Reese Kaplan --- Face-To-Face Mets Encounters

The band of brothers (sorry, our lone female contributor has gone on hiatus) was talking Friday morning via chat about the opportunity Dwight had gotten to meet his namesake, Doc Gooden.  After the obligatory, “We wish we had him on the staff now!” comments, it got me to thinking about Mets player encounters we’ve experienced during our lifetimes.  Some of these I will recount I’ve mentioned before, some others are new.  I’m not talking about the kind of shouting from the stands which elicited a wave or a “hello” from the player – but encounters with actual full sentence conversations.

Rusty Staub

I had the great pleasure of meeting Le Grande Orange on two separate occasions.  The first occurred as a child at a Mets Welcome Home dinner where he was the most patient and gracious of the players when it came to making time to sign autographs for the fans in attendance.  The second was when he had his restaurant on 5^th Avenue when I took an employee to do her performance review.  Little did I know the big guy was going to come to our table to check on how we liked our meal.  He sat down with us to chat for awhile and afterwards my employee confessed she didn’t know who he was.

Willie Mays

After his playing days just ended, he apparently signed on to do autograph tours which included a stop in Fairfield, NJ where I grew up.  He was there at a local department store and I was one of the last kids on line to hand him a pennant for his John Hancock.  It was apparently the end of a long day, but Willie still took the time to talk to us, laugh with us and even stood up to show one youngster how better to grip his bat. 

Rick Cerone

My friend Bill and I traveled to see the Newark Bears independent minor league team play in their hometown stadium.  While off in quest of beer, Bill, a lifelong Yankee fan, turns and says, “Reese, you know this guy!” and I looked up to see someone in street clothes coming up the stairs.  It took a moment to register but it was Rick Cerone who was the then owner of the Newark Bears franchise.  We walked over to the stands, got our beer and reminisced mostly about Bill’s recollections during his days in the Bronx. 

Pete Alonso

When covering the Las Vegas 51s when they came to play the El Paso Chihuahuas last year I got some one-on-one time interviewing the recently crowned Rookie of the Month of April.  He was gracious, funny and threw some shade on his buddy Jeff McNeil who got the call to the big club before he did.

Wally Backman

The first year I was invited into the El Paso Chihuahuas press box I was kind of caught off guard when they invited us down to the locker room after the game.  I sheepishly asked about going to the 51s locker instead, and when I was surprisingly escorted over there I was unprepared for interviews since I hadn’t known it was an option.  At that time they actually brought me into the locker room where the players were changing out of their uniforms to shower and prepare to leave the stadium.  I then realized that without numbers and names for ID purposes, I was kind of at a loss as to whom I should interview since I couldn’t readily identify many of them.  I did see Kirk Nieuwenhuis who had just that day been demoted, so I didn’t think he’d be in a particularly good mood.  So when the media guy asked who I wanted to see I blurted out, “the manager, Wally Backman.”   Wally gave me about 40 minutes of good stuff, much of with was, in typical Wally fashion, unsuitable for printing. 

Benny Agbayani

On a company outing we were in the picnic area behind the Mets bullpen at Shea Stadium.  Benny was playing LF and during pitching changes and between innings he would come over to our group to chat with us.  He was just a fun-loving (though absent minded) player who probably got more out of his talent than most expected.  It was not surprising, therefore, to see Bobby Valentine tap him to come to Japan with him. 

There were many other encounters with lesser players, interview subjects and some broadcasters, but these memories stuck out more than others.  I’m curious to find out from our readers what Mets crossed their paths, how did it happen and was it a good experience or a bad one?