Very pleased to announce that I will be leading off the Hall of Fame Author Series in Cooperstown on Wednesday, June 5, at 1 p.m. to discuss Shea Stadium Remembered. I have presented there for my last three books, and spoke there in 2001 as well. It is always an honor. They have a packed lineup this year. It’s fitting that Brian Wright, author of Mets in 10s, whom I’ve done a couple of appearances with this year, will close out the series on August 14. See you in Cooperstown—myths aside, Cooperstown may not be the first place baseball was played, but it might be the best.

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I learned how to switch-hit in Wiffle Ball to the point where I could hit better batting left-handed, but it did not translate into hardball. I always admired people who could switch effortlessly from side to side. Who were the best Mets switch-hitters? Check out my recent post on Rising Apple.

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After 17 innings at Shea, the Mets walk off against the Pirates for the second straight day. Even crazier is that Bill Mazeroski, who later made it to the Hall of Fame for his glove, gives the Mets the game when his throwing scores Tommie Agee from second base. Tom Seaver allows a two-run homer to Willie Stargell in the first inning, but he otherwise dominates the Pittsburgh Lumber Company for 11 innings, until Gil Hodges goes to the pen. The only other run he surrenders is on a hit by Pirates pitcher Al McBean. Agee, who would struggle mightily in ’68 after being beaned in spring training, has a two-run homer early in the game—his first at Shea. His 2-for-7 effort lifts his average all the way to .142.

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Willie Mays made his triumphant return to New York in a home uniform on this date in 1972. Mets owner Joan Payson, former shareholder of the New York Giants and the lone dissenting vote for the baseball club’s move to San Francisco, had wanted Willie back in New York since the Mets came into being. Imagine Mays on those early Polo Grounds Mets teams? They may have done better than 40-120 in 1962, and it would have been quite an experiment to see how many wins one player was actually worth. The Mets had nothing remotely equal to trade to the Giants, and San Francisco wasn’t hard up enough to take money and a token player for one of the game’s greatest stars. By 1972 they were ready.

This was not the Mays of the mid-1960s, and certainly not the bright star of the Giants in the 1950s. This was end-of-the-line Willie. The 41-year-old baseball treasure sold a lot of seats at Shea in 1972—the Mets were first in the NL in attendance for the fourth straight year. The next time they would hold that distinction was 1988. But Willie got his New York swan song off with a bang—against his former club, no less.

Mays the Met’s first assignment was on Mother’s Day in front of 35,000 at Shea, including the Mets’ mom, Mrs. Payson. Mays, playing first base (Tommie Agee still manned center field), led off the game to a huge ovation and walked against former teammate Sam McDowell. The next two Mets also walked, and then Rusty Staub, acquired before the season began from Montreal, crushed a grand slam.

Mays struck out his second time up, but when he stepped up for the third time, the game was tied, 4-4. Mays long fly carried over the fence in left, much to the delight of Shea and Lindsey Nelson on WHN. It held up as the winning run for the first-place Mets. The Mets were in the midst of an 11-game winning streak under new manager Yogi Berra, who’d taken over after the tragic death of Gil Hodges. The injuries would mount and the Mets would wilt, but Willie Mays was back in town.

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I attended this Saturday afternoon game and was surprised to see the left fielder was Joe McEwing, acquired from St. Louis for Jesse Orosco at the end of spring training. Super Joe had been brought up from the minors overnight and was the leadoff hitter. From our seats in left, we could see Rickey Henderson in the doghouse in the dugout. The night before he’d led off the game with a long fly and went into his home run trot, only to have the ball hit the wall. The best base stealer in history wound up stuck on first and the Mets lost to the Marlins, one of three teams ahead of the Mets in the NL East standings.

In a game where Bobby Valentine went through the whole bench, Henderson only came in for the ninth to play left field after McEwing moved to shortstop. Valentine had to send up pitcher Mike Hampton to pinch-hit in the ninth. Representing the winning run, he nearly won the game, but his liner just missed the foul pole. Hampton then struck out and the Mets lost, 7-6. By the time I got back to the car, Rickey Henderson had been released. As has been the case every time the Mets have won the pennant, this club looked kind of dead in May.

I attended this game and was surprised for the first time to see Joe McEwing, acquired from St. Louis for Jesse Orosco at the end of spring training, playing left field and leading off. From our seats in left, we could see Rickey Henderson in the doghouse. The night before he’d led off the game with a long fly and went into his home run trot, only to see the ball hit the wall. The best base stealer in history wound up stuck on first and the Mets lost to the Marlins,one of three teams ahead of them in the standings.

