On Wednesday, the Mets announced that lefty reliever Danny Young will be placed on the 15-day IL, retroactive to April 27, with a left elbow strain. Along with that move, righty Chris Devenski was selected from Triple-A Syracuse and the recently signed lefty Brooks Raley was transferred to the 60-day IL. Unfortunately, this does not seem like a short-term stint, as Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters that the southpaw may need Tommy John Surgery.

On the field, the Mets came up short against the Arizona Diamondbacks last night. Despite getting 4 1/3 scoreless innings of relief from Brandon Waddell pitching in the big leagues for the first time since 2021, a ninth-inning rally from the Mets offense came up shy, resulting in a 4-3 loss. Click here for a full-game recap of Wednesday night’s loss at Citi. 

The Amazin’s will look to take the rubber match against Arizona on Thursday as Kodai Senga (1.26 ERA, 3-1) will face Zac Gallen (5.57 ERA, 1-4) at 1:10 PM EST. New York will look to get back in the win column before hitting the road for a 6-game road trip in St. Louis and Arizona.

Latest Mets News

Francisco Lindor stopped by St. John’s University to speak with the school’s baseball and softball teams.

Chris Majkowski was the producer-engineer for his 5,000th consecutive Mets game on radio on Wednesday night. Jay Horwitz went in-depth on the man behind the Mets radio broadcast. 

Latest MLB News

The Cubs called up veteran RHP Chris Flexen from the minors, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN. Flexen had a 1.16 ERA in 5 starts at Triple-A Iowa. 

Bo Bichette intends to join his brother and play for Brazil at the WBC, per Ayako Oikawa of MLB.com. Bo Bichette on the matter, “It means a lot to our whole family. We want to do our best to contribute to the team’s victory and draw some attention to Brazilian baseball.”

A fan fell onto the field from the Clemente Wall bleachers (21 feet in height) in right field during the Pirates game at PNC park last night. The latest update from the Pirates was that Pittsburgh EMS, along with both clubs’ athletic training teams, responded immediately, and he was taken to Allegheny General Hospital.

Mike Trout left Wednesday night’s Angels game with precautionary knee soreness, per Jeff Fletcher of SoCal News Group. Trout is already feeling better and will try to play on Thursday.

Miami Marlins manager Clayton McCullough announced that outfielder Griffin Conine will miss the remainder of the 2025 season after undergoing shoulder surgery on Tuesday. He is expected to be a full-go for 2026 spring training. 

The Seattle Mariners selected the contract of former Mets draft pick OF Rhylan Thomas and will make his MLB debut when he first appears in a game. 

Former Met Jake Diekman signed with the Lincoln Saltdogs of the American Association.

The Miami Marlins released their new City Connect uniforms.

Latest On MMO

Brandon Waddell sparkled in his MLB return. 

Mark Vientos was the subject of MMO’s Weekly Statistical Spotlight.

Mets ninth-inning rally came up short.

On This Date In Mets History

2011: The crowd erupts in “U-S-A” chants during the ninth inning of a Mets-Phillies game after news of Osama Bin Laden’s death breaks.

1987: Tim Tuefel hits a walk-off pinch-hit solo homer to beat the Expos 7-6.

Born On This Date: Marcus Stroman (1991), Manny Acosta (1981), Joe Hietpas (1979), Armando Reynoso (1966), Charlie O’Brien (1960), Ray Searage (1955), Roy Lee Jackson (1954)

The post Morning Briefing: Danny Young Might Need Tommy John Surgery appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

In the ’90s, Major League Baseball was dominated by luminary power hitters, such as Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Albert Belle. Fans were enthralled with the enticing numbers being produced, with larger-than-life personalities regularly receiving the spotlight and fanfare.

For all of their rightful attention, players who produced in other ways, and perhaps in a quieter fashion, had gone more unnoticed.

John Olerud is a prime example.

Drafted in the third round of the 1989 MLB Draft by the Toronto Blue Jays after excelling as a two-way player at Washington State University, Olerud bypassed the minor leagues and immediately made his mark at the big league level.

In his rookie season in 1990, Olerud posted a 122 wRC+ over 421 plate appearances, finishing fourth in the American League Rookie of the Year voting.

Three years later, Olerud had his breakout season. He won the American League batting title with a .363 average while leading all of baseball in on-base percentage (.473) in his age-24 season. Olerud became the youngest player to record 80+ extra-base hits and 100+ walks in a season since Reggie Jackson in 1969.

The lefty-hitting first baseman spent his first eight seasons with Toronto before a trade sent him to the New York Mets in December 1996. Switching leagues and countries, Olerud made a seamless transition with the Mets. Olerud played in 154 games in 1997 and posted a 135 OPS+ (his highest mark since the ’93 season) with 22 home runs and 102 RBI.

While Olerud’s first year with the club was successful, he followed that up with one of the greatest seasons in franchise history in 1998.

Olerud played in 160 games and produced a .354 average, a .447 on-base percentage and 8.1 fWAR. He owns the club’s single-season record in average, on-base percentage and wRC+ (167). His 8.1 fWAR is the second-highest mark by a Mets position player, behind David Wright’s 2007 season (8.4).

His final season with the Mets in 1999 was another strong campaign. Olerud posted a .427 on-base percentage and 129 OPS+ in 162 regular season games. Olerud set yet another single-season club record in ’99 with 125 walks, and is the only Met to record triple-digit walks in a season.

In the ’99 postseason, Olerud hit .349 and posted a .975 OPS with three home runs and 12 RBI. Olerud owns the 8th-highest single-season postseason OPS in Mets history (min. 40 PA), and is tied with Curtis Granderson‘s 2015 postseason for the second-most RBI (12).

When viewing Olerud’s total contributions in the nineties, he owns the seventh-highest on-base percentage (.406) and tied with three other players (Rafael Palmeiro, Tim Salmon and Fred McGriff) for the 11th-highest wRC+ (136) among 102 players with at least 4,000 plate appearances.

Among that group, Olerud is one of five players who posted a .300 or better batting average and a .400 or better on-base percentage during that span, along with Edgar Martínez, Frank Thomas, Jeff Bagwell and Bonds.

The three-time Gold Glove winner, who famously wore a helmet in the field due to a near-fatal brain aneurysm in college, played in his final major league game as a member of the Boston Red Sox in 2005. For his career, Olerud collected 500 doubles and 255 home runs, with a career slash line of .295/.398/.465. Olerud’s career 57.3 fWAR is better than Hall of Famers Fred McGriff (56.9), Todd Helton (54.9) and Orlando Cepeda (50.3). Somehow, Olerud only lasted one year on the Hall of Fame ballot.

Since retiring from the game, Olerud, 56, has kept busy raising a family and taking care of his daughter, Jordan, who was born in 2000 with a syndrome called tri-some 2p, 5p-, which meant she had an extra second chromosome and was missing part of her fifth chromosome. Olerud and his wife, Kelly, started a foundation in their daughter’s name in 2003 to provide support to children with special needs and their families. ​ Sadly, Jordan Olerud passed away in 2020 at the young age of 19.

Olerud’s on-base prowess, defensive acumen and professionalism made him an easy fan favorite wherever he played.

I had the privilege of speaking with Olerud by phone, where we discussed his dad’s influence, his two-way play in college and time with the Mets.

MMO: Who were some of your favorite players growing up?

