Tom Brennan - A LOOK BACK AT RUSTY STAUB, LE GRAND ORANGE

Faithful Macks Mets reader Gary Seagren recently mentioned that he had much love and appreciation for Rusty Staub:

Le Grande Orange.

Rusty, always a consummate gentleman, went to Jesuit HS in Louisiana.  Maybe he learned some gentlemanly manners there, under threat of corporal punishment.  

Here's another "always": during his 9 seasons with the Mets, he always was a Mets favorite.

In 1962, at age 18, he he played minor league 140 games in the Houston organization in Class B, and done good, I reckon:

He scored 115 runs, had 23 HRs, 9 (yes, NINE) steals and 116 walks.

In 1963, the Mets' fellow expansion team, Houston, was going nowhere, so they let the 19 year old Rusty play 150 major league games in which he hit .224.

In 1964, at the advanced age of 20, he hit just .216, and got sent down to AAA for a booster shot, where he hit .314 in 71 games.

That was it for the minors.  

Back with Houston at age 21, he hit .256, then .280 as a 22 year old, and blossomed in 1967 as a 23 year old, hitting .333 with 44 doubles.  

After another very solid year in 1968, he went to Montreal and in 3 iron man seasons, Staub missed just 6 games, averaging 28 doubles, 6 triples, 26 HRs and 90 RBIs with a .404 on base %.  In those 3 seasons, he also stole 24 bases!

Then the Mets got him, in  a biggy of a trade in 1972 in exchange 1B-outfielder Mike Jorgensen, SS Tim Foli, and OF Ken Singleton.  Both teams benefited there.

In 1972 through 1975, The Orange Man as a Met hit as high as .293 and set a Mets record for RBIs in a season (105) that stood for years.  He had a tremendous post-season for the Mets in 1973, too, helping them almost win what would have been their 2nd World Series in 5 seasons.

The Mets foolishly trade the Staub Man along with no-name pitcher Bill Laxton for aging lefty pitcher Mickey Lolich and great outfielder Billy Baldwin - you remember him, don't you, he played 9 major league games.

Foolish trade?  Yes!  Absolument!  Mais oui!

Rusty played 3 years with the Tigers, missing just 5 games, and averaged 31 doubles, 20 HRs, and 106 RBIs.  Made the Mets look like idiots.

Why traded from the Mets?  The Daily News noted that his $120,000 salary was too high for the Mets' tastes!! "In 1975, Staub became the first Met to drive in 100 runs in a season (105), but by then the team was in decline and looking to dump payroll. 

"As the second-highest-paid player on the team ($120,000) behind Tom Seaver, Staub was traded to the Tigers for veteran lefthander Mickey Lolich. It was the first in a series of bad trades (that later included Seaver) made by the M. Donald Grant regime."  Did Grant's "M" stand for Moron?  I wonder.

Anyway, after a brief return to Montreal, he had a nice season at age 36 with Texas, hitting .300, then returned to the Mets for the last 5 of his 23 major league seasons, during which he became a premier and heavily used pinch hitter.

In his career, he pinch hit 418 times, had 350 official ABs, and was .277/.356/.402 with 92 RBIs!

In his last 15 years, it should be noted that he was V..E..R..Y T..O..U..G..H to fan, too, up 6,940 times while fanning just 451 times (a K every 15.4 times up). Some players today fan once every 15.4 PITCHES!

Overall, he went to the plate an amazing 11,229 times, drove in 1,446 runs (compare to David Wright's Mets record of 970 RBIs) and walked 1,255 times vs. just 888 Ks.  He had 292 HRs, but grounded into DPs 297 times.  

The six time All Star, sadly, never got as much as 10% of votes on Hall of Fame ballots in any season, a victim, no doubt, of his lack of speed.

Speed or no speed, we loved Rusty, and he loved NY.  Orange, I am sure, became many  a Mets' fans' favorite color.