Mets Walk-Offs And Minutiae

Most people don't like going to the dentist. I've become somewhat desensitized to it, as I've gone through enough painful experiences (4 wisdom teeth and I believe 8 regular teeth pulled in my days as a youngster) to know that a trip for a cleaning, like the one I'm making into NYC this morning, is a walk in the park. My dentist happens to be a baseball fan, which makes things a little easier. An excursion like this gives me the opportunity to ruminate on a Mets comparison. What is the Metsian equivalent to a trip to the dentist? I suppose that for some, the answer could be "Watching Keith Miller try to play centerfield." A couple of days ago I hinted at Miller's lack of skill in the outfield. Today I'll approach it in more of a full-fledged manner. Keith Miller was not a very good centerfielder. There you have it. I don't know why, but my most significant memory of Miller is watching him take a blooper of a 65 mile-per-hour curveball from Bob Knep...

I have been asked if I take "blog-requests" and indeed I do. My first request comes from the folks at " Faith and Fear in Flushing " who wanted to read my take on the walk-off of September 12, 1985. Since one of those bloggers works in the beverage industry, I think he'll appreciate my special twist on this story. First, some context. In 1985 I was 10, so the memories are a little fuzzy, but baseball moments tend to stick in my head, like watching Cesar Cedeno's two-strike home run fly over the left field fence, and John Tudor's whiff of Darryl Strawberry to end a 1-0 10-inning classic Cardinals win the night before the game we're referencing. I believe our seats that night were along the left field line and Cedeno's homer whizzed right past us. That allowed the Cardinals to tie the Mets for first place in the NL East. The night was historically notable because during one half-inning break, the DiamondVision showed us that Pete Rose had broken Ty...

I got into a lengthy discussion with a couple of Mets fans regarding Antonio Perez's no-hitter-ending triple off Pedro Martinez on Sunday. Among the things we wondered were whether Carlos Beltran or Mike Cameron would have caught the ball (For the record, I think Beltran would have and I think Cameron would have jumped and missed it). So then you start playing the mental game...Tommie Agee would have caught it, the oldtimers will say. Len Dykstra would have crashed into the fence going after it. Keith Miller would not have caught it. I don't know whether or not Joe Orsulak would have caught the ball, but it would have been interesting to see him try. I'm not sure why Orsulak's name came to mind (perhaps it had something to do with scanning the list of players in my database as I searched for something to write about), as he was primarily a corner outfielder during a career that began in 1983 and ended in 1997, with a 338-game stop with the Mets from 1993 to 1995. But Or...

So I was sitting at work on Monday night, getting things done, when one of my colleagues at his desk flipped on ESPN Classic. The program that was on was "5 Reasons You Can't Blame Bill Buckner for Losing the 1986 World Series" (I must admit, that's rather catchy). This colleague, a Red Sox fan, watched rather intently, and I peered over his shoulder for a little while. A shot of Dave Henderson's go-ahead home run in the 10th inning of Game 6 appeared on the screen, with a quick cut to Roger Clemens giving high-fives to his teammates in the Mets bullpen. I pointed out to my colleague, that just behind Clemens, there was some grafitti on the bullpen wall. In big red letters, were the spray-painted initials "R.C." I casually mentioned that it was good to see that Roger Clemens was such a class act back then that he (or some other vandal) felt the need to leave his signature at Shea. That, of course, created the bad karma that caused the Red Sox to lose tha...

Sometime around 1979 or 1980, a couple of Mets were working a local baseball clinic and one particular skinny teenager from Brooklyn bugged them the whole time they were there. "I'm gonna make the big leagues some day," the young man insisted. Little did those Mets know then how valuable the kid from Thomas Jefferson High, Shawon Dunston, was going to be to their team someday. In 1982, Dunston was the prize of the Major League Baseball Amateur Draft, selected with the No. 1 pick by the Chicago Cubs. He was in the majors as a shortstop and Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg's double-play partner by 1985 (he reminded those Mets from the clinic what he told them a few years before) and gained a reputation as a bit of a free swinger, whose golden arm was capable of throwing out a batter from anywhere on the infield (Joe Morgan said it was the best he ever saw), and who had potential to be a great hitter if he could cut down on the strikeouts. Prior to the Mets trading Roger McDo...

