Reese Kaplan -- Memories of Spring Training

With a number of players already participating in Port St. Lucie workouts, the full pace of Spring Training is not far off.  Each season hope springs eternal (despite the often gloomy prognostications and proclamations from fans and writers – like yours truly).  At this point in the upcoming baseball season everyone is capable of hitting clusters of home runs, stealing bases at will, flashing the leather, nailing runners with aplomb, striking out hitters easily and slamming the door to close out games.

Reality, of course, is often quite different from the fantasies we paint in our minds.  That got me to thinking about some of the stories from past February and March games that surprised people with the outcomes.

Who can forget Darren Reed, scrappy outfielder who managed to hang around the majors for parts of two seasons for the Mets, Expos and Twins.  He was acquired as part of a multi-player deal that sent Rafael Santana across town to the Yankees.  There was every reason to be high on him as his last season for the Yankees he slashed .321/28/95 and looked like he’d be a big part of the Mets’ future.  What made him stand out was his annual Spring Training superstar impression which was enough in 1992 to convince the Mets to bring him north.  Unfortunately, results when games counted for real never matched the optimism and production of south Florida, and by 1994 he never sniffed the majors again having finished his big league career with 6 HRs, 16 RBIs and a .183 batting average over 167 total at-bats.  A lot of that poor output can be attributed to a variety of injuries which hampered him and in 2017 he underwent dual hip replacements at the age of just 51. 

My own personal Spring Training story came one year when my brother and I both made it to Florida to visit my father and conned him into taking us to Port St. Lucie to watch a scheduled night game.  He had been out of our lives for quite some time after my parents split up, so seeing him was an unusual experience made even more so with my only sibling there with me.  It was a very pleasant reunion of sorts but the evening was overshadowed by the surprisingly cold Florida night for which neither of us northerners were prepared having dressed for Miami weather where my Dad lived.  It was one of the last times we would see him alive and I still chuckle to remember that he wanted to bring us for ice cream (just what we needed in our shorts, t-shirts and goosebumps) but he always had a major sweet tooth.  In fact, every time I pass a Baskin Robbins to this day my mind flashes on this memory. 

Of course, no story about Mets Spring Trainings could be complete without the unexpected and untimely death of Mets managerial icon Gil Hodges.  In April of 1972 the then only 47 year old Hodges had a massive heart attack which left the team reeling emotionally, though they got off to a fast start.  Unfortunately, just like this past season, they were beset with a large number of injuries to key players, including Rusty Staub, Cleon Jones, Jerry Grote and Bud Harrelson.  Even new acquisition Jim Fregosi broke his thumb in Spring Training and never was able to replicate what he’d done with the Angels.  That, of course, was made doubly bad when the young, wild flamethrower they told to “Go west, young man” began his Hall of Fame career – Nolan Ryan. 

So what are your strongest memories of Mets’ Spring Trainings, good or bad?