Remember 1969: Remembers Reminiscing

 

Remember 1969: Remember's Ramblings

 

Remember's Reminiscing – Volume 1, Article 2 

This Date in Mets History: 

October 22, 2024 

 

What a difference a week makes.  I last week, October 15 was a special and memorable date for me, but unfortunately my aging memory cannot remember much about October 22.   It’s a good thing somebody invented the internet with so much information at the fingertips.   All that is required is a little research.    

I cannot say I remember anything at all about October 22, 1986, but it turns out it was Game 4 of the World Series and the Mets evened that fall classic at two games apiece in a game played under the lights at Fenway Park.

The highlights were seven shutout innings thrown by Ron Darling (although he walked 6 battters), two home runs by Gary Carter, and a nice game for Mookie Wilson with a 2 for 4 line with two stolen bases and an outfield assist throwing a runner out at second base from left field.   Roger McDowell was not sharp in relief, but Jesse Orosco picked him up securing the last four outs of the 6-2 win.       

Twenty-four years ago today, October 22, 2000 was best known as the day of the “Roger Clemens bat throwing incident” when Clemens fired the barrel of Mike Piazza’s broken bat on a first inning foul ball across the first base line directly in front of Piazza which caused a minor bench clearing but no punches thrown. Clemens went on to pitch a two hit shutout for the first eight innings of the game.   

The Mets rallied for five runs in the top of the ninth inning against Jeff Nelson and Mariano Rivera, but unfortunately they needed at least six and ended up losing the game 6-5.   After that game at Yankee Stadium, the Mets trailed the cross town rivals 0-2 before winning game three, but losing games four and five.  

The Mets did not play on October 22 in their other three World Series appearances.

 

Born on this date:  October 22

As I was doing some research on which player to highlight for the Mets birthday, I found a very interesting little piece of trivia.    The Mets have had three players over their 63 years of play that were born on October 22 and all three of them were born the same year – October 22, 1982.   This is the only date spanning over one hundred years of Mets birthdays where they have had three players born the same day. 

Born on this day in 1982 were pitchers Darren O’Day and Carlos Torres and second baseman Robinson Cano.

O’Day is a ‘geez, I kinda wish I had that back’ story.   The Mets selected him in the December 2008 Rule 5 draft from the Angels after having pitched in 30 mostly mop-up games for Los Angeles in 2008.   Unfortunately they put him on waivers in April 2009 after appearing in just 4 games giving up 5 hits and no earned runs in 3 innings.    He was claimed by Texas where he went on to post a 1.94 ERA in 64 games that year and a sparkling career 2.59 ERA in 644 appearances over a solid 15 year career, mostly with Baltimore.    

As a right-handed side-arm throwing reliever, O’Day compiled 17.4 BWar with only 21 saves (and a 42-21 lifetime record).   He was a very effective set-up guy for a long time.

Carlos Torres was signed as a free agent in 2012 and had what might be called a serviceable three seasons with the Mets, finishing with a 17-18 record and a 3.59 ERA before being released in February 2016.    Overall, he pitched in parts of 10 years compiling 3.8 bWAR with 4.09 ERA.

The best and most famous of the October 22, 1982 birthdays was Robinson Cano.   This name will generate a lot of negative comments among Mets fans as he was the player with the contract to fill in the Edwin Diaz trade from Seattle between the 2018 and 2019 season.   Unfortunately, Cano was then 36 years old and had served an 80 game PED suspension in the 2018 season for the Mariners.   

His first year with the Mets did not go well, although he did come back and have quite a strong COVID shortened year in 2020, batting over .300 with 10 homers and 30 RBI in just 47 games.   He was then hit with his second PED suspension and sat out the entire 2021 season.   While still on the payroll in 2022 (he still had 4 years left on a massive contract when they acquired him), he was unable to return to form and was cut in May 2022. 

Overall Cano was on a Hall of Fame track with his time with the Yankees and Mariners before PEDs.   He finished his career with 68.1 bWAR and was in the top 125 in many career statistical categories.       

Happy 42^nd Birthday to all three former Mets today!

Other noteworthy birthdays to celebrate this week are Keith Hernandez (who didn’t get the present of a win on Sunday) and Pedro Martinez who will be 53 on Friday. 

More related birthday trivia:    October 22, 1982 is the only day where three future Mets were born, but there are 35 days in history where two Mets shared a same day birthday.   

Amazingly, 2 of 12 Mets players that shared a common name (6 pairs) with another Met also shared a common birthday with another Mets player.    The right-handed Bobby Jones shares a same day, same year birthday with Alberto Castillo and the lefty throwing Bob Miller was born the same day as Donn Clendenon.   

 

Remember’s Final Ramblings

Like all Mets fans, I was sad to see the 2024 season end for them this past Sunday, but what a great run they had!   There were a lot of us that were ready to throw in the towel after Memorial Day weekend, but were rewarded with a very exciting last 4 months of the regular season and three weeks of post season.    They were beaten by a Dodgers squad that all got hot at the right time.    

I was one of those that was rooting for the Dodgers over the Padres in their division series because I thought the Padres were the scarier team with better hitting and better pitching.   Obviously Ohtani had a great year, but Betts was slumping badly late in the year and Freeman was hurt.    

Kike Hernandez always seems to come out of the woodwork in October and where the heck did Tommy Edman come from (yea, I know .. St. Louis).   The Mets got beaten by a very hot baseball team which happened to also win 93 games in the regular season.   

 

The following statement is more ignorance and ‘confusion of a baseball fan’ than critiisism , but there are a couple ‘behind the scenes’ things I wish I did know, first and foremost is “was that pitching slate on Sunday night pre-planned?   

As I was reading about how they needed length from Sean Manaea (and I thought they would get six innings at least), I was thinking that if for some reason Manaea was not effective, they would go to Tylor Megill to try to get some innings and catch some lightning with that approach before using their short late inning guys later.   I was confused a bit by the usage of Diaz and Stanek, and really even Maton when he came in in the third inning.    The other question I had is ‘how badly is Nimmo hurt’? 

I did like the fact that Francisco Alvarez came around a bit in the last two or three games.  That should be a confidence booster for him going into the off-season.  

And lastly, everybody’s question:   What will Pete do?   I guess the obvious answer is ‘follow the money’, but I for one would love to see him back in the Blue and Orange for the next few years.   While Vientos became a very good Major League hitter in 2024, I believe that any line-up the Mets can put together next year will be stronger with Alonso in the middle of it.  

Until next week . . .