Archive for June 2010

Facing the Future

June 22, 2010 Uncategorized No comments

32Well, it was fun if at times a little worrisome having Jennry Mejia around. I liked the way he stood on the mound and squared up to the batters, his posture was as distinct as that of teammate Johan Santana. I also liked his stuff even though it got hit hard and thrown out of the strike zone more often than you’d prefer to see.

I was not among those smartyfarty fans denouncing his very presence on the team as some kind of crime against his development. He may have struggled for that 3.25 ERA but he did it, against big league competition, on the way to being a starter, at age 20, and if that doesn’t provide you with some confidence he’ll be back and he good when gets here, I’m not sure what will. We’ll keep 32 around for ya.

Mejia’s replacement from AAA, and last season, will be Bobby Parnell, back in No. 39.Parnell was last year’s version of Fernando Nieve — successful early, then worked within an inch of his life before making an abrupt few starts once the Mets ran out of ideas. I liked his stuff his stuff too, and I think he’ll help the bullpen.

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…And No. 101

June 14, 2010 The Book One comment

Father’s Day is coming up, and since you already got Dear Old Dad the handy book version of Mets by the Numbers(you did, didn’t you?), and you know how much fun that was, don’t be stumped for a follow-up. My friend and co-author for that work, Matthew Silverman, is out with a fresh take on 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die (Triumph, 2010).

This revised and updated copy, which tells the story of the Mets in 100 bite-sized chunks, is loaded with fresh picks at the scabs of recent seasons (the Shea closing ceremony, a Molina vs. Scioscia debate) amid essential pieces on Met trivia, Met stories and Met activity, from Buckner to Benson (Anna, of course). You can find it your local bookstore, or on-line, or get a copy personally inscribed by the busiest Mets writer on the web at MetSilverman.com.

Had a great time over the weekend down in Baltimore where the Mets finally did what they’re supposed to do to a struggling team: Kick ’em while they’re down. The city was filthy with Met fans including a duo I spotted Sunday wearing jerseys bearing the names and numbers of Kelly Stinnett and Dave Telgheder. (In their 1995 versions: 33 and 40, respectively). I don’t know why I didn’t shoot a photo of these guys or at least say hi, but if you’re out there: I tip my hat to you.

Not that a team whose history would produce such fans ought to be taking pity on anyone, but it was kind of sad to see Baltimore so beaten down as a baseball town. I was a Marylander when that park opened and you couldn’t buy a seat weeks in advance: Here they were badly outnumbered by the enemy and the place was half-empty. If there was a franchise that cried out for the kind of jolt Bobby Valentine could provide, this is it. Then again, the Angelos-led organization fumbled away a previous great leader in Davey Johnson.

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Know Your O’s

June 10, 2010 Uncategorized No comments

We’re packing up and heading down to Charm City for the weekend to celebrate my birthday and wedding anniversary, and intend to catch Sunday’s Mets-Orioles game at Camden Yards with family down there. If you happen to run into a clown wearing Mets road jersey No. 70, it might very well be me. In preparation, I contacted my friend Kevin in Maryland, whose writing projects include NumerOlogy, an mbtn-like review of Orioles history by uniform number (the url is giving my browser trouble right now, so I hesitate to pass it along until I know the problem is fixed); a site celebrating various Orioles baseball cards; and an ambitous collecting project known as The Great 1965 Topps Project. (The Johnny Lewis card shown here hails from that iconic set. If any of you can help Kevin complete his his ’65 series via trade, please let him know at the site).

So Kevin knows his stuff, and though his team is having a rough go of it this year, he was a good sport in fielding the following series of questions which hopefully gets you up for the weekend series or at least hungry for steamed blue crabs with plenty of Old Bay (the seasoning, not the disappointing Met free agent). Take it away, Kevin!

MBTN:  Juan Samuel once entered in the middle of a Mets season and ruined it. How’s he done for the O’s so far?

