Tom Brennan - Embarrassing Hall of Fame Crosstown Comparison

A Met fan's greatest Mets Hall of Famer 

All of us Mets fans know the embarrassment of Yankee fans who remind us of all their World Series banners compared to our two lonely banners.  Considering those a

re 53 years and 36 years old, respectively, they are a bit tattered and worn.

No matter that many of those Yankee banners were first hoisted before those Bronx Blabberers were born.  Lots since 1962 is what hurts more, if you are a Metsie.

Likewise, comparing Hall of Fame totals between the two teams is utterly embarrassing.

The Mets have had no Hall of Famer who started as a Met and played their entire career as a Met.  None. Zilch. Nada.

The Yanks have plenty of those.  Even some recent ones.

The Mets have had 17 players and managers inducted into the Hall of Fame.  

Of those, only two started their careers as Mets!!!!  

As in...Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan.

And only 3 played a substantial portion of their careers with the Mets: Seaver, and two imports - Mike Piazza and Gary Carter.

The Yankees' HOF list totals 53 players.  

While quite a few of the 53 in recent decades had relatively short stints with the Yankees, the Yankees list has many players whose entire career was in pinstripes or who played the bulk of their careers - the real Hall of Fame portion of it - as Yankees, such as the great Bambino...Mickey...Whitey...Lou...Joe D...  Jeter.

Our Mets have a lot of HOF catching up to do.  Right now, it is the Hall of Shame in comparison to their crosstown peers.

Heck, I'd settle for some near-Hall of Famers.  I can only think of David Wright and Jerry Koosman in that category.  Darryl and Dwight started great, then good night.

The Yankees have had plenty of not-quite-HOF-but-danged-good-dudes, such as recent guys like C Jorge Posada, who recorded a .273 batting average, 275 home runs, and 1,065 runs batted in during his career, and CF Bernie Williams, who had 287 HRs, 1,257 RBIs and a .297 average with 4 Gold Gloves.  

Both had more HRs and RBIs than any Met ever (although Darryl Strawberry, as both a Met and ex-Met, compiled more (335) career HRs).

Stuff like this may not bother most people.  Does it bother you?

It bothers me.  

And my brother Steve brings the Mets-pale-in-comparison stuff up to me from time to time, and says two things: 

1) it's a friggin' joke, and 

2) why, older brother Tom, did you ever talk me into becoming a Mets fan?

So, my advice to Steve Cohen is this: 

Spend whatever you have to, in order to build a dynamo 2022 team, but keep our young minors guys (whoops - JT Ginn is gone) - you never know if these prospects may become potential Hall of Fame prospects in due time.  The legacy of this franchise needs that enhancement, even if it takes a few decades to get homegrown guys elected and inducted.

Build a team, yes.  Build a legacy, too.  And I don't mean a Subaru.  Whooptie-do!

METS MINOR LEAGUERS ON MONDAY:

Mets started a mostly AAA line up Monday, and got shut out on 2 hits. 12 Ks.  No wonder they traded for bats.  

I tout the kiddie hitters, then they flail and I wail.

Colin Holderman, though. has tossed 2 innings and fanned 5.  Orze nice in relief.  I like both.

Both are turning heads. 

And...

Scherzer goes 5, like old time baseballers used to.

Lastly...saw this on Facebook today, and found it fascinating:

March 17, 1918: A young Babe Ruth, still primarily a pitcher, slugs a pair of home runs during a spring training game at Whittington Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The second long ball is thought to be the first 500-plus foot blast in baseball history. The Herculean shot—hit off Brooklyn Robins hurler Norman Plitt—soared far over the fence in deep right-center, coming to rest in the middle of an inhabited pond at the Arkansas Alligator Farm. The Boston Globe reported that "the intrusion" caused quite a "commotion among the Gators.” The epic drive was later measured at 573 feet—the distance from home plate to the pond's center.

Amazingly, Ruth replicated the feat a week later, on March 24, in another spring exhibition versus Brooklyn. In its coverage of the proceedings, The Boston Post wrote: "Before the echo of the crash had died away the horsehide had dropped somewhere in the vicinity of South Hot Springs. . . . The sphere cleared the fence [400 feet away] by about 200 feet and dropped in the pond beside the Alligator Farm, while the spectators yelled with amazement." Edward Martin, writing for The Boston Globe, opined: "Every ball player in the park said [it] was the longest drive they had ever seen. . . . Had Ruth made the drive in Boston, it might have cleared the bleachers in right-center."

"I've never in all my time seen a man use the bat as does the slugging Boston hurler," gushed St. Louis Browns manager Fielder Jones, who had witnessed several of Ruth's colossal clouts. Former Red Sox catcher Les Nunamaker offered similar praise: "He has no weakness . . . and can hit anything coming in the direction of the plate. If a hurler is foolish enough to give him a high one on the inside, it is all off. He will knock it out of the grounds. It is the general belief of the players in camp that Ruth is the best sticker in the league. . . . He just handles that old bat as if it were a toothpick."

Babe's heroics carried over into the regular season. Appearing in 95 games, the 23-year-old hit .300 with 26 doubles and a league leading 11 home runs—his first of 12 long ball crowns. (Though his 1918 power output seems paltry by modern standards, consider that the junior circuit's single-season record holder at the time was Socks Seybold, who hit 16 big flies in 1902.) On the mound, Ruth went 13-7 with a 2.22 ERA in 166 ⅓ innings pitched (2-0, 1.06 ERA in the World Series). However, it was the big lefty's mighty war club that captured the public's imagination.

On November 26, 1918, The Associated Press wrote:

"There were many stars in last year's baseball firmament, but there was only one Babe Ruth. Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Jim Vaughan, Benny Kauff, and other stars received their usual amount of interest, but the fan always returned to the question: 

Did Babe Ruth make a home run today?"