Olerud: Being a left-handed kid who pitched and hit, I tended to like left-handed players. I was a George Brett fan. Charley Lau and The Art of Hitting .300 was a book that I read and really liked. He (Brett) was a third baseman, but I watched him.

Don Mattingly was the guy that I always looked up to. Just a great hitter and defensive player. Nolan Ryan was a guy who was always super impressive as a young kid watching him.

My dad also played some minor league baseball, so it was always fun watching the game with him. He was always able to make it fun.

I remember him telling me to watch Jim Rice and how he would use his hands and rock his hands back and get ready to hit. He was kind of playing manager. What do you do in this situation? Do you think they’re going to try and have the guy steal? Do you think they’re going to bunt him over or do a hit-and-run? What would you do?

MMO: Your dad seemed to be very influential in your early development.

Olerud: He was a catcher, so he would work with me on my pitching and also my hitting and swing. He was very influential.

I remember a time when I was in Little League, and I was pitching, and we were working on the changeup. When we got into a game, we got into a situation where I was up against a tough hitter, and my dad called for me to throw a changeup. I remember thinking, That’s the stupidest thing in the world. This guy is a really good hitter. Why on earth would I throw it slower to this guy? 

I’m shaking off my dad as a Little League player because I didn’t want to throw it. And he made me. So in my head, I’m thinking, All right, I’m going to show him what a dumb pitch this is. I’m going to throw it right down the middle of the plate, and this guy’s going to hit it a mile. And I’m going to be able to tell my dad he was wrong. The guy was way out in front of the pitch. He looked foolish swinging, and I couldn’t believe it. I almost started laughing on the mound that it worked. So then it was like, Let’s throw that again! That was awesome. And he went, “No, no, it doesn’t work that way.”

That was when I was like, Wow, he knows what he’s talking about.

MMO: You have to listen to Dad.

Olerud: Listen to Dad; he knows what he’s talking about. I was super fortunate that he was able to coach me. He always offered great advice and good instruction.

MMO: Your two-way play in college is the stuff of legend, so much so that the College Baseball Foundation created an annual award in your name. Can you talk about your time on the mound, and what pitches you threw?

Olerud: As I was growing up, my dad didn’t want me throwing a curveball because he wanted to protect my arm and didn’t want any twisting or possibility of hurting my arm by throwing it incorrectly. I was mainly a fastball/changeup pitcher growing up.

He taught me how to throw a knuckleball. It wasn’t very good, but it was something different. When I got to college and was able to start throwing a slider and a curveball, my best pitches were still a fastball and changeup. My slider was probably my third-best pitch, and my curveball I just couldn’t get a good feel for. I was mainly locating fastball and changeup, and being left-handed helped. I wasn’t overpowering.

I remember when I got signed by the Toronto Blue Jays, Al Widmar, the pitching coach, watched me throw a bullpen. He had me trying to hold the ball in different ways to see if I could get natural sink on my ball. I wasn’t throwing 90, and I didn’t have a lot of sink on my pitch.

For the Major Leagues, could I have pitched? Maybe. But I would’ve had to prove it in the minor leagues. I wasn’t somebody like [Shohei] Ohtani, who was just impressive that everybody’s excited about because he’s got such great stuff. I had success at the college level by being able to locate and change speeds.

MMO: Do you think pitching in college aided in your offensive prowess and pitch recognition at the plate?

Olerud: I think it gives you a good perspective. I think it definitely helps to know what you’re thinking of, how a pitcher is looking to attack a hitter, how they want to set them up and where you’re trying to avoid. I think it helps both ways. When you’re pitching as well, and if you’re struggling hitting, just because you make a mistake does not mean that the guy is going to hit the ball.

I’ve swung and missed at balls right down the middle of the plate when you’re struggling, or you roll over it and hit a weak ground ball on a good pitch to hit. That sort of stuff helps take the pressure off as a pitcher that I don’t have to be perfect. As a hitter, it gives you some insight into how a pitcher would like to get you out or what they would be trying to do in different situations. I think it definitely helped.

MMO: The Mets drafted you in the 27th round in the 1986 MLB Draft. Was there ever a chance you would have signed with the club? Or was college always the route you were going?

Olerud: I think college was always the plan for me. I felt if I didn’t have success at the college level, then I’d have no chance of success at the big-league level. I always felt that made the most sense. Education was always something that was super important to my dad, so yeah, I never really considered it. I was a decent student, so that was always the game plan going forward.

It was very flattering to have major league scouts come up and want to get your information. But I felt like I needed to prove myself at the college level before even thinking about playing professional ball.

MMO: The 1993 season was your breakout year. You won the American League batting title, recorded 80 extra-base hits and led baseball in on-base percentage with a .473 mark. Did you make any physical or mechanical adjustments at the plate going into that season?

Olerud: Everything clicked for me that year. I would say the big thing that I remember about that year was just mechanically keeping my hands inside the ball really well. My mechanics were awfully good; I felt like I didn’t have to get to the inside pitch as far out in front of me in order to get the barrel to the ball. I was just really efficient in getting the barrel to the ball to that inside pitch. That allowed me to stay back more on the ball out over the plate. With offspeed pitches, that allowed me to stay back because I didn’t have to cheat to get to that inside pitch. My mechanics were really good.

That year was my best year. I always felt like I was making good contact and getting the barrel of the bat to the ball. That’s kind of the year that I ranked all other years against. The 1998 season with the Mets was my best season with the Mets, and I hit for a great average. But I would say that my ’93 year was still better just as far as consistency and making solid contact. That was just a magical year for me.

MMO: Plate discipline was one of your calling cards throughout your career. Was that something you always felt you had a gift at?

Olerud: I think it was always something where I wanted to get a good pitch to hit. I just hated making outs, and I didn’t want to swing at a bad pitch or a pitcher’s pitch. I wanted to get a good pitch to hit so that I could take a good swing at it. I think it was something that drove a lot of people crazy—a lot of hitting coaches.

I would take a good strike to hit first pitch; I didn’t swing at a lot of first pitches. Looking back, that was probably a mistake not being more aggressive in some counts and situations early in the count. When I struggled, that was the problem: nothing looked good enough to take a swing at. [Laughs.] You then get to where you’re looking for too perfect a pitch, and you get behind in the count.

It was a good thing to be selective, but taken too far, it can be a negative. Where I would err is being too selective. When I got into slumps or was struggling, I would have to get myself to be more aggressive, and swinging at more pitches was a way for me to get out of that.

MMO: What were your initial reactions when you heard you were traded to the Mets in December 1996?

Olerud: My first reaction was I didn’t want to go to New York. [Laughs.] I was super intimidated by New York City. As a player coming from Toronto, we’d come and stay in the city and stay at the Grand Central Hyatt, and the city was super intimidating to me. I was nervous about coming to New York for sure. But it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I had such a great experience living in the city with the best teammates that I had, and I really got along with the coaches. It was a great place for me, and I’m very thankful I got traded to the Mets.

MMO: I’ve read in past interviews that while you were in New York, you and your wife frequented many Broadway shows. Do you have any favorites?

Olerud: Jay [Horwitz] gives me a hard time because he came up with a funny note at one point (for the team’s game notes) saying that I broke a record for going to the most shows. Thankfully, my wife was not as intimidated by New York as I was, and she was a good influence. She’d say, “We’ve got a great opportunity to be here. Let’s take advantage of some of these cultural things that you can’t do any place else.”