Kevin: Ugh. Juan was our third base coach for the past few years, a job that he was quite suited for…as long as the primary goal of a third base coach is getting Melvin Mora thrown out at the plate by 20 feet. From what I’ve seen and read in the week since “Windmill” took over for Dave Trembley as interim manager, he’s making all of the same mistakes as his predecessor: bizarre hit-and-runs, a revolving door approach to the bullpen, batting Julio Lugo leadoff (as opposed to literally anyone else). If there’s a silver lining to the team’s continued failures, it’s that there’s little chance of Samuel being retained as manager. Speaking of ex-Mets though, I hear Bobby V is interviewing with the Orioles…

(ed note: This makes me happy for Bobby and sorry for myself, but is a lot better than his replacing Joe Girardi).

MBTN: Looks like R.A. Dickey will start Friday and Hisanori Takahashi goes Saturday. How do the O’s hit knuckleballers and lefty junk throwers, respectively?

This one’s easy: they don’t hit knuckleballers, lefty junk throwers, righty junk throwers, ambidextrous pitchers, flamethrowers, sinkerballers, sidearmers, submariners, or even batting practice pitchers. The O’s have scored 193 runs in 58 games (3.3 per game). They’ve been shut out five times, scored a single run 13 times, two runs eight times, and three runs 10 times. Not exactly a formula for winning baseball.

MBTN: Why is Ty Wigginton your best player? Don’t you have Markakis and Jones and Weiters and Tejada and Scott?

Kevin: I’m a big fan of Wiggy, from his whimsical name to his hilarious physical appearance to the fact that he’s been the only guy on the team who has been productive for most of the year. As fun as it’s been watching Ty challenge for the league lead in homers, I wish he had a little help.

Most of the young guys have taken a step backwards for one reason or another. It seems like Nolan Reimold never fully recovered from offseason ankle surgery, and now he’s at Norfolk trying to figure things out. Adam Jones was never a patient hitter to begin with, and without any protection in the lineup opposing pitchers are happy to give him junk to swing through. I have the most faith in Wieters, who Trembley gave a pretty heavy workload in the early going. Samuel has pledged to give him more time off, and he’s working on shortening his swing for better results. On Tuesday he had his first three-hit game of the season, so he may be turning it around. As far as the vets, I’m afraid Tejada is getting old and missing his vitamin B-12 and Scott is the very definition of streaky. Markakis is still getting on base, but again pitchers aren’t challenging him because the rest of the lineup stinks. Other than that, things are great.
MBTN: The Mets saw Matusz at least once this spring and couldn’t touch him. Guthrie scares me too. Why don’t these fellows have more wins?

Kevin: As impressive as Matusz has looked at times, he’s still a rookie. He’s had a couple rocky starts and he’s essentially learning on the job. But his chief failing is that he can’t drive in runs for himself. The same goes for Guthrie. After a nightmarish 2009 season, Guts is back to his familiar role as the de facto hard luck ace. Look at his last start against Boston, when he retired 16 batters in a row but let up two runs in the seventh inning. That was enough to pin him with the loss, along with another bullpen implosion. Are you sensing some themes?

MBTN: The Mets lose most of their games on the road by failing to score enough early then coughing up their slim lead in the 8th and 9th. Which Orioles relief pitcher(s) will come away with the win(s)?

I doubt that any Oriole reliever is stealing a win this weekend, but Will Ohman is as likely as anyone. He’s been a rare scrap-heap success for Andy MacPhail, a once-effective lefty specialist who was derailed by injury and had to make the club out of spring training on a minor league deal. He didn’t give up an earned run until Memorial Day weekend. Of course he’s appeared in roughly 90 games already this year, and hasn’t looked so good in the past week. Also keep an eye out for second-year pitcher David Hernandez. He was overmatched at times in the rotation, but he throws hard and has looked better since being moved to the back end of the bullpen.

MBTN: It’s my birthday/anniversary weekend, and we’re staying at the Hilton Garden on the Inner Harbor. Where do we:
a) watch World Cup games?
b) Get good steamed crabs?