There was one walk-off I was saving for a special occasion, and much to the dismay of Mets fans, the ideal circumstances for such an entry came up with Sunday's Mets-Dodgers game, in which Pedro Martinez lost his no-hitter and then the ballgame in the eighth inning of a 2-1 loss to the Dodgers. The diehard Mets fan is probably with some similar such games. Ron Darling had a no-hitter against the Phillies for seven innings before the Mets blew a 4-0 lead in horrific fashion. The folks at Faith and Fear in Flushing recalled seven innings of glory for Randy Tate against the Expos in 1975 before he too lost no-hitter and game. The Mets have been on the winning end of blown no-hitters, most notably one by Jim Maloney in 1965 that went 10 innings, before Johnny Lewis homered to beat him in the top of the 11th. The Mets have a history in regards to no-hitters on both ends of the spectrum, of famous breakups and near no-nos (I've been to a few), and while they've been no-hit, (most...

The Dodgers put the Mets to bed at a rather late hour on Friday night/Saturday morning. It might be of consolation to weary-eyed Mets fans today to know that the Mets have given the Dodgers their fair share of sleepless nights. Lets take August 1 and 3, 1977, shall we? Sure, Los Angeles was well ahead in the NL West and the Mets were a hopeless last-place team, but the games fit our purpose of today's entry anyway. That August 1 game was one of those that the team that bats last was destined to win. Even facing future Hall of Famer Don Sutton and company, the Mets were undaunted by deficits of 1-0, 3-1, 6-3, and 7-6. Steve Henderson's two-run home run in the sixth inning evened things at six and ended Sutton's night, and when the Dodgers subsequently left the bases loaded in the seventh, there must have been a feeling in the air that good things were going to happen for the Mets this day. This one went extra frames and the Dodgers pulled ahead in the 11th inning on a home r...

Jim Hickman is the answer to about a million good trivia questions, Mets related and otherwise. For example: Q: Who was the first Mets player to hit for the cycle? Jim Hickman, August 7, 1963 Q: Who hit the last home run at the Polo Grounds? Jim Hickman, September 18, 1963 Q: Who was the first Mets player to hit 3 HR in a game? Jim Hickman, September 3, 1965 Q: Who had the winning walk-off hit in the 1970 All-Star Game, the one most remembered for Pete Rose knocking over catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run? Jim Hickman and then there's this one... Q: Whose walk-off grand slam, one that broke Roger Craig's 18-game losing streak, did this blogger forget to enter into his walk-off database, thus throwing all his data out of whack? Jim Hickman, of course, August 9, 1963 . I'd tell you more, but I'm in the midst of an elusive game of phone tag with Mr. Hickman, who still works in professional baseball, and I don't want to spoil the fun of any future posts. True Me...

Someone mentioned autographs in the comments section regarding the Neil Allen posts, and how Allen was the first autograph he ever got. My first baseball autograph was Dave Kingman. If I remember right, the circumstances were such that they used to hold baseball card shows at Shea Stadium. This was sometime during the spring/summer of 1982/83 and to that point, my collection of baseball cards consisted primarily of packs that my dad used to bring home from his candy store. But apparently the decision was made that we would take up card collecting as a more serious hobby. At this Shea show, each attendee had the chance to get a ticket to get an autograph of a current Met. Ours happened to be for Dave Kingman. Kingman had two stints as a Met and both were rather unpleasant. Yes, he was a giant, who could hit the ball higher and farther than anyone else in the majors, but the price paid for that was an embarassingly low batting average and a lot of strikeouts. Kingman played parts of six ...

