He ran onto the Citi Field diamond with the same hustle and spring in his step when he entered the Shea grounds for his debut 14 years earlier. He still flashed that same smile fans were so accustomed to. On the penultimate day of the regular season, Wright said goodbye to a New York audience that watched him grow up before its eyes. With setbacks that likely would’ve forced a less determined...
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Over the coming weeks, we’ll look back at the 50th anniversary of the Mets’ 1973 National League pennant-winning team by examining the most inspirational figures of that remarkable run. We continue with a young left-handed pitcher who overcame a potentially disastrous injury to be the team’s top performer down the stretch. On a dreary and drizzly evening in front of a paltry...
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Mike Piazza was the driving force behind consecutive playoff appearances and a National League pennant. He ensured the Mets were an annual contender once he came over from Los Angeles to the Big Apple, hitting 101 homers and 313 RBIs through two-plus seasons. He was already a local sports icon, but September 21, 2001, carried an entirely different significance. Piazza lifted the spirits...
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Over the next six weeks, we’ll look back at the 50th anniversary of the Mets’ 1973 National League pennant-winning team by examining the most inspirational figures of that remarkable run. We start with the man who unofficially initiated the team’s comeback from last place to first and officially coined the phase associated with that season. In July 1973, Tug McGraw’s career...
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There was a time when the Atlanta Braves didn’t always have the New York Mets’ number when it mattered most. Go back to 1969 and the inaugural NLCS. Atlanta actually came out of the West and were quickly gone in a best-of-five sweep. The first two players on our list of Mets-Braves overlap were part of that, but the ties between New York and Atlanta are few and far between aside from...
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