Happy birthday and anniversary! For watching soccer, I know the Hilton has a nifty little bar called the Diamond Tavern. If you’re looking for a pub, there’s the James Joyce on President Street and Captain Larry’s on E. Fort Avenue. Both are within two miles of the ballpark. For crabs, LP Steamers (also on E. Fort) comes highly recommended.

(ed note: We have tentative plans for crabs at Obryki’s)

MBTN: Was Lee Mazzilli a good manager? He was once a hero here but can’t even get work as a broadcaster anymore.

To put it bluntly, no. The Birds have had their share of crummy managers (and crummy teams) over the past 13 years, but Mazzilli was the only one that I can remember who lost the support of the team. The front office supposedly hired him because he talked a good game, but rumor had it that he did zilch in the way of game preparation and wasn’t much of a communicator.

MBTN: What’s the most frequently issued number in O’s history?

It’s a three-way tie between 23 (think Chris Hoiles and Tippy Martinez), 37 (Stu Miller and a whole lot of nothin’), and 39 (Eddie Watt and more nothin’). By my count, each of those has been worn by 30 different guys.

Once again, I’d like to say, ‘Thanks, Hon’ to Kevin for sharing his knowledge of the enemy!

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‘Master All the Way’

June 9, 2010 Meet the Dicks No comments

Forty-four years ago today (June 10, 1966), Dick Rusteck made his major league debut as a starting pitcher at Shea Stadium, throwing a complete game, four-hit shutout over the Cincinnati Reds. Though not quite Strasburgian, the performance is probably the best by a pitcher making his major league debut in Mets history*. Less than 25 miles away on the very same day, I was making my own debut.

The future looked pretty bright for both of us that day. Rusteck, a 24-year-old lefty out of Chicago and Notre Dame, was signed as a free agent in 1963. He’d impressed Met brass in Instructional League and Spring Training play and after a 6-1 start at AAA Jacksonville in 1966, earned a call to the big leagues. Manager Wes Westrum, who caught the likes of Sal Maglie andJohn Antonelli, and coached Juan Marichal, observed “he could throw the ball just as good as anybody I’d ever seen.”

Against Cincinnati in his debut, Rusteck scattered four singles, walked one and struck out four. No Reds runners reached as far as second base safely. “The magnificent thing about it is that he threw strikes,” Westrum gushed afterward. “He was the master all the way. He was calm, cool and collected out there.” Two home runs by shortstop Ed Bressoud – hitting 8th that day, it was his best day as a Met too – accounted for four runs and the Mets had an easy 5-0 victory in a game that lasted just over two hours.

But for Rusteck, the good times evaporated just as suddenly. Four days later in St. Louis, he’d be yanked before recording an out in the second inning, surrendering five runs on five hits and a walk. Complaining of a sore arm, perhaps as a delayed result of taking a line drive off his arm in Jacksonville, Rusteck didn’t appear again until a 1-inning relief appearance two weeks later, then made a third start July 3 vs. the Pirates, in which he was hit hard in the fifth inning, took another loss, and got a ticket back to Jacksonville for his trouble.

Rusteck returned to make a few relief appearances that September but his arm troubles would continue. His uniform number 43 was reassigned to teammate Darrell Sutherland, and he’d wear No. 40 then. A writer identifying herself as Rusteck’s wife Tracy, writing on the Ultimate Mets Database, said her husband had elbow surgery in 1967 and continued pitching in the minor leagues through 1971 though “never fully recovering the dynamic speed of his famed left-arm pitch.” He’d retire with a 1-2 major league record and an ERA of 3.

After a post-baseball career in state government in Wasilla, Alaska (youbetcha!), Rusteck is “happy and healthy” in Arizona, Tracy wrote in a message posted two years ago.

Me, I’m about to surrender No. 43 too. Hello, Bob Myrick!

* A quick and not exhaustive review of memory and some data at the Ultimate Mets Database leads me to believe Rusteck’s game was the best by a Mets pitcher making a major-league debut, although he has company when the discussion comes to “best first career starts” as Mets fromGrover Powell (also a 4-hit shutout, 1963). Other impressive debuts were authored by Gary Gentry (April 10, 1969) and Jason Isringhausen (July 17, 1995).

