimum 0f 100 plate appearances, is .136, by catcher Norm Sherry in 1963. That's convenient, because we just passed the anniversary of Norm Sherry's moment in Mets walk-off history. The 1963 Mets were almost as bad as their predecessors from the season before, only not quite as entertaining. On July 16, they were matched up with a squad of equal mediocrity ...

The NHL is unofficially officially back and I have to imagine that Mets radio broadcaster Howie Rose is grateful for that, because it provides him with employment calling New York Islanders games during the winter months. Rose, for a long time, was the New York Rangers radio voice, splitting duties with Marv Albert. It was in this job that he crafted one of the most famous goal calls in all of sports. If I may digress for a moment and talk hockey (a sport I covered very intensely at the minor league level), Game 7 of the 1994 NHL Eastern Conference Finals is basically the equivalent of Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS and Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS wrapped into five gut-squashing periods. The best word to describe that game would be "Metsian." I watched Game 7 of that series, one in which the winner would go to the Stanley Cup Finals and the loser would go home, with my dad and three good friends, the previously-mentioned David Cooper, Daniel Gordon and Hubert Chen. I am an extraordinari...

Two years ago, I wrote an article for another website, entitled "Weird, Wild Walk-offs." For those curious (perhaps after seeing Mike Stanton's walk-off balk in Friday's Nationals-Brewers game) about walk-off steals of home, walk-off rules violations, and the unfortunate case of the walk-off "lookout," I encourage you to click on the link. True Metsopotamians know... The Mets have never won a game via a walk-off balk, passed ball, or catchers interference. They have won one game apiece via the walk-off hit by pitch , walk-off triple, and walk-off steal of home (we'll document the latter two in the near-future). The most common type of Mets walk-off win is via the single. The current tally is 137 walk-off singles, with three others in which the Mets won via a single/error combination.

The 1969 Mets had not yet reached their turning point on August 4, 1969, when they faced the Atlanta Braves in the finale of a three-game series. It was evident that the Flushing 9 were closing in on something special though, having taken two straight one-run affairs from the NL West leaders to stand at 57-44 and in second place in the NL East. The Mets had succeeded in making their opponents nervous, because they were a squad capable of doing anything. This contest was another example. The Mets were shorthanded, with a couple of pitchers out on military duty, according to newspaper stories, so when the Braves tallied four sixth inning runs against Gary Gentry, extending a 1-0 lead to 5-0, the outcome for the day looked rather bleak. The Mets hadn't managed a hit in the previous three innings against veteran hurler Milt Pappas, and with the Braves needing the game to maintain sole possession of the top spot in their division, it seemed like this one was all but in the books. Or may...

Jeff Reardon's first major-league win occurred under rather bizarre circumstances, ones that defy typical baseball explanation. Let us explain. Reardon was still a product of the Mets farm system when the Mets and Braves wrapped up a three-game series on June 17, 1979, on a yucky day at Shea Stadium. Lefthander Pete Falcone was looking to complete a series sweep by picking up his first triumph as a Met and gave the Mets five innings of one-run ball before the contest was interrupted by rain. There would be a second rain delay, the two lasting a combined two hours. The bad weather put the Mets into a predicament. They needed to catch the last available plane of the day to Houston for their next series, for which they had to be on board at 7:30 p.m. (guess they weren't flying charter) . Even though, once play resumed, the game moved at a rapid pace, the possibility of not finishing the game became an issue. At some point, the two teams reached agreement on a curfew, deciding that...

The Atlanta Braves came to Shea Stadium as the defending NL West champs on July 25, 1983 holding the best record in baseball at 61-37 and having just swept the eventual NL East champion Phillies. The Mets nearly had that record in reverse at 35-61 in a season in which little went right on the field despite the return of Tom Seaver to Flushing and a June trade that netted All-Star first baseman Keith Hernandez. A crowd of a little more than 12,000 watched the Mets struggle against knuckleballing future Hall of Famer Phil Niekro, who left for a pinch-hitter after six innings, with the score tied 1-1. Former Met Mike Jorgensen batted for Niekro and homered to lead off the seventh against Ed Lynch. That gave Joe Torre's Braves a 2-1 lead, which they extended to 4-1 by scoring twice more in the eighth. The only positive to come from that was that Doug Sisk stranded the bases loaded, getting Rafael Ramirez on a groundout to prevent the game from turning into a romp. Donnie Moore set the ...

You may recall that last season, Mike Cameron had walk-off hits against the Tigers in back-to-back games. Such an accomplishment is a rarity in Mets history, having occured on only two occasions previously. One was by John Milner, against the Dodgers, on August 21 and 22, 1973. The other is one that we shall discuss here. September 22, 1967 marked the beginning of the Salty Parker Era for the New York Mets. As eras go, it was a short one. Wes Westrum, Casey Stengel's successor as Mets manager, abruptly resigned the day before, apparently trying to beat management to the punch of firing him. Parker, the third base coach (whose real first name was Francis), was appointed manager for the rest of the season, an 11-game stint, which coincidentally was exactly the same length as his major-league playing career. The initial thought was that Yogi Berra would replace Westrum, but management decided to go for strictly an interim hire. Berra was told he would be considered for the permanent p...