So Super Joe was summoned overnight from the minors and was at Shea the next afternoon. In a game where Bobby Valentine went through the whole bench, Henderson only came in for the ninth to play left field after McEwing moved to shortstop. Valentine had to send up pitcher Mike Hampton to pinch-hit in the ninth. Representing the winning run, he nearly won the game, lining a ball that just missed the foul pole. Hampton then struck out and the Mets lost, 7-6. By the time I got back to the car, Rickey Henderson had been released. As has always been the case a Mets pennant-winning club looked in disarray in May.

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Months before their miraculous 1973 rally from the dead, Jon Matlack lay motionless on the mound at Shea after being drilled by a line drive off the bat of Atlanta’s Marty Perez. Matlack took the hard-luck, 10-6 loss. He was diagnosed with a fractured skull but missed only two starts! He talked about it a couple of years back for Swinging ’73:

“I’m trying to nail down this game,” Matlack recalls. “I overthrew the next pitch. It was a fastball, and I landed really hard when I threw it. I lost sight of the ball to the plate. I could see him swing and hear the bat crack, but I don’t pick up the baseball until it’s right on top of me. I barely got the fingers of my left hand in front of my face. It hit my fingers [on the mitt], hit my cap, and it hit me just over the left eye. They tell me—I don’t know because I couldn’t see it—but it went from my forehead into the dugout. It cost me two runs and ultimately cost me the ballgame.”

The sudden tie fell to secondary importance during this frightening moment at Shea Stadium. Right fielder Rusty Staub, shaking his head at the memory of it years later, summed up his teammates’ reaction: “We were just all thrilled that he wasn’t dead.” Dee Matlack wasn’t even sure of that as the trainer came out and pulled a tarp over her prone husband’s body as the rain fell.

“They’re messing with me, and it’s raining,” he thought as catcher Jerry Grote and his teammates gathered around him. “My wife thinks I’m dead because they cover me up with a tarp.”

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Check out my piece about the great Edgardo Alfonzo at Rising Apple. When they talk about Mets I’d like to see in the team’s Hall of Fame, Edgardo Alfonzo and Howard Johnson are two names that immediately come to mind. It has it been six years since the club last inducted anyone.

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Mike Piazza hits his 352nd home run as a catcher, breaking Carlton Fisk’s record for the position. His 405-foot blast—his 363rd career HR overall—comes on a 3-1 pitch from San Francisco’s Jerome Williams. The Mets beat the Giants at Shea, 8-2, and they’ll win the next night when Piazza provides a walkoff home run in extra innings. Now that the record is out of the way, the Mets speed up the move to first base for the oft-injured star. He’ll play 68 games at first base in 2004, but he provides the latest evidence that the position is not as “easy” to move to as nonballplayers think. He will never play the position again after ’04 and return behind the plate. Though not the best backstop with the arm or the glove, few would doubt that Piazza was as good as any catcher in history with a bat in his hands.

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One new Mets bails out another as 2006 continues to be a tremendous season. Billy Wagner allows two two-out singles to the moribund Pirates in the ninth to tie the game and cost Pedro Martinez a victory. It is already the third blown save for the team’s big free agent, and causer of controversy with the contrived “Whose Entrance Song Is It Anyway” hullabaloo. The Mets do nothing against the Bucs bullpen over the next three innings, while Duaner Sanchez and Chad Bradford hold the Pirates at bay. Leading off the bottom of the 12th, Carlos Delgado launches an opposite-field home run to send the Mets to the 4-3 victory. It is the second of three walkoff wins in five games. The 18-9 Mets lead the NL East by five games.

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On a dreary and foggy Monday night at Shea, John Franco goes for his 300th save a dozen years to the day after he notched his first save—for the ’84 Reds. Against the ’96 Expos he gets No. 300 in classic Franco fashion. With two outs in the ninth, the Mets up 3-2, and the tying run on base, the immortal Sherman Obando bats for the pitcher. Obando launches a long flyball that Lance Johnson catches at the wall to end the game. Many hugs and high fives ensue. Franco, who will rack up 424 career saves (now fifth all time) will be honored with John Franco Day at Shea on May 11, where he earns another distinction—getting ejected on his own day from a game he was not pitching during a brawl with the Cubs.