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Welcome Rookies

June 7, 2010 Uncategorized One comment

Congratulations to Matt Harvey, the Mets’ first pick and seventh overall, in this year’s amateur draft. Photos from his University of North Carolina career show Harvey wearing No. 43.

It will be some time before Harvey arrives, but hopefully not as much as Jesus Feliciano has waited. The Buffalo outfielder, who just turned 31 and has logged some 1,300 minor league games and nearly 5,000 plate appearances, was recalled to take the slot temporarily occupied by Omir Santos. No word yet on his uni number, although reader Dave Mackey points out Feliciano was wearing 23 in Buffalo (currently Chris Carter‘s uni here). Dave points out that 27 is free but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mets briskly re-issue the 19 last belonging to Gary Matthews Jr. as a means of instant palate-cleansing. We will update!
The accompanying photo is a wire photo of Jack Fisher, beneficiary of the 19 runs the Mets scored in May of 1964 to beat the Cubs, referred to below in the first Meet the Dicks post. A copy was sent along by reader Paul C. The caption, difficult to read in this shrunken size reads as follows:

CHICAGO — With the New York Mets hitting like champions here 5/26 against the Cubs, and setting a new team record for hits and runs, Jack Fisher, shown here in dressing room, coasted and finished the game for the first time in 17 starts, eight of them this year, with his second win against three defeats. The last place Mets blasted 23 hits off six Cub hurlers for a 19-1 triumph.

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Jesus, There Goes Dick Stuart

June 6, 2010 Meet the Dicks One comment

A prodigious slugger who nonetheless was known best for his defense — precisely, the lack of it — Dick Stuart was the first Met player ever to be acquired as the “1” in a 3-for-1 trade.

Desperate for a power hitter to punch up the league’s worst offense, Stuart was acquired from the Phillies on the eve of 1966 spring training for catcher Jimmie Schaefer,  infielder Bobby Klaus, and outfielder Wayne Graham — all residents of the Mets’ AAA roster at the time, and none with particularly promising futures. A first baseman known as “Dr. Strangeglove” for on-field butchery, Stuart nevertheless was coming off a 28-homer season with the Phillies and connected for 220 home runs over eight seasons with three teams. He’d also led his league in errors at first base base seven times (sharing the NL lead in 1962 with Marv Throneberry). “Most baseball people feel the 33-year-old stopped trying to improve a long time ago,” Joe Donnelly wrote in Newsday.

Stuart might also have been looked to to provide the Mets with some color now that Casey Stengel was gone. Stuart famously hit 66 home runs and drove in 158 for the Lincoln Chiefs of the Western League in 1956. Stuart wasn’t shy about promoting that figure, often including the number “66” — then a professional record for home runs in a season — as part of his signature. Stuart talked about as loudly as he hit, in fact. According to the Baseball Biographical Encylopedia, he was once quoted as follows

“I like to walk down the street and hear them say, ‘Jesus, there goes Dick Stuart.’ I like to see my name in the paper, especially in the headlines. I crave it. I deserve them headlines.”

For the Mets, Stuart had his eyes on Ed Kranepool’s job and his uni number, but wound up with neither. Like Kranepool, Stuart was a first baseman and wore No. 7 — he even drove a Lincoln Continental with license plates DS-7 — but was issued No. 10 with the Mets in Spring Training. He’d trade that for 17 when the games began. The first-base job was arranged by platoon: Stuart started vs. lefthanders and Kranepool vs. righties, with Kranepool also getting the occasional start in left field on Stuart’s day to play. But Stuart battled a rib cage injury and was hitting just .218 with four home runs, five GIDPs and 26 whiffs in just 96 plate appearances when the Mets released him in June. He’d resurface later that year with the Dodgers, spend two years with the Taiypo Whales of Japan, and make a brief comeback with the Angels in 1969.

