April 2007

Leaving aside for a second the idiotic debate over whether Wright’s “around the corner” hitting streak should “count”– the correct answer is, of course it should – and the larger question as to whether random counting records like this are important – they’re not – it does provide an example to muse briefly on the men who set the records.

It’s easy to associate David Wright with Hubie Brooks. Both were organization-bred third basemen wearing single-digit uniform numbers. And at the time they set hitting streaks each would be considered “answers” for the organization’s storied struggle to find third basemen. That story today is more like a legend seeing as since Brooks (Johnson, Ventura, Wright) third base has been a position of strength for the Mets.

he Mets’ first in-season personnel move of 2007 comes as no suprise: Mike Pelfrey 34 has been recalled from St. Lucie to take over the vacant 5th starter role while outfielder Lastings “I’ve Got to Get My Grown Man On” Milledge 44 reports to AAA New Orleans.

Worthless Bonus Fact: The Mets debuted Nos. 34 and 44 on the same memorable day, April 28, 1962.

That afternoon, in the Polo Grounds, the Mets were trailing 5-1 to the Phillies when righthander Dave Hillman took the mound for the Mets wearing 34 for the first time, and promptly surrendered a home run to the first batter he faced, Don Demeter. Hillman, a former Cubs, Red Sox and Reds pitcher, had been purchased by the Mets prior to the homestand a day before as part of their very first series of in-season roster moves. Along with Hillman was catcher Harry Chiti, famously acquired from Cleveland for a player to be named — himself, as things turned out, and Sammy Taylor, a disgruntled former Cub catcher acquired in a trade for outfielder Bobby Gene Smith. Taylor by the way was dressed in Smith’s former No. 16, making that trade the first Uni-Swap in Mets history. In addition to Smith, gone were the ancient back-up battery of former New York heroes Clem Labine 41 and Joe Ginsberg 12, who were released.

Now back to the game: Chiti, christening the No. 44 jersey, entered the in the 7th inning as a defensive replacement for Chris Cannizzaro, who had been pinch-run for while the Mets hit three home runs (by Frank Thomas, Charlie Neal and Gil Hodges) and scored an astonishing 6 runs in the bottom of the sixth, taking Hillman off the hook and giving the Mets a 7-6 lead. (Hillman was pinch-hit for that inning by Taylor, who walked and was himself pinch-run for. Casey loved that kinda stuff).

The Mets hung on for an 8-6 win, only their second of the year against 12 losses. Though Hillman was technically the pitcher of record at the time the Mets took the lead, credit for the win went to Roger Craig 38, who pitched three scoreless innings of relief to nail it down.

As Pelfrey prepares to meet the Nationals tonight, and Milledge returns to the place he started, here’s to happy first transactions.

Heavy Into Jeff: The Jeff McKnight Story

No player in Mets history has worn as many uniform numbers in the same career as Jeff McKnight. Over an sporadic four-year career with the Mets, the bespectectacled ulilityman suited up in an amazin' five different uniform numbers. His story, naturally, is one of persistence and versatility.

Jefferson Alan McKnight had a long journey into Met history. Born on Feb. 18, 1963 in Conway, Ark., McKnight, the switch-hitting son of former Cubs' utilityman Jim McKnight, was selected by the Mets in the second round of the January, 1983 free-agent draft. He spent the next six-and-a-half years in the Met farm system, developing into the kind of player who does many things adequately and none particularly well. McKnight could -- and did -- play all 9 positions as a minor leaguer, yet he had neither the power, nor the speed, nor the fielding skill to project as a big league starter. Never even invited to Major League camp, McKnight by 1987 had settled into a reserve role for AAA Tidewater and it appeared his chances for success in the big leagues were slim.

Then came 1989. The Mets' bid to repeat as Eastern Division champions would run off the tracks early, when All-Star starters Gary Carter and Keith Hernandez hit the disabled list within a week of one another in May. And when starting second baseman Tim Teufel sprained an ankle while jogging outside Wrigley Field on June 5, McKnight, who had logged 1,795 Minor League at-bats to that point, finally got the call. The following day, pinch-hitting lefthanded for Roger McDowell, in the stadium his father played in, McKnight drove a 2-1 delivery from Calvin Schiraldi into left field for a single.

McKnight was wearing No. 15 then. He would see action in another five games, including two starts, before being optioned to Tidewater June 18 when Teufel returned to active duty. He spent the rest of the season there.

The story might have ended then, as the Mets released McKnight following the '89 season. However, he caught on with Baltimore and spent the next two years as a part-time Oriole backup and DH, becoming one of 31 second basemen to play alongside Cal Ripken during the Iron Man's consecutive game streak. Nontendered by Baltimore following the 1991 season, McKnight again caught on with the Mets, who offered him a nonroster invitation to Spring Training in 1992.