We would try to go to the theater, and I was surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did! We went and saw Les Misérables, and that was probably one of my favorites. We also did that in Toronto; they had theater there as well. So we did that a little bit before New York.

MMO: Your 1998 season is one of the best offensive years in Mets history. What memories do you have from that year?

Oleurd: I would say just how much fun we had as a team. The clubhouse was great, and everybody on the team was pulling for each other. The camaraderie and chemistry in the clubhouse were great. It was a lot of fun, and it was a great year. Unfortunately, we struggled the last week of the season and didn’t make the playoffs. But it was just a great year.

MMO: The 1999 Sports Illustrated cover featuring the team’s infield is a fan favorite. What are your memories of that season defensively? And is that the best infield you ever played with?

Oleurd: I would say so. We had some great infields when I was with Toronto, but that one was a lot of fun to be a part of. You had Robin [Ventura] and Rey [Ordóñez] on the left side of the infield, and they just made great plays all of the time. And Edgardo Alfonzo quietly put together an amazing year. All of the attention was on the left side of the infield, but Edgardo had an amazing year as well.

For me, I’m super thankful for being on the Mets. I feel like playing for the Mets definitely turned my career around defensively as a first baseman because I got the best advice. Cookie Rojas helped me more than anybody in digging the ball out of the dirt. He helped me with that and really became a much better fielder at first base, receiving throws and bailing people out from bad throws. It was always super fun.

I don’t remember who we were playing, but you had a guy with a lot of speed, and he laid down a perfect bunt down the third base line. I remember I was getting ready to come off the base to tell Robin to not waste a throw. He comes flying and throws it to first, and we got the guy by a good step or two. I was shocked. I was like, Okay, note to self: do not try to help him out on what he can make and what he can’t make. 

With Rey, I’d be going to first base, and I’d hear the whole stadium go, “Wow!” I thought it was just a routine ground ball. I come up, he throws the ball to me, and I’d go into the dugout and ask, ‘What happened?’ They would tell me it took a horrible hop, and he just snatched at it and came up with it.

Rey was fun to watch. Just the type of plays that he made, I hadn’t seen anyone else play shortstop like that. It was impressive watching him put tags on people, fielding throws that were bad, but yet still catching it on the way to making a tag. It was fun to watch those guys.

MMO: You’ve debunked the famous Rickey Henderson story that took on a life of its own. Do you know how that story even originated?

Olerud: Oh, yeah. Scotty Lawrenson, who was the assistant trainer for the Mets, was great and had a great sense of humor. He was the one who came up with the story. If he saw a picture in the paper or in a magazine or advertisement of a guy who reminded him or looked like a guy on the team, he’d cut out the picture, make up a little story underneath it and put it up in the training room. You’d come in, and on the bulletin board there might be something like, So-and-so was seen on an off day, and whatever the story would be. But he had such a great sense of humor.

He’d come up with what he thought guys would be if they weren’t playing Major League Baseball. I remember going in and seeing what he had me as if I wasn’t playing. He had me as a Walmart greeter because he thought that was funny trying to picture me—a super quiet guy—greeting people as they came in.

Rickey was known for not being great with guys’ names, and so that’s kind of how that idea originated—that he came up to me and asked me about the helmet, and said, “Man, I played with a guy in New York like that.”

MMO: Did you and Rickey ever discuss the fabricated story?

Olerud: I don’t remember talking about it much with him. I remember running in the outfield—I forgot which team I was with at the time—before the game started. I made a comment to him, ‘Hey Rickey, would you tell these guys to stop talking about the story?’ And he went, “Oh, I know!”

We never really talked about it a whole lot. It’s just a funny story, and I get asked about it all the time. It’s just an awfully good story.

MMO: You and your wife, Kelly, started a foundation in your daughter’s name in 2003 called the Jordan Fund. Can you talk about why you started it and what the mission is?

Olerud: In 2000, my daughter Jordan was born, and she had some severe disabilities. She had an unbalanced translocation of her second and fifth chromosomes. So here we have a special needs child that we’re trying to figure out the health care, taking care of her, and just the different issues that come up for how to best care for her. We felt like we were in a great position to care for a child like Jordan. She had two parents; I was home and we had friends and family around us and great hospitals in the Seattle area. And, man, it was super hard trying to figure it out and navigate.

We started the fund to help out other non-profits that were a real blessing to our family and places that had helped us out. We were thankful they were there when we needed them. We also wanted to help out families with communication devices; we’ve done a bathroom remodel for a family before; we try and help out with respite care; the summer camps these kids are able to go to. We had a horse therapy place in Washington, a little bit of therapeutic riding. That was great for my daughter and really helped her get stronger with her core and able to sit up.

We just wanted to help out the non-profits in our area that helped out the special needs community and wanted to try and help out other families. Like I said, we felt like we were in a good position as a family and a good location with friends and family around us. And boy, it’s still hard. We wanted to help out those families that, you know, maybe there’s a single mom or someone who doesn’t have a lot of support around them.

That’s how we got started with it, and we’ve just continued on, and the fund has grown. We haven’t done much fundraising at all, but we’re just trying to help out the special needs community.

MMO: Would you ever consider getting back into the game as a coach or special assistant? Have you ever been asked?

Olerud: No, not really. When I got done playing, my focus was on helping out with my daughter, her health care and the family. I did coach my son’s Little League team and didn’t have a lot of success with those guys. [Laughs.] That kind of discouraged me on the coaching thing.

My youngest is a sophomore at Clemson University, so I haven’t considered it. Nobody’s been knocking on my door saying, “Hey, we’d like to have you.” It really hasn’t been something that I’ve had to think about much.

MMO: When you look back on your career, what are you most proud of?

Olerud: Boy, that’s a tough one. I would say probably my 1993 season; that was the best year that I had where everything came together. It was a magical year.

I was awfully blessed with the different teams I got to play for. When you look back on your career, a lot of the things that stick out the most are the guys who you got an opportunity to play with. Your teammates and that camaraderie, and just the time you got to spend with them. It’s pretty hard to replicate that clubhouse setting and being a part of a team and working towards the goal. I would say those are the big things. But as far as my best years, the ’93 and ’98 years are pretty special for me.

The post MMO Exclusive: John Olerud, The Quiet Star appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and attending St. John’s University in Queens, John Franco embodied a New Yorker. It was only apt that Franco would ultimately pitch for his beloved childhood team, the New York Mets.

Franco, 64, was a four-time All-Star and a reliable arm in the backend of the bullpen. During his 21-year Major League career, Franco made at least 50 appearances 14 times, recorded 30+ saves eight times, and rose to the occasion in the postseason, posting a 1.88 ERA with a 0.977 WHIP over 15 career games.

The left-hander was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fifth round of the 1981 Draft. It was with the Dodgers organization that Franco started to develop his bread-and-butter pitch: the changeup.

Two years later, Franco was on the move to Cincinnati, where the Reds fully transitioned Franco from the starting rotation to the bullpen.

Over his first six big league seasons (all with the Reds), Franco appeared in 393 games and posted a 2.49 ERA with 148 saves. Only two pitchers recorded more appearances during that span (Craig Lefferts, 416; Kent Tekulve, 403). Since the earned run became an official stat in both leagues in 1913, only four pitchers have appeared in 350+ games while posting a sub-2.50 ERA in their first six seasons: Tim Burke, Brad Ziegler, Craig Kimbrel and Franco.