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Sgt. Slaughtered

June 4, 2010 Uncategorized One comment

Quick update before I head out to the park tonight (meet me at McFaddens! I’ll be wearing No. 70):

Gary Matthews Jr. has been designated for assignment, at long last — only to be replaced on the roster by … surprise! … Omir Santos, our old friend from last season who unfortunately is hitting Class AA pitching about as well as Sarge Jr. hit in the majors this year. This development was sparked by reports indicating Henry Blanco has been hurting. Omir you might recall wore No. 9 last time we saw him.

Also returning to the squad, and reportedly in tonight’s lineup, is infielder Ruben Tejada, who was recalled when Luis Castillo finally went onto the disabled list with achy breaky feet. Tejada wore No. 11 last time through.

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Meet the Dicks (part 1)

June 3, 2010 Meet the Dicks No comments

Sounds like there will be several moves to catch up on soon, when the Mets may or may not disable Luis Castillo; recall and assign numbers to outfielder Jesus Feliciano or infielder Justin Turner, decide on keeping Chris Carter around, and recall pitcher Jon Niese form the disabled list, perhaps while also succeeding in convincing Oliver Perez to take his act to Buffalo. Then there’s the issue of whether Bobby Parnell ought to be replacing the suddenly ineffective Raul Valdes orRyota Igarashi, who looks to me like the worst pitcher in the league about now. We will update as necessary.

Until then, let’s get excited for knuckler R.A. Dickey’s next start, and the beginning of a new homestand and the end of a road trip, with the first in a multi-part exclusive series at MBTN we’re calling Meet the Dicks. We are starting naturally with the Mets’ first ever Dick, Dick Smith.

* * *

Dick Smith was purchased by the Mets along with Norm Sherry from the Los Angeles Dodgers organization shortly after the end of the 1962 season. A fleet, righthanded hitting outfielder, Smith had been signed by the Dodgers as an amateur free agent out of Medford, Ore. in 1957 but had yet to reach the majors. He was a freeswinger with good power-speed potential: He’d hit 19 home runs, 18 doubles, 11 triples and stole 30 bases with Omaha of the American Association in 1962.

The Mets were in the midst of what would become a 22-game road losing streak when they recalled Smith from Class AAA Buffalo the following July. The team had lost patience waiting for the bat of shortstop Al Moran to come around and banished Moran to Buffalo and installed Larry Burright as the new regular shortstop. Smith was recalled to take Moran’s roster slot.

Smith was issued No. 16, a jersey that had until days before belonged to another new Met arrival,Jesse Gonder, who’d received it from the man he’d been traded for, Sammy Taylor. Gonder however switched to No. 12 concurrent with the recall of Smith.

Smith made his major league debut, and became the Mets’  first Dick, on July 18, 1963 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Smith pinch hit for Al Jackson and fouled out behind first base: the opposing pitcher was none other than future Met (and future Met manager) Dallas Green. Smith appeared in another three games on that trip but after 10 days was returned to Buffalo when Moran was recalled. He wouldn’t collect his first hit until a return engagement in September, a single off Curt Simmons of St. Louis. He’d finish the year with a .238 batting average in 42 at-bats.

Smith caught the eye of Casey Stengel during the following spring training where he was “easily the fastest man ever to wear a Mets uniform” according to the Sporting News. Although primarily an outfielder, Stengel cleverly platooned Smith and Tim Harkness as leadoff-hitting first basemen. Smith in fact led off the first Mets game of 1964 vs. the Phillies’ Dennis Bennett, and played regularly at first base vs. lefties for most of the first two months of the year.

The highlight of this stretch came May 26 at Wrigley Field when Smith became the first Met in team history to record five hits in a game — three singles, a triple and a double — as the Mets whalloped the Cubs 19-1. However, Smith’s days were numbered once his platoonmate Harkness injured an elbow. His replacement was a prospect named Ed Kranepool, then viewed as a potential star and everyday player. Smith’s playing time grew sporadic and by July he was reassigned to AAA, never to return to the Mets. He hit .233 and his 6 stolen bases would tie for the club lead that year. He’d be traded back to the Dodgers following the season for a minor league lefty, Larry Miller, who’d play briefly for the Mets in 1965 and ’66. Smith got only 10 turns at bat with the Dodgers in ’65 before his big-league career was over.

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