This time, he made the team, wearing No. 5 (Kevin Elster had 15 at that time and 13 -- McKnight's uni # with the O's -- belonged to Rodney McCray). McKnight spent all of April, and most of August and September with the Mets that year. In 1993, McKnight again had to fight for an opening day job -- and won it -- despite seeing his No. 5 issued to hotshot rookie Jeromy Burnitz, who'd debut later that season. McKnight instead opened 1993 in No. 7 but changed jerseys on May 22 when manager Jeff Torborg and his staff were fired. Dallas Green's new coach Bobby Wine wanted No. 7 and got it. McKnight switched to 17; but for the first time as Met, spent an entire year without a visit to Norfolk.

Once again in 1994, McKnight found himself -- and his number -- pushed aside for a higher-profile teammate. This time it was pitcher Bret Saberhagen, who was unhappy with the No. 18 issued him in '93 and began 1994 in McKnight's 17. Accepting the lot of the 25th man, McKnight acquiesed and took No. 18. Jeff would learn soon enough what Sabes disliked about 18: Struggling with a .143 average in June, McKnight went onto the disabled list with a strained rib cage. The Bergen Record gave him a midseason grade of F, noting his "only value to the Mets [is that] he's a Bob Dylan fan."

Newspapers speculated that summer that the Mets had "disabled" McKnight merely to create roster space artifically ("You can believe what you want to believe," Jeff said). But they hadn't stopped jerking him around. Sent to a AAA rehab assignment in July, McKnight was recalled to the Majors on Aug. 11 so that the team could send its promising young players -- Burnitz and Fernando Vina -- to AAA so they'd continue to play in the event of a strike. On Aug. 11, 1994, in Philadelphia, in the top of the 12th inning of a 1-1 game, McKnight entered as a pinch hitter for Eric Gunderson and singled off Tom Edens, only to be thrown out at second trying to stretch it into a double. The Phillies won the game in the bottom of the 12th, the players struck as threatened at midnight, and Jeff McKnight would never play another Major League game. His legacy: 5 home runs, 34 RBI and a record that might never be broken: Five different Met uniform numbers.

If Jeff McKnight leads the lineup of multiple-number wearing Mets, Ed Lynch is its starting pitcher.

Fans best remember Lynch for wearing No. 36—his digits for 145 of his 167 career games with the Mets. But his 22 other appearances were divided among three numbers on his back during 1980 and 1981.

Lynch owes much of his number collection, indirectly, to Craig Swan, the veteran Met pitcher whose frequent breakdowns over the tail end of his career provided Lynch with his first three opportunities — and first three uni numbers. Shoulder trouble suffered by Swan in late August of 1980 required the Mets to summon Lynch while on a West Coast trip. Like several Met callups in 1980, Lynch was initially issued a high number (59) for his debut appearance in San Francisco. But Lynch was wearing No. 35 shortly after the Mets returned home to Shea.

In April of 1981, Lynch reappeared in No. 35 after Swan was taken out of action by his own teammate: Attempting to catch Tim Raines stealing second in the first inning, catcher Ron Hodges’s throw drilled Swan in the back, breaking one of Swan’s ribs (needless to say, Raines was safe; he eventually scored to hand Swan an especially hard-luck loss). Lynch was sent back to Tidewater shortly after Swan was reactivated, mere days before a two-month strike interrupted the season. Baseball resumed anew in August, but Swan’s shoulder was only older and rustier, and Lynch was back; only this time, he was wearing No. 34. That’s because Randy Jones, the former All-Star whose 35 jersey would one day be retired by the Padres, apparently decided during the strike to take back his familiar number (Jones was in 25 previously).

Lynch finally won a roster spot on his own ability in 1982, and remained a good Met soldier until 1986, in his familiar No. 36.

Utility infielder Kevin Collins also wore four different numbers—one for each truncated visit with the Mets over four seasons. He debuted in 1965 as No. 10; returned for a September call-up in 1967 as 19; spent four months wearing No. 16 in 1968; and finally, inherited Jerry Buchek’s former No. 1 in 1969 before becoming outbound freight in the famous Donn Clendenon trade with Montreal.

Name Numbers Worn

Jeff McKnight 5, 7, 15, 17, 18

Kevin Collins 1, 10, 16, 19

Ed Lynch 34, 35, 36, 59

Darrel Sutherland 43, 45, 47

Cleon Jones 34, 12, 21

John Stephenson 12, 19, 49

Jim Hickman 6, 9, 27

Mike Jorgensen 10, 16, 22

Hank Webb 22, 29, 30

Hubie Brooks 62, 39, 7

Clint Hurdle 7, 13, 33

Chuck Carr 1, 7, 21

Kevin Elster 2, 15, 21

Charlie O’Brien 5, 22, 33

Ron Darling 12, 15, 44

Jason Phillips 7, 23, 26

David Cone 16, 17, 44

Jae Seo 40, 38, 26

Roger Craig 13, 36, 38

Lee Mazzilli 12, 16, 13

Pedro Feliciano 55, 39, 25

Mike DiFelice 6, 33, 9

Marlon Anderson 18, 23, 9

Ramon Martinez 22, 26, 6 

Robinson Cancel 4, 40, 29

Anderson Hernandez 1, 4, 11

About Numbers
While instances of baseball teams wearing numbers on their uniforms date as far back as the 1880s, and the Cleveland Indians began doing it regularly in 1916, the practice didn't really take off until the New York Yankees in 1929 assigned numbers to their player corresponding to their position in the batting order (Ruth 3, Gehrig 4, etc). By 1932 all teams wore numbers.