During the 1989 Winter Meetings, the Reds matched up with the New York Mets in a trade that sent Kip Gross and Randy Myers to the Reds, with minor league outfielder Don Brown and Franco heading to the Mets.

Franco was coming home.

In his fourteen seasons with the Mets, Franco appeared in 695 regular season games and saved 276 games (both franchise records). In 2001, Franco became the third captain in team history, joining Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter.

Franco provided the Mets with many memorable moments, from striking out Barry Bonds with a 3-2 changeup in Game 2 of the 2000 National League Division Series to being the winning pitcher in the first game back after the September 11 terrorist attacks to a memorable commercial appearance for the defunct retailer The Wiz.

Among all-time pitchers, Franco ranks third in games pitched (1,119), seventh in saves (424) and in a three-way tie for 22nd in ERA+ (138). Franco and Billy Wagner are the only left-handed pitchers with more than 400 saves.

I had the privilege of speaking to Franco, where he discussed developing his signature changeup, striking out Barry Bonds in Game 2 of the 2000 National League Division Series, and the role Franco’s father played in his development.

MMO: Who were some of your favorite players growing up?

Franco: My favorite players were Tom Seaver, Tug McGraw, Tommie Agee and that whole ’69 Mets team.

I loved Ron Guidry because he was a little left-handed pitcher like me.

MMO: At what point during your development did you start focusing on pitching?

Franco: I played shortstop up until 13, and then played center field and first base. Mostly around 13-14 [is when] I started pitching a lot.

MMO: What do you remember from your summer playing in the Cape Cod League?

Franco: That Ron Darling was my roommate and Dan Marino was our shortstop, but he left right before I got there. I think he made a good choice to go play football.

Playing in the Cape was a great experience. Not every college player gets the opportunity, and back then it was the highest level of college baseball.

MMO: What are your memories from the 1981 MLB Draft? Were the Los Angeles Dodgers on your radar?

Franco: I can tell you that the Dodgers were always a team that invited me to their tryouts. They always had their local tryouts at Poly Prep High School; that’s where my two older children went to school. The Dodgers were always there and they would invite me, along with the Baltimore Orioles’ scout named Al Goldis. The Dodgers’ scouts were Steve Lembo and Gil Bassetti. Those were the guys who gave me an opportunity and invited me to the tryouts.

I didn’t know I was going to get drafted by them, but I was happy that I did.

MMO: At what point did you start tinkering with your changeup? And is it true that Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax played a role?

Franco: Absolutely. When I was in the Instructional League with the Dodgers, Sandy Koufax, Dave Wallace – who’s my favorite pitching coach of all time – and Larry Sherry, our minor league coordinator, helped me develop that changeup.

When I got traded to Cincinnati, there was a left-handed relief pitcher named Freddy Norman, who had a circle change. I picked his brain a little bit. And then I picked the brain of Mario Soto, who had probably the best changeup in baseball back in the eighties.

One of the guys I sat and learned so much about pitching and how to act was Tom Hume. He was one of my favorite teammates in Cincinnati. He was one of the veterans who took me under his wing. I still keep in contact with him to this day.

MMO: You mentioned Dave Wallace. In previous interviews, you’ve heaped a ton of praise on him for your development. What specifically did Wallace do to help you?

Franco: I can tell you when I was pitching with the Dodgers in a couple of minor league games, and in one particular game, I was getting ahead in the count but wasn’t striking guys out. Dave called time, came to the mound, and had a lot of choice words for me which I can’t say. [Laughs.] That kind of put a lightbulb on, and I thought, you know, this isn’t college anymore. He kind of straightened me out and made me realize to stop acting like a fool and just concentrate on pitching.

I owe him a lot of credit for my maturity and development. Fast forward, and he became the pitching coach with the Mets, so it was great coming full circle.

MMO: At what point did they ask you to transition to the pen?

Franco: I was a starter in the minor leagues with the Dodgers. In ’81, I got drafted, and then in ’82 I went from A-ball to Triple-A because one of their pitchers got hurt. I later went down to Double-A and then the following year I went to Triple-A Albuquerque, and they moved me to the bullpen there.

I got traded to Cincinnati and I went back to starting. They had a number one draft pick named Ron Robinson, who eventually became one of my best friends and roommate with Cincinnati. He was a starter and and they moved me to the bullpen.

My initial thoughts were it sucked because I always thought I’d make it as a starter, but [relieving] was the quickest way to get to the big leagues. I had the type of arm that could throw almost every day. As a starter, I wasn’t a big guy, but I was a full-energy guy, and by the sixth I used to get tired. Career-wise, I think it was probably the best move. Whoever thought of that in the Reds organization, I owe them a lot of credit!

MMO: What were your initial reactions when you heard you were being traded to the Mets in December 1989?

Franco: I was kind of shocked. That winter, the Cincinnati general manager called me because they wanted to give me a three year extension, and asked what I’d be looking for. I said, ‘I haven’t talked to my agent.’ I saw some stuff in the papers back home saying the Yankees were really interested in me.

A week later, the GM for the Reds called me again and said Lou Piniella, who became the new manager, wanted to meet and have lunch. That was about a week before the winter meetings.

The winter meetings came, and I got a phone call saying I was traded to New York. I just assumed it was the Yankees. About ten minutes later, I got a call from Joe McIlvaine, who was the GM of the Mets, so I knew it was them.

I was very, very happy. I mean, I would’ve been happy for the Yankees, too, because it would still mean pitching back home. But the Mets were the team I grew up rooting for.

MMO: I’m sure you received a ton of ticket requests once you came back home to pitch.

Franco: I had a lot of cousins that I didn’t know I had! [Laughs.]

I had two phone lines at my house: one for family and one for friends. My wife, Rose, did a great job in handling the ticket situation. I always told everyone we’re home for 81 games, everybody can’t come to the same games, but pick and choose the ones you want to go to.

MMO: Can you share the reason why you wore the orange undershirt underneath your jersey?

Franco: I wore the shirt in honor of my father, who was a sanitation worker. My dad was my buddy, my best friend.

My dad didn’t like to fly. When I was attending St. John’s, we went to the World Series in Omaha. My brother, Jerry, and my dad were driving and the car broke down in Pennsylvania, so they had to turn back and miss it. But all through the minor leagues, he drove to Florida, Texas, etc.

When I had bad games, I’d call him up, and he would just make me feel good. He would tell me to put things in perspective, that I still have an opportunity, and turn the page on this one and focus on the next game. He never got mad, never yelled. Even when I was playing in high school and college, he was always away from the other parents. He stayed down the line and kept to himself. People would ask him, “Don’t you talk about your son?” He’d say, “No, I let my son do the talking between the lines.” That’s how he was.

He always demanded respect for the game; don’t disrespect baseball. He didn’t believe in booing players. My brother and I would go to games with him and even if the team was playing badly, you didn’t boo the guys. He loved baseball and he was a very important part of my life and development.

MMO: I assume your father was the person who introduced you to baseball.

Franco: He was. I also had an older brother; he passed away about a year and a half ago, and he was five years older than me. I owe him a lot of credit because we used to play games against each other and he’d beat my butt! But it made me more of a competitor, and as I got bigger and stronger, I started beating him. I owe him a lot of credit for my competitiveness, that’s for sure.

MMO: As a reliever, you need to have a short memory and be able to bounce-back after a tough game. How would you specifically handle those situations? Were you someone who utilized any visualization techniques?