Continuing along with the Neil Allen-lovefest, there's a good story behind his first major-league victory. It occurred on May 20, 1979, against the St. Louis Cardinals in a season so pathetic that the highlight video was called "Fireworks" (I'm told by fellow bloggers that this was the first year the Mets had Fireworks Night) and the team had to win its final six games to avoid a 100-loss season. It was not the type of game you'd expect them to win, but then you remember, these are the Mets . The Mets only beat the Cardinals once in nine meetings at Shea that season, and for all intents, they should have gone 0-for-9. What started as a topsy turvy matchup pitting Mets ace Craig Swan against Bob Sykes (later traded for Willie McGee) turned into what appeared to be a Cardinals extra-inning win, after St. Louis scored three times in the top of the 10th to go ahead, 7-4. Allen stranded a pair of baserunners in relief of Dale Murray, who yielded all three runs. The Car...

I was on the No. 7 train coming back from Flushing a couple weeks ago and my uncle Richard told the story of how his son, my cousin Michael, cried the day that the Mets traded Todd Zeile in January, 2002. I don't remember how I reacted the day that my favorite Met was dealt, and I don't have any recollection of why I picked this player as my favorite, but I do have a neat story to tell about him, and I can tie it in to walk-offs, if you'll indulge. Neil Allen (middle name Patrick) was born in Kansas City, Kansas, on January 24, 1958. That part I know by heart, as his birthday was a week before mine (the January 24, part, not 1958). He was drafted in the 11th round in 1976, made his Mets debut in 1979 as a starter but was moved to the bullpen shortly after recall. His chronology of pictures his Topps cards are rather oddly sequenced. His 1980 rookie card shows him in mid-delivery, ball in hand. The 1981 card has him just about to plant his front leg and the back reveals he ...

We had a walk-off grand slam on Sunday in major-league baseball, off the unlikely bat of Cardinals shortstop David Eckstein, helping the Cardinals beat the Braves en route to their inevitable NL Central title. A walk-off grand slam is a quasi-rare occurrence. There were four in the majors last season, and in the typical year, you'll see about that many, though Eckstein's was the first of 2005. A walk-off slam is a lot of fun. Except when you realize that you forgot to list one in your database. As I learned on Sunday, the Mets have had at least 327 walk-off wins, not the previously referenced 326. But that's okay. I never proclaimed to have perfect maintenance of my walk-off list, and I'm glad I found a flaw. It makes for a good story anyway, one that we'll wait until the anniversary of the moment to tell, since that comes up this week. Instead, today we'll tell the tale of the first walk-off grand slam in Mets history, which works out well, since I have a clip ...

I'll put up a real post by monday morning...working on a couple ideas at the moment. In the meantime Ok...I've gotten too many intriguing hits in the last week not to bring this up. Can the following clickers on this site please ID themselves via e-mail ? The 2 people who looked up "Joe Foy" on google The person from Massachusetts who was looking for "Carl Yastrzemski and Al Moran" on google The person from Houston looking for a picture of Charlie Kerfeld The person who logs on regularly from "Premiere Radio" The person who logged on from Random House two days in a row The person who logged on from Google headquarters The person who logged on from "Sterling Mets" and anyone else with an interesting background, or who found me through an odd search engine request...So help me, I'm curious. Sorry to those of you who might see this update on their "My Yahoo" page and think that I wrote something new. We'll have some good st...

For the first 80 or so games of the 1987 season, the Mets were the kind of one-step-forward, one-step-back team that they've been throughout the 2005 season. A combination of injuries, Doc Gooden's drug rehab, and a few hideous losses were the cause, forcing the team to play catch-up into a September in which they came oh-so close to the division lead, but were unable to muster the necessary victories down the stretch (don't worry, I'm not writing about the Terry Pendleton home run). June 7th of that season was Banner Day, which meant a doubleheader, this one with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who hadn't won a game at Shea Stadium since September of 1985. The Mets had taken the first two games of the series and entered with a chance for their first Shea Stadium series sweep of the season. The opener pitted 21-year-old Mets rookie John Mitchell against 38-year-old crusty veteran Rick Reuschel and for six innings, the youngster got the better of things, holding a 1-0 edge i...

