{"id":2335,"date":"2015-04-29T05:53:39","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T11:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2335"},"modified":"2015-04-29T16:43:40","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T22:43:40","slug":"squad-51","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=2335","title":{"rendered":"Squad 51"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Mets’ experiment using Rafael Montero in a one-off start wasn’t a complete failure, but it’s over for now, and Montero is on his way back to Las Vegas. In his places comes\u00a0Jack Leathersich<\/strong>, a promising chubby\u00a0lefthanded bullpen strikeout artist making his first appearance in the majors.<\/p>\n

Leathersich will become the 23rd man to wear No. 51 but just the fifth position player: It’s a number more closely associated with coaches who wore it exclusively\u00a0until Mike “He was a Met?” Maddux broke the seal in 1993. It’s since been worn by Mel Rojas<\/strong> and Rick White<\/strong> — like Maddux, they were veteran bullpenners whom the Mets rode hard — and in a one-off deal by Lance Johnson<\/strong> on Mookie Wilson Day in 1996. (Wilson, then coaching in 51; swapped\u00a0numbers\u00a0with Johnson that day. Johnson had three hits including a double and a triple that day and so dominates the offensive stats in 51).<\/p>\n

The rest of Area 51 are coaches: Roy McMillan<\/strong> wore it while riding out the string managing the 1975 Mets for fired manager Yogi Berra. Pitching guru Rick Peterson<\/strong> reportedly wore 51 but kept it hidden under his buttoned-up jacket for four-and-a-half\u00a0years. Most recently it went to another influential\u00a0coach, Dave Hudgens<\/strong>, whose unorthodox hitting philosophy seems to had made a star of Lucas Duda and a pariah of Daniel Murphy. Other noted 51 coaches: Chip Hale<\/strong>, who I was rooting for to get the Met managerial job that went to Terry Collins; Cookie Lavagetto<\/strong>, an original Met coach; and\u00a0Wes Westrum<\/strong>, who’d switch to No. 9 upon being named Casey Stengel’s successor.<\/p>\n

Welcome aboard Jack!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mets’ experiment using Rafael Montero in a one-off start wasn’t a complete failure, but it’s over for now, and Montero is on his way back to Las Vegas. In his places comes\u00a0Jack Leathersich, a promising chubby\u00a0lefthanded bullpen strikeout artist making his first appearance in the majors. Leathersich will become the 23rd man to wear … Continue reading “Squad 51”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[448,519,667,687,646,132,546,689,688],"class_list":["post-2335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chip-hale","tag-dave-hudgens","tag-jack-leathersich","tag-lance-johnson","tag-rafael-montero","tag-rick-peterson","tag-roy-mcmillan","tag-wes-westrum","tag-yogi-berra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2335"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2351,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2335\/revisions\/2351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}