Common tradition holds that position players are generally assigned numbers below 25 and pitchers above 25, though exceptions to this practice have always existed. Largely due to the whims of the players, its not at all unusual to see a few nontraditional numbers assigned (Brian McRae's 56, Rey Ordonez' 0 or Turk Wendell's 99 to provide three examples in recent Mets' history).

Numbers lend the only uniqueness to players that otherwise are all dressed alike. And because only one player can wear a particular number at a particular point in time, a number often defines a player's moment in team history. Isolate the number, and you have a broader history -- what Vonnegut called an "artificial extended family" linking one player's moment to the next's. Today's Luis Castillo is yesterday's Mookie Wilson is yesteryear's Richie Ashburn.

As such this project was designed as a kind of guided history, using numbers instead of years to form and follow the history and ongoing progress of the team.

This site first went live on Feb. 22, 1999. It has been updated and redesigned often since then. It has resided at its own address since 2003. A visitor once described MBTN as "an online coffee table book." The site over the years has garnered acclaim from the Wall Street Journal, Mets Inside Pitch and Paul Lukas' Uni Watch, among countless links and references on the Internet.

Sometime in 2006, with a new baby at home and several freelance writing projects on the schedule, I decided the site had become far too unweildy to manage "by hand" and began to look into creating a web-based database that would help manage this data, integrated with a "blog-like" interface that would allow for faster and easier updates and additional forms of content (longer stories, interviews, etc). This itself turned into a giant project that went way over budget and way past deadline but was finally completed in early 2008.

The site in the in between gave birth to a book, available in early 2008 from Skyhorse Publishing. Although based on the website, and in embryonic development for five years, the book, co-written with Met historian Matthew Silverman, contains a lengthier historic review, information and perspectives on the history of the uniform not included on the site and for the first time, publishes statistics based on mbtn.net's proprietary research.

My name is Jon Springer. I was born into Met fandom on Long Island in 1966 and attended my first Met game in 1971. My clear memories begin in 1973, when I started collecting baseball cards and got swept up in the “You Gotta Believe” season. My loyalty would be tested often since then — particularly through the unpleasantness of the early 90s teams and the ‘94 strike — but I resolutely stuck with the Mets through the few rewards and many frustrations they provided me.

My father Frank was born in Queens and rooted for the Dodgers until they left town. Among his gigs as a freelance illustrator was covering the Mets for the Suffolk Sun newspaper in 1969. Pictured here is a cartoon from the Oct. 17, 1969 issue (”Not my best work, says the artist). Between the old junk he and my older brother filed away I began researching this project with a good deal of material from the 1960s.

In “real life,” I’m a journalist, retired ultimate frisbee legend, husband and proud Dad. We live in Brooklyn and endeavor to obey most of The Greg Commandments.

Research
At first, this project was essentially a matter of transferring data from my head to the computer. While I have virtually no facility with numbers as they relate to arithmetic, I have always managed to connect numbers to Mets and back again as a way to remember locker combinations, phone numbers and pin codes. But when it came down to putting it all on paper, my memory wasn’t nearly as accurate as I thought it was. Was Darryl Boston a 6 or an 8? Felix Millan… a 16, 17, or both? To find out, I scoured all the old scorecards, yearbooks and baseball cards I could find.

I was surprised by the multitude of players who wore more than one number and among the most difficult things was figuring out just when the player switched. To cut down on confusion, I ignored Spring Training numbers and concentrate instead on those they wore during the regular season. However, if a player was on the active roster in-season I have included them, whether or not they played a game (Jerry Moses in 1975 and Mac Suzuki in 1999, for instance) since they occupied a number.

Over the years this thing has existed, it’s morphed from a disorganized, inaccurate collection of memories to a legitimate research project, capable of withstanding some historical scrutiny. For this I owe a ton of thanks to MBTN readers like Jason and Ed, whose personal collections of Met numbers and history have been extremely helpful and helped me to see the uniform number for the link to history it is.

More credits

David Moore helped the web project come to life again with heroic job of mop-up relief, earning the win and the save.

The New York Public Library and SABR have offered great research resources and people. Mostly I owe people I’ve never met who yet have shared their memories, scans and help via email or through the late Mets Online and Crane Pool websites. Ernie Alston has provided several corrections and minutae. Dennis D’Agostino’s 1981 classic, “This Date in New York Mets History,” provided a number of surprising yet accurate discoveries. Chris in the Mets’ PR Department, Jason from South Jersey, Irv, Jonathan S. “52″ Weissman, Matt Silverman, Mark, the talented Greg W. P., Ellis, Glen, Mike J, Mark in Japan, KC, Jack, Ed A, Dave from Retrosheet, Pete M., Kasey, Charles, Lou, Matt 2, Keith and still others.