Franco: There were a couple of visualization techniques that I used. Mentally, you had to be tough; you had to have a short-term memory. I used to compare a closer to a field goal kicker; if you save 15 in a row, everyone knows you. But the one you blow is the one they remember. A field goal kicker can make ten in a row, and when he misses, that’s the one they’ll remember.

It used to bother me more because I blew the saves of guys like Al Leiter, Tom Glavine, Mike Hampton or Bobby Jones, and they pitched their tails off and I come in for one inning and blow it for them. Those guys worked their tails off for seven-eight innings. That’s what bothered me most about blowing a save.

It would stick with me for a night. I used to watch the replays on ESPN and look to see where the pitch location was. I would try to visualize and do better next time. The good thing about being a relief pitcher was you could get in there the next day and save a game instead of blowing it.

MMO: You pitched both out of the windup and from the stretch at various points throughout your career. Was that more of a feel-thing for you, or were the specific reasons behind those choices?

Franco: When I first came up, it was mostly out of the windup because I was a middle relief/setup man with Cincinnati until I took over [the closer role]. And then my first year or two with the Mets, I was out of the windup. I realized coming into the game there’s less margin of error, and it’s more compact for me being in the stretch rather than the windup.

MMO: One of the lasting memories Mets fans have of you is when you struck out Barry Bonds looking on a 3-2 changeup in the bottom of the tenth in Game 2 of the 2000 N.L.D.S. For your career, you held Bonds to a .229 batting average and a .568 OPS over 39 regular-season plate appearances (and 0-for-2 with two strikeouts in the postseason). Did you have a specific game plan and pitch selection when facing Bonds?

Franco: Barry and I had the same agent, so I knew Barry for a while. I used to tell him, ‘You’re the greatest hitter, I don’t know how I get you out.’ He would always tell me that if he hit a home run against me he’d run around the bases backwards. [Laughs.]

We had some friendly competition, and he came close one time; he hit one off the wall. I really liked the challenge, and Barry was very challenging. You’d throw him fastballs and sliders; I never threw him a changeup until that playoff game.

I talked to John Olerud, who was our first baseman and a great left-handed hitter, and I asked him what the toughest pitch to hit off a lefty was. He said a changeup, so I put that in the back of my mind.

In that particular game against the Giants, I threw a 3-1 fastball that Barry fouled straight back. If he would’ve hit it, that would’ve landed in Oakland. [Mike] Piazza kept putting the fastball sign down, and I kept shaking him off. I had a base open and I decided if I walk him, fine; if not, I’ll take a chance with it. Just so happens, I threw a 3-2 changeup for a strike and got him out.

I think the next time I faced him in that series, he was looking for it (changeup), but I got him with a high fastball. We had some good battles.

MMO: Who are some hitters who gave you the most trouble during your career?

Franco: At the top of the list, and I think he gave everyone trouble, was Tony Gwynn. Then there were hitters like Mariano Duncan and Bob Dernier, who were more contact hitters.

I really didn’t have too much of an issue with the big home run hitters, it was the contact guys. Gwynn was just amazing, no matter what you threw him he hit it. I got to the point where I’d just throw it down the middle and hope he hit a line drive at somebody.

MMO: What did it mean to be named the third captain in Mets history? Were there any additional responsibilities you took on?

Franco: Not really. It was a great honor to be shown the respect from my teammates and the organization.

As a captain, if guys had a bad day, you’d go up to them and talk. Some might’ve had off-the-field problems that you might be able to help them with. When the team was going bad, you’d call team meetings. If we needed guys to relax and there was too much media in the locker room, I’d say, ‘We’re having a meeting,’ and Jay [Horwitz] would clear them out.

Jay would ask me, “What time’s the meeting?” I’d say, ‘There’s no meeting. I just want guys to relax.’ I tried to be a leader and lead by example on and off the field.

MMO: You’re third all-time in regular season pitching appearances with 1,119 games. Do you take pride in your place on that leaderboard?

Franco: It means a lot. I love the game and I love to play. Being a reliever is almost like being an everyday player. I had a great opportunity to do what I did for a long time.

MMO: Playing 21 years in the majors, and racking up the number of games that you did surely took a toll on your body. What would you do stay in shape?

Franco: The difference, I think, between players now and when I played is once the season’s over, guys today seem to take a week off and then they go right into throwing. I think that puts strain on their arms. I did a lot of weight training, and when I got closer to spring training, I cut my training in half in terms of weight and always did cardio and core. I ate well and my wife is in great shape too, and she made sure I ate well. I think there are too many gadgets now and gurus with these instructions and workouts. I think that adds a lot to these injuries.

I used to play basketball and throw the football around, and that was part of my workout. I’ll tell you a funny story: When I played for Cincinnati, I used to play in a touch football league in the offseason. I was a quarterback with the YMCA league. I used to have to sneak out because my dad would say I was crazy for playing, but that kept my arm in shape all winter. Once I got traded to the Mets, that was it. My career in touch football was over.

MMO: What have you been up to post playing career?

Franco: I’ve been retired since 2005 and still work with the organization periodically. I’ll go to spring training when I’m invited down. I’ve been one of the ambassadors and I do alumni work with Jay and the organization. I represent the team in various functions if they need me to do certain things.

I would love to get back into the game in some capacity. We’ll see what happens but I’m enjoying life. I took up golf a bit more seriously; I’m still not good at it, but I enjoy it. Hopefully one day, with the Era Committee, I get elected to the Hall of Fame.

MMO: Your candidacy is certainly an interesting one. Relievers haven’t been given the same attention as other positions for the Hall. If Billy Wagner makes it in his last year of eligibility, perhaps that will help your case.

Franco: My numbers are just as good as most of the guys in there, except for probably Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. If Billy gets in, that might open the door for me. I still think I belong in there, but things don’t always work out that way. Maybe the Era Committee and the former players and executives who are around the game will realize that.

MMO: When you look back on your career, John, what are you most proud of?

Franco: I’m most proud of being able to take the ball every day, being a good leader and respected on and off the field.

The post MMO Exclusive: Franchise Saves Leader, John Franco appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

This week Mike and I are joined by long-time head of public relations and current VP of Mets Alumni Relations, the legendary Jay Horwitz! Jay had some great conversations with us about getting his start with the team and his memorable interview, his relationship with the late Shannon Forde, his most memorable moment working for the team, orchestrating Old Timer’s Day in 2022, and much more!

What was it like getting to work with a superstar like David Wright for his entire career? For Jay, getting to watch Wright the player was a pleasure, but it’s the person who Wright is that makes him so special:

“I always tell people, Wright was a seven-time all star, and as good a player as he was, he was a seven times better person. He has a great sense of community, he started his own foundation at 22, and I never had to ask him to do something twice. Whether it was asking him to write a letter to a sick child or to make a call to someone who was injured, Wright was always there, never turned away an autograph, and unfortunately because of injuries that happened might still be playing, and probably well on his way to a hall of fame career too. But, he is just a delightful person and really understood what it meant to be a player in New York.”

Watch and subscribe to the MMO Youtube channel here.

The post MMO Weekly Episode 85: Stories with Mets Legend Jay Horwitz appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Rintaro Sasaki, a Japanese high school phenom and the potential No. 1 pick in the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Draft, officially decided to forego the NPB on Tuesday, signing a national letter of intent to play college baseball with Stanford, the university announced. 

