Mention the name of Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan and most Mets fans – at least the older ones – will cringe at the thought. That’s because on December 10, 1971, the Mets traded their young, flame-throwing right-hander to the California Angels along with pitcher Don Rose, catcher Francisco Estrada, and outfielder Leroy Stanton for shortstop Jim Fregosi. Yeah… that really happened.
While most fans lamented the trade at the time, and even Nolan Ryan said he felt “betrayed,” it didn’t take long to find out just how awful the deal was for the Mets. In his first season with the Angels, Ryan would win 19 games and post a 2.54 ERA while leading the league with nine shutouts, a 5.1 H/9 and a whopping 329 strikeouts. His 6.2 bWAR was the fifth best mark in the majors.
Of course, Ryan would go onto win 324 games while striking out an MLB record 5,714 batters and tossing an MLB record seven no-hitters.
Another lesser known fact is that Ryan’s career spanned an incredible 27 years, also an MLB record, and that leads us to the subject of this week’s edition of So You Think You Know the Mets.
Your mission is to name the Top 12 Longest Serving Mets Players… Let’s see how many of our longest tenured Mets players you can come up with in 2.5 minutes!
So you think you know the Mets?
Prove it. Good Luck…
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