While the Mets may not have as many October highlights as some other teams, they have had some memorable postseason moments.
As Marshall Field wrote here on MMO, the Mets surprised the Cincinnati Reds and the rest of MLB in 1973 by winning the pennant after an amazing September run.
A key player on that 1973 Mets team was John Milner. Milner led the team with 23 home runs, was second in RBIs with 72, OPS at .762, as well as OPS+ at 112, and his OBP of .329 was fifth on the club. Milner slashed just .176/.364/.176 with no home runs and one RBI in the NLCS. He rebounded to post a slash line of .296/.406/.296 with two RBIs in the World Series against the Oakland A’s.
Milner played 12 seasons in the major leagues, the first seven with the Mets. As a Met, Milner hit 94 home runs, drove in 338 runs. He slashed .245/.339/.415, and had an OPS and OPS+ of .757 and 112, respectively. For his career, Milner hit 131 home runs, drove in 498 runs, and had a slash line of .249/.344/.413.
Nicknamed “The Hammer” because of his power, and as a Georgia native he idolized Hank Aaron, Milner was drafted by the Mets in the 14th round of the 1968 draft. He made his major league debut in 1971, appearing in nine games. In 1972, Milner blossomed, belting 17 home runs. By OPS, his best Mets season was 1976, when he posted an .809 mark.
The Mets traded Milner after the 1977 season in a multi-player deal involving the Pirates, Rangers, and Braves. Milner ended up on the Pirates, and was a member of their championship team in 1979. In that season with Pittsburgh, Milner hit 16 home runs and had an OPS of .849, the best full-season mark of his career.
A fun fact about Milner is that on September 11, 1974, he tied a major league record with 12 plate appearances in a 25-inning game against the Cardinals. In the 1974 season, Milner led the Mets in home runs for the third consecutive season.
Milner was called to testify in a scandal about cocaine use by Pirates players, along with players on other teams, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Milner admitted to using cocaine in that time period, and stated that he obtained the drug at Three Rivers Stadium. You can read more about that story in this article from Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune.
Milner, who also played for the Montreal Expos and had a brief re-engagement with the Pirates before retiring, passed away from cancer in January of 2000. He was just 50 years old.
Milner was a significant contributor to the (generally light-hitting) Mets teams of the early 1970s. It’s unfortunate that he is also remembered for the cocaine scandal that tarnished an otherwise respectable career.