Sasaki will graduate from Hanmaki-Higashi High School, the same school Shohei Ohtani attended, in March and join the Cardinal for the 2025 season.

Sasaki, a 6-foot, 250-pound first baseman, had a batting average of over .400 and a Japanese high school record 140 home runs during his career.

As a result of the choice to go abroad, Sasaki will be eligible to debut in the MLB at an earlier age than if he stayed in the NPB, potentially pioneering a new path for Japanese youngsters to join the American ranks.

“He may be the most high-profile international prospect to play college baseball in the United States in a long time,” Stanford Head Coach David Esquer said in a press release. “His power bat plays right into our style of play, and we look forward to him contributing immediately to help us achieve our goals of competing for and winning national titles.”

Stanford has made three consecutive trips to the College World Series. 

Latest Mets News

The Mets are one of nine teams debuting new City Connect jerseys, the MLB announced. 

Garth Brooks discussed being a “good luck charm” for the 2000 Mets in an interview with Jay Horwitz. 

Our own Ed Delany was back at camp taking photos, including our first look at newcomer Sean Manaea.

Latest MLB News

NBC Sports California named Jenny Cavnar the play-by-play voice of the Oakland Athletics, making her the first female primary play-by-play voice in MLB history, the network announced. 

The Arizona and Florida Complex Leagues will begin and end their seasons a month earlier, according to a report from Baseball America. 

The Los Angeles Angels are nearing a minor league deal with pitcher Drew Pomeranz, per Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. 

The Kansas City Royals released renderings of a new stadium and downtown district. 

The Athletics and Oakland City, as well as Alameda County officials, will meet Thursday to discuss a lease extension, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

The Miami Marlins agreed to a contract with Curt Casali, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.  

Latest On MMO 

Alexis Farinacci writes about Mark Vientos’ expectations as a likely everyday player for the Mets in 2024. 

Evan Mazza discusses Carlos Mendoza’s first press conference of the spring.

Elliot Teichman evaluated non-roster invitee Cam Robinson. 

Allison Waxman gives Mets spring training storylines to watch. 

This Day in Mets History 

Birthdays: Tyler Clippard (39), Kelly Stinnett (54)

The post Morning Briefing: Japanese Phenom Rintaro Sasaki Commits to Stanford appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

In fact, stickball brought refuge to a young Kranepool. As his stickball reputation grew, local gangs treated Kranepool well and insisted he not hang around with them after dark as they didn’t want him to get into trouble and not be able to play on their teams.

Growing up in a single-parent household, Kranepool was drawn to athletics, mainly basketball and baseball. With the guidance and support of his next-door neighbor, Jimmy Schiafo, who acted as a father figure, the left-handed hitter was developing and drawing interest from Major League teams.

The team that showed the most interest in Kranepool’s services was that of the recently-formed New York Mets.

Sixty-one years after a then-17-year-old Kranepool signed a contract with the Mets, the Bronx-native has recently penned an autobiography on his life and playing career called “The Last Miracle: My 18-Year Journey with Amazin’ New York Mets.”

The memoir, published by Triumph Books, focuses on Kranepool’s development as a player, memories of the club’s first World Series championship in 1969, organizational miscues and his life-saving kidney transplant.

Triumph Books

Kranepool, 78, offers frank and transparent views on a myriad of topics, including his displeasure of Yogi Berra’s managerial decisions, resentment toward Gene Mauch for not playing him in his only All-Star Game appearance in 1965 and frustration with many of the Mets’ front office moves in the mid-to-late 1970s.

Over his eighteen-year career, Kranepool played for just one organization, a rarity in today’s game. Kranepool is the franchise leader in games played (1,853), and owns the third-most hits (1,418) and fifth-most RBIs (614). ‘The Krane’ also owns the eighth-most home runs by a player under the age of 20 in Major League Baseball history with 12.

In the latter part of Kranepool’s career, he developed into a dependable bat off the bench. In 1974, Kranepool went 17-for-35 (.486) in pinch-hitting opportunities, setting a single-season record for highest batting average by a pinch hitter.

I had the privilege of speaking with Kranepool over the phone, where he discussed his early development in the Bronx, spending nearly two decades with the Mets and his kidney transplant.

MMO: What prompted you to write the memoir?

Kranepool: I just figured I had a lot of stories to tell. Ralph Kiner is not around, so why not let the fans enjoy them? I participated in all of them since 1962, and there’s nobody here to talk about that stuff.

MMO: A prominent figure throughout your youth was your neighbor, Jimmy Schiafo. You write in the book that he acted as a father figure. How important was his presence in your life and early development as an athlete?

Kranepool: I was brought up without a dad; I lost my father in the war. I needed a replacement and he was my next-door neighbor and took a liking to me.

He had two boys and they were involved in baseball, and one was on my team. He worked us all out, kept us in shape and taught us the fundamentals of baseball. That’s really where I got my start.

MMO: You write that your reputation for baseball started by playing stickball in the Bronx. What memories do you have from playing stickball?

Kranepool: Stickball was the game to play in the Bronx because you had a lot of playgrounds with concrete fields; you didn’t have a lot of playing fields that were being taken care of. We played every day.

Being a guy from the Bronx, we didn’t have a lot of money in our pockets, so we were going out to camps and stuff like that in the summer. We all got together at the playgrounds and worked out every day. We ran there after breakfast and stayed there until lunch. We then ran home to grab a sandwich and came back and played basketball or baseball or whatever you could do on the playground.

It was cheap, inexpensive and a lot of fun for all of us.

MMO: Your first significant injury was when you fractured your elbow on your throwing arm in your second year of Little League. You write that your elbow never healed and you never had surgery to repair it. Did that injury ever bother you later in your career? And do you think you would’ve kept pitching?

Kranepool: I think I could have pitched. I was an outstanding pitcher in Little League and set all kinds of records. I was never the same afterwards, and nobody really knew about it. That’s something you don’t brag about with any type of deficiency you might have. So I played with it.

Did it affect me? It probably did; it probably affected my swing. I was a better player, I think, before that [injury]. But you still play and overcome and enjoy the game of baseball. I played every day and was able to perform, and we enjoyed ourselves.

To this day, it’s not right and never will be.

MMO: Is it true that you taught yourself to throw right handed after that injury?

Kranepool: I did! I caught for a year and a half and I can throw right handed. I’m not as good right handed as I am left handed because I never continued it. But I could throw because I wanted to hit. Certain things you can’t do so you just overcome them and keep trying.

MMO: That reminds me of Billy Wagner learning to throw left handed after breaking his right arm when he was a kid.

Kranepool: Well, that’s what it is. You use the other one and compensate for that. If you keep throwing with the opposite arm you’re going to overcome everything.

I did it for a year and a half, and I had fun doing it. I liked catching because you’re in the action.

MMO: Can you talk about the interest that the New York Mets showed in you throughout your high school career, and the relationship you developed with scout Bubber Jonnard?

Kranepool: Bubber was the scout in the tri-state area, and he followed all the players as they were growing up. When I was in sandlot baseball, I attracted a lot of attention because I was a pretty good hitter, and pitched a little bit but could never throw the same [after injury].

I really attracted the Mets because of my hitting. They followed me during high school and went to all my games.

When I signed, I graduated high school, and two days later the Mets came to my door, sat on my doorsteps, and wanted to talk a contract because you can’t sign until your graduating class is out. They were the first ones in my house, and they sat there all night, and we finally signed a contract.