In the summer of 1999, in my previous life as a sportswriter for the Trenton (NJ) Times, I wrote a lengthy feature collecting memories from people about their first baseball gloves. The idea was to compile stories from local, everyday baseball fans, and quasi-celebrities such as the mayor of the city. My goal was to get one current major-league player and our beat writer covering the Phillies suggested that I come out and talk to Rico Brogna. My specialty then was scholastic and collegiate sports, so a trip to Veterans Stadium to write was rare, but I was there in time for batting practice, at least until I learned that our beat writer had neglected to get me the day credential he had promised. By the time I talked my way into the ballpark, BP was just about done and I caught Brogna on his way back to the clubhouse. "Rico," I asked. "Do you remember your first baseball glove." His face brightened, but only for a second. "Oh yeah," he said, "but get me...

and boy, it seems like there are a lot of you...Please don't forget to e-mail me and let me know what you think of these essays...

Alrighty, so what light can we shed on walk-off win #326 (since discovered to be at least #327)? Mike Piazza's first walk-off walk with the Mets was the 15th walk-off walk in team history It was the first walk-off walk since Jay Payton drew one against the Marlins on May 24, 2002. It is not the first time Mike Piazza had significant involvement in a walk-off without swinging the bat. Piazza, you may recall, was the batter when Brad Clontz's wild pitch brought in the winning run in Game 162 of the 1999 season, setting up the Mets-Reds one-game playoff. It was the sixth Mets walk-off to end with a 9-8 final score, the third of those to go extra innings and the second to go 11 innings (the other one of those, on August 27, 1997 against the Padres also ended on a walk-off walk (Carlos Baerga), following a ninth inning game-tying home run (Todd Hundley) The last 9-8 Mets walk-off win was on July 10, 1999 against the Yankees. That's the game in which Matt Franco's two-run two...

The Mets have had a lot of pinch-hit success in 2005, including Mike Piazza's pinch-hit walk-off walk on Tuesday night against the Brewers (more on that later in the day). They had a similar amount of success in 1983, though in somewhat of a different manner. 1983 is best remembered as the year that Tom Seaver returned, Keith Hernandez arrived, Jesse Orosco emerged, and manager George Bamberger departed, but statistically speaking, the best thing the last-place, 68-94 squad could point to was that it tied a major-league record with 12 pinch-hit home runs (a mark previously held by the 1957 Reds). The team's pinch-hit batting average was only .226, which pales in comparison to the 2005 squad, but there were a good number of timely hits that show that you have to look beyond the statistics. The 1983 Mets were good (or maybe the better word is mediocre) to the very last batter, who happened to be the best pinch-hitter in Mets history, Rusty Staub. We'll surely be writing more ...

This is a vent that I've been wanting to get off my chest for a little while now, but never really had the appropriate forum to present it. I take the Mets Hall of Fame pretty seriously (almost as seriously as the Baseball Hall of Fame) and it appears that, for the third straight season, there is going to be no inductee. I have a slight quibble with the Mets last Hall of Fame inductee, centerfielder Tommie Agee. My problem isn't with his selection but rather the manner in which he was selected. The Mets have had their own Hall of Fame since 1981, when it inaugurated original owner Joan Payson and original manager Casey Stengel. Since then, a voting panel, which I believe is comprised of team officials and longtime media members has voted in 19 other members. Here's the full list of inductees. 1981- Joan Payson & Casey Stengel 1982- Gil Hodges & George Weiss 1983- Bill Shea & Johnny Murphy 1984- Lindsay Nelson, Bob Murphy & Ralph Kiner 1986- Bud Harrelson ...

We wrote earlier about "The Walk-off that wasn't" and it turns out that game has a counterpart in Mets annals. On May 25, 1979, the Mets hosted the eventual world champion Pittsburgh Pirates in what amounted to a rather bizarre contest in which the Mets invoked the doctrine of fair play in lieu of a potential victory. The 1979 season was a rather ugly one for the Mets and this happened to be a particularly ugly night weather-wise, such that barely more than 6,600 bought a ticket. The weather worked well for the two pitchers, Jim Rooker for the Pirates and Craig Swan for the Mets Rooker allowed only one run on three hits through seven innings and Swan, the staff ace, entered the eighth with a two-hit shutout, but that would fall apart rather abruptly. With a runner on first and two outs, Mike Easler cracked his second home run of the season, both in a pinch-hitting role and both against the Mets (his only two homers of the season), to give the Pirates the lead. They woul...