Opening Day 1998 marked the first time the Mets played an opener at Shea Stadium in March—and they enjoyed one of the warmest lid lifters ever in New York. It was 82 degrees and sunny at game time on March 31, 1998. In the third and final Opening Day start by Bobby Jones as a Met, the Phillies went down in order in the first. Curt Schilling set the Mets down easily in the bottom of the first. And on and on it went.

Through nine innings the Mets had just two hits. The Phillies had more chances, but they still came up empty. Mel Rojas even threw two shutout innings. By the 12th it was the longest opener in Shea history. And that warmth and the sun disappeared as the day dragged on. Oklahoma farmboy Butch Huskey got hungry enough in right field to summon his inner cow and started eating blades of grass. Tim Spehr, pulled off the rubbish pile to catch since Todd Hundley would be out until summer, was the only Met with multiple hits. Spehr would have just five more hits in 20 games—and the anemic army of fill-in backstops would lead to the cry for suddenly available Mike Piazza to come to Shea.

The one catcher nobody expected to be a hitter was Alberto Castillo. After 10 years in the minors he had proved he was a good defensive catcher but his average rarely poked over .220 in Tidewater or elsewhere. He was the last bat on the bench. A botched sacrifice by Edgardo Alfonzo and a single hit too hard to left by Bernard Gilkey to score Brian McRae loaded the bases with one out. Light-hitting Luis Lopez had a chance to be a hero; he popped up. Up stepped Castillo. Nicknamed Bambi because of his soft features, he was tough enough to be a catcher but looked like he’d bolt like a deer at a loud noise. Those left at Shea were loud—and freezing in their shorts and T-shirts. Just as it seemed they’d have to start burning bats for fuel, Bambi lined a single and sent everyone home.

As we salute Shea Stadium and relentlessly promote Shea Stadium Remembered. I will be posting (as needed) about great days in Shea history. Shea never saw a game on March 28, but as we have a season opener on this day in 2019, we need something.

With some digging, and a post I found on Amazin’ Avenue, I uncovered an incident on March 28 that directly links to the tenure of one of the few bright lights of Shea’s darkest year. Literally.

On this day in 1977 Lenny Randle punched Texas manager Frank Luchessi. A solid hitter (pun intended) and member of that organization since it had been called the Washington Senators, Randle, 28, sent his skipper to the hospital after Luchhesi told him that Bump Wills, heralded son of the great Maury Wills, would be taking his place at second base. Randle was suspended for 30 days. The Mets—as always, desperate for a third baseman—traded for him. The Mets the Rangers infielder Rick Auerbach, languishing in Tidewater after his acquisition from the Dodgers that winter for Long Islander Hank Webb and Richard Sander, another high 1970s draft pick who never saw Triple-A.

Lenny Randle was a breath of fresh air in the season from hell that was 1977. (And I say “breath of fresh air” because his blowing a ball foul a couple of years later at the Kingdome is probably Randle’s most famous/infamous moment.) He played almost every game for the Mets in ’77 after his suspension ended. He hit .304 and stole 33 bases on a Mets team that was stripped bare after the Midnight Massacre sent Tom Seaver away—Dave Kingman, a fan favorite, or at least this fan’s favorite, was shipped out, too.

My Lenny Randle moment came when he hit a game-winning home run in the 17th inning to beat the Expos at Shea Stadium on July 9, 1977. It was the day before I shipped off to sleepaway camp—baseball camp—and I have rarely been more nervous than I was at 12, grimly contemplating my first time away from home. A rare Mets win in ’77 helped me buck up. I was enjoying camp a few days later when the lights went out in New York. Randle was batting against Ray Burris at Shea when the Great Blackout of ’77 hit. Here’s a rendering of that night from Shea Stadium Remembered:

People at Shea Stadium did not know how bad things were elsewhere, they only knew what they could see, which was nothing. Mets third baseman Lenny Randle, who’d been released by Texas that spring after punching the manager, was at the plate facing Ray Burris of the Cubs when the lights went out. Randle claimed to have hit the ball in the dark and started running. Burris, who would later join the Mets, later told Vice Sports his thoughts while watching Randle in the dark, “‘What in the world is he doing?’ I had the ball in my hand.”                                                    

The game was not televised and was only broadcast on radio. Mets announcers worked three innings at a time solo, but Lindsey Nelson joined Ralph Kiner in the booth during the blackout and described the scene. “As you can tell, the organ is still workable, the PA system is still working, and we hope we are, too,” Nelson said…

How did that Randle-Burris rematch go when that game resumed in September? You know where to find out.

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The Opening Day Eve signing at the Rough Draft in Kingston was a home run! Thanks to everyone I met. And I do mean it about being part of an Ulster County Mets group. I am tired of being an army of one, fighting the good fight in a Yankee Jungle (where most people, admittedly, don’t much care about pro sports—please prove me wrong). Thanks for having me at the Hudson Valley’s best bar/bookstore. Thanks to my social media maven Lace Photo Media —and my new buddy, Hudson—for setting it up. Now let’s play ball!

Wednesday, March 27—Opening Day Eve—I’ll be holding a Shea Stadium Remembered signing at Rough Draft in Kingston. This awesome bookstore/bar at 82 John Street is at the intersection of four stone houses that were burned by the British during the Revolutionary War when Kingston was the state capitol. Good news! The four houses have been restored since then—most of them for 240 years or so. So in this historic site we open it up to Mets history about a grand old house that the British spared but the Wilpons took down. (Well, we we were in love—not at war—with the Brits and the Beatles in the 1960s and they helped make Shea, well, Shea. As for those kooky owners we’ve got today…)

OK, as you can tell I am in full rambling mode for the book event on Wednesday. We’ll talk about whatever you like. I’ll have free baseball cards and bookmarks, and if you buy two or more books, I’ll buy you a beer. (On special because my ad budget is closer to Shea beer prices than Citi beer prices.) If you’re in the neighborhood, Shea hello!

I want to thank everyone who came out on March 18 for the Mets talk at the New York Public Library Grand Central Branch in Manhattan. Thanks first of all to Brian Wright for setting it all up. Brian, the author of Mets in 10s, also set up a table to share at the Queens Baseball Convention in January. Poor guy was born the year after the Mets won their last World Series, but he really knows his stuff and is very good at running events. And, truly, it’s great to have another writer there to help draw more people and to make it more fun. And Brian’s girlfriend Natalie to not only helped carry the books to the library, but she helped him drive to Washington, D.C. in time for work the next morning!

Thanks, of course, to the nice crowd who came and wanted to know about Shea Stadium Remembered. Special thanks to my sister Marie and my nephew and godson, Nick Marich, who took the train in from the burbs and went to dinner with me afterward at Pershing’s. And a photographer named Drew became the first person to tell me he is buying one of my books because of the Jets—there’s actually a lot about the Jets, and a surprising amount about the Yankees, not to mention Robert Moses, Walter O’Malley, and a team called the Metropolitans.