MMO: I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that you graduated high school, signed a major league contract and then took a plane to the West Coast to meet the Mets just a few days later. Do you remember what was going through your mind at the time as a 17-year-old?

Kranepool: It was excitement for myself signing a contract. It was my goal as a Little Leaguer to start and play in the major leagues and perform. I didn’t expect to go out to the National League and to Los Angeles straight away, but I did.

They packed me up and put me on a plane; the first time I ever flew. Little did I know that opening night out there was Sandy Koufax. He pitched a no-hitter and struck out 13. I told Casey [Stengel], ‘I’m ready for college.’ [Laughs.]

MMO: You sat next to Casey Stengel during games to observe what was happening and get a feel for the major leagues when you arrived. What were some of your early takeaways from sitting next to Stengel?

Kranepool: He was having a good time with himself. He was 71, enjoying baseball, loving life and always discussing the game. He was the first one at the ballpark and the last one to leave.

He put a lot of time in on the team, but we just didn’t have the talent. We had a lot of older guys who were past their prime. Back in those days, 35 was more than your prime, and he knew that he really didn’t have the talent to really perform against the other teams.

Stengel took a lot of pressure off of guys because he kept the press busy writing stories about the Mets, talking about the old Yankees, all kinds of things. It made it easier for the players to perform because losing 100 games was not easy for any team. It’s tough to lose 100 games, and we did it for several years.

MMO: Obviously, the first seven years of the club’s existence were disappointing and underwhelming. And then came 1969. When did you start to notice that things were changing for the better in the organization?

Kranepool: We made a lot of changes in the front office, and of course, we acquired Gil Hodges in 1968. He was a young manager coming over from Washington, and he taught us how to play the game and how to win.

We were better in ’68. I think it was the second time we hadn’t lost 100 games and we thought it was a big improvement. In spring training, he discussed it with us and told us to set some goals for ourselves and taught us how to win, how to play the game and how you should play. A win here or there makes a big difference at the end of a season. So we did perform better.

By the summer of ’69, we started to get to .500. When we got to .500, it was at the stage of the season where we had never been that high in the season.

We started to play really good baseball, and in the second half of the season, we won 60-to-70 percent of our games. We beat every club that we had to and went on to win the pennant. We beat the Cubs by eight or nine games, and they were up eight or nine games most of the year.

MMO: Something you write about in the book is that you wish the club gave you more time to develop, especially when it came to the mental preparation of the game. Looking back, how would you have handled a young Ed Kranepool?

Kranepool: You can’t handle that any differently; they’re in control of your outcome. I would have been better off playing in the minor leagues for a year or two, developing with guys my own age; this way you can perform up to what your ability is.

Every time I went to the minors, I hit over .300 and was one of the outstanding players in the league. I just never developed.

You don’t improve facing Koufax, [Bob] Gibson, [Don] Drysdale, [Juan] Marichal and all of these Hall of Famers. There were so many of them in the National League in the sixties, and if you look at the records, most of those guys made the Hall of Fame. Guys don’t really perform and improve against those types of pitchers.

MMO: Did you feel pressure to succeed right away given all the hype and publicity surrounding your signing?

Kranepool: I did because everyone expected a whole lot more from you. They wanted you to do more because they wanted you to lead them to the pennant. And that’s why they were frustrated: they wanted to win. I don’t blame them, I wanted to win!

Until they surrounded me in the lineup, they could always pitch against you. I was an aggressive hitter, and I wanted to swing. I wasn’t going to walk my way to the major leagues. I would swing at pitches that were out of my strike zone, out of my hitting zone, and I didn’t perform with it.

As I matured and got older and caught up with the league, I started to produce some numbers that the Mets were expecting. But I’d been around so long that the organization said, “Maybe he’s over the hill.”

I was in the league for 17 years and performing. I could have done a lot better late in my career; I hit .300, .320, .290, .280. Those are competitive numbers for the better players in the league. But people still remember that you struggled when you were 17-18 [years old] in the league.

MMO: You were a terrific pinch hitter, as you posted a career .277 batting average in those situations. Can you talk about some of the challenges of pinch-hitting, and the preparation it takes in order to come up late in a game?

Kranepool: Mentally, I wanted to prove the manager wrong. When I wasn’t playing, I should have been playing. They should have had me in the lineup so I would get four at-bats instead of one.

Once I had that job, I prepared myself, and in the middle innings took some extra swings down below in the dugout and got myself ready and had my bat prepared. I knew when I was going to pinch hit; I didn’t pinch hit when the game was not on the line. It was always in a crucial situation where the game was on the line and I knew who was going to pitch, so I was physically ready to pinch hit.

As I got older, I did it so well that I was efficient in it. A team like the Mets, when they’re not playing well, you don’t have that many opportunities for game situations. You’re not going to pinch hit when you’re down 6-0 and you have a couple other options to choose. They’re going to use them, and I never got a chance to play in a lot of games.

It was a situation where I was doing it to show up the manager and work my way back into the lineup. But I did it pretty well.

MMO: From reading your book, you can tell how much respect and appreciation you had for Gil Hodges. From everything I’ve read about Hodges, he really seemed like a manager who was ahead of his time with his methods and how he managed a ball club. In your view, what did Hodges do well as a manager?

Kranepool: Gil learned how to use everybody and had one set of rules. He was a very tough disciplinarian. I had trouble with Gil in the early years, I had some disagreements with him, and we didn’t get along for two or three years. But I fought through it, and he did also.

He worked with me and sent me out to show me that he was in charge, and I went down to the minor leagues and hit over .300 and worked my way back to the majors. M. Donald Grant gave his word that he would get me back to the majors and wouldn’t just strand me in the minors. When I performed, he lived up to his promise and I got along very well with Mr. Grant.

MMO: I loved the anecdote you shared about winning a Kobe bull while barnstorming with the Mets in Japan in 1974. Can you talk about that event, and how you ended up with a bull as a prize?

Kranepool: I won a bull in Japan because I was the best hitter on the ball club. I led the team in home runs and average and played well over there and got an award.

It was quite funny how I ended it in the last game of the year. It was either myself or the first baseman the Giants had, Sadaharu Oh. We had a couple of home runs apiece, and then I hit a home run in the first inning. They moved the bull to one side of the field, and it looked like I was going to get it. Then Oh hit a home run, and they moved the bull back to the third base-side. Towards the seventh or eighth inning, I hit another home run, so I won the bull. I hit about eight home runs in 18 games.

They gave me the award, and it was fun. I didn’t bring it home because it was too expensive; you had to leave it in quarantine for a while. I traded him for a couple of first-class tickets to New York and left the ballclub with a week to go. We had a full week left, but I didn’t choose to stay in Japan.

MMO: You’re very honest and transparent throughout the book, especially with certain individuals like Gene Mauch, Yogi Berra, Joe McDonald and Joe Torre. Can you talk about your openness with some of the displeasure you had for certain individuals?

Kranepool: Whoever’s in charge, if they don’t treat you right, you’re going to treat them the same way they treated you. They didn’t make considerations and didn’t keep their promises, so there’s no way you’re going to like them.

Gene Mauch was a tough manager to play against. He always wanted to win and do anything to win for his ball club, had nothing to do with me, but he was tough on us. You wanted to beat him, and every time we played, you performed a little bit better.

Some of our people were incompetent in our organization. They made deals and trades and got rid of players who should’ve been playing, and other guys they kept. I wanted to win as a young player coming up; I was tired of losing. When they kept making bad moves, I critiqued them and let them know that I didn’t like it.

The only thing I wanted to do was win and win a World Series, and win a couple of them. We should’ve won two, we only won one. We lost the second one, and that was incompetence on the manager’s part. We should’ve been a better ball club then we were. If Gil was alive, we win more pennants, and become better for it.

MMO: One of the many things I learned while reading your book was that you were offered the opportunity to work with Robert Redford for “The Natural.” Can you talk about that?

Kranepool: We did. A lot of guys got opportunities when they were performing there. You had to play and do it in Buffalo. I didn’t choose to go up there because I didn’t know how long I was going to be at minimal pay.

Robert Redford was the star, and we had to teach him how to play baseball, and we worked a little bit with him in New York. But we weren’t going up to Buffalo. I wasn’t going to spend time up there without my family.

MMO: You write about your desire to work in the front office for the Mets after your playing career was through. Was that something you had given a lot of thought to?

Kranepool: I always did. I never wanted to manage, I didn’t want to confront the players on a daily basis; let them perform and do it on the field. I can work from above and around them, and that’s what I wanted to do.

I probably would have done it if Mrs. Payson stayed alive and didn’t give the club to her daughter and pick Joe McDonald to be the general manager. He killed off some minor league teams, traded those players, and then he traded from the major league club, and the Mets went from first to last.

MMO: You write about the process it took for you to find a kidney donor, and the help that Jay Horwitz provided to spread the word. Several years removed from surgery, how are you feeling?

Kranepool: I’m doing great! It’s four years since the surgery and it’s acting well. It did take me a couple of years to do it, and then we finally got one (kidney donor).

We were very lucky to be able to put together a structure, a deal that helped two guys; myself and another gentleman who was a firefighter. He actually got my donor and I got his wife as a donor; she was a perfect match. It worked out well for both.

MMO: When you look back on your career, Ed, what are you most proud of? 

Kranepool: I’m proud of staying long enough in the organization to finally see us win a World Series. That’s the one goal when you start, and I finished with a World Series. Like I said, the biggest disappointment of my career was losing the ’73 World Series in seven games.

The post MMO Exclusive: 1969 World Champion Ed Kranepool appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Howard Johnson, Al Leiter, Gary Cohen, and Howie Rose will be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame as the 2023 class of inductees, the team announced on Wednesday.

Additionally, Jay Horowitz, the team’s longtime media relations guru, will receive the team’s Hall of Fame Achievement Award.

Johnson, Leiter, Cohen and Rose will officially be inducted on Saturday, June 3 in a pre-game ceremony prior to the game against the Toronto Blue Jays at Citi Field. The four new additions means that there is now a total of 34 inductees in the Mets Hall of Fame.

The organization also announced that they will host a Zoom meeting on Thursday, January 19 at 11am with Johnson, Leiter, Cohen, Rose and Horowitz.

“It was an honor informing each of the four new members that they were going to be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame,” Mets owner Steve Cohen said in a statement. “Howard Johnson was the classic combination of speed and power, with three seasons of 30-homers and 30-stolen bases. Al Leiter, who grew up in New Jersey rooting for the Mets, ranks in the top 10 in team history in wins and strikeouts.

“Mets fans are privileged to have two of the very best in all of baseball describing the action with years of institutional Mets knowledge. Gary Cohen is set to start his 35th year of calling Mets games and Howie Rose has been covering the team since 1987. In addition, we are honoring Jay Horowitz, who has passionately worked for this organization for over 40 years, with the Hall of Fame Achievement Award. I’m looking forward to celebrating more Mets history on June 3.”

Johnson and Leiter are being inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame for their prowess on the field in a Mets uniform. Johnson put together three seasons of 30-homers and 30-stolen bases (1987, 1989, and 1991), which rank as the most in team history. The two-time All-Star (1989, 1991) and two-time Silver Slugger (1989, 1991) was the first switch-hitter to join the 30-30 club in major league history. He also ranks in the top five in franchise history in home runs, doubles, RBI and stolen bases. Johnson was a member of the 1986 World Series team and he spent nine years with the Mets.

Leiter, meanwhile, excelled on the mound for the Mets and he won double-digit games in seven straight years between 1998-2004. The two-time World Series winner ranks in the top 10 in franchise history in wins, innings, strikeouts and quality starts. Perhaps Leiter’s finest moment in a Mets uniform came in 1999 when he threw a two-hit shutout in a one-game playoff at Cincinnati. He also became the first pitcher to defeat all 30 major league teams. Leiter won both the Roberto Clemente Award and the Branch Rickey Award for his charitable endeavors.

As richly deserving as Johnson and Leiter are of being inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame for their heroics on the field, so too are Cohen and Rose for their expertise off it. Cohen began calling Mets games in the booth in 1989, right up until 2006 when he transitioned into the SNY booth. Cohen, who is the second-longest tenured Mets play-by-play announcer in team history, makes up one part of SNY’s famous broadcast booth with Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling.

Rose is known for entertaining the Mets masses with his distinctive voice on the radio as the team’s play-by-play announcer, a job he’s proudly been doing since 1996. Rose has been with the Mets since 1987 having grown up going to Shea Stadium. Inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 2012, and welcomed into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019, Rose’s signature “Put it in the books” call is a welcome sound to all Mets fans after a win.

Finally, the organization will also honor Horowitz in a classy move. The longtime Mets PR guy joined the team on April, 1 1980 as the director of public relations. He was promoted to vice president of media relations in 2001, and he has been honored on a plethora of occasions for his undying commitment to the Mets. The decision to honor Horowitz is another sign that owner Steve Cohen is determined to pay tribute to all those who have left their mark on the franchise.

Further details will be announced by the Mets in due course. Mets fans can now purchase tickets for the June 3 game vs. the Blue Jays and the Hall of Fame Induction ceremony by clicking here.

The post Mets Announce 2023 Hall of Fame Inductees appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

When Jay Horwitz interviewed for a public relations position with the New York Mets back in 1980, he was convinced that the prospects of getting hired were slim to none.

After all, Horwitz showed up to his interview a half-hour late after he went to the wrong hotel and then proceeded to spill a container of orange juice on general manager Frank Cashen’s lap after nervously reaching out to shake his hand.

The interview lasted just five minutes, and a dejected Horwitz called his mother to let her know that the interview went a bit awry. To his surprise, Horwitz received a phone call from the Mets two weeks later, congratulating him on getting the job.

Four decades later, Horwitz remains with the organization, after working 39 years as the head of media relations before shifting to his new role as vice president of alumni public relations and team historian in 2018.

Horwitz, 75, details his lengthy and memorable career in his memoir aptly titled, “Mr. Met: How a Sports-Mad Kid from Jersey Became Like Family to Generations of Big Leaguers,” which was released this past May.

The affable Horwitz offers a glimpse behind the scenes of navigating through the intense nature that is the New York sports media. He shares anecdotes and memories from the lean years in the early 1980s to the 1986 championship season, to the relationships and bonds created with the generations of players he aided along the way.

Beyond the countless stories and hijinks Horwitz encountered over his four decades with the Mets, the long-time PR boss utilized the pages in his book to remind readers of two important subjects in his life: to not give up on a dream even with a disability, and to keep the late Shannon Forde’s memory alive.

Horwitz details how his mother came down with a case of German measles while she was carrying him, and soon after he