Whatever their legacy may be, there is no doubt that Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire were among the most dynamic, history-making, baseball players of their generation – and both easily could have been Mets. The Mets drafted Clemens out of high school in the twelfth round of the 1981 amateur draft, but did not sign him. After putting up outstanding numbers at San Jacinto College, he...
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Dave Kingman was one of the most fascinating players in Mets’ history. Because he played in one of the Mets’ major down periods – the mid ‘70’s to early ‘80’s, you don’t hear his name mentioned much in Mets’ retrospectives, but for a while, he was clearly the Mets’ biggest star and one of their very few drawing cards, at least at home. If remembered at all, it’s as a low-average power hitter,...
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With all the posts I’ve done on the early days of the Mets, I never once mentioned the name of Rod Kanehl, who in his way symbolized the 1962-64 Mets as much as anyone else. If Marv Throneberry and Choo Choo Coleman represented Mets’ ineptitude, then Kanehl was the embodiment of the every-man quality that helped to popularize the Mets. For those of you too young to remember Kanehl,...
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When you think about some of the really good trades the Mets have made, the Cone and Hernandez deals quickly come to mind first. But the Mets have made some other pretty good trades in their history and I’ll take a look at them in this new series of posts. Following the 1983 season, the Mets traded a middling relief pitcher, Carlos Diaz, and the veteran utility man Bob Bailor to the...
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Greg Goossen may have been the first “big time” catching prospect the Mets ever had. He just looked like a catcher and had some pretty strong hitting credentials. Yet today, he is probably best-remembered as the subject of Casey Stengel’s famous quote “We got a young catcher right here, he’s 20 years old and in 10 years, he’s got a chance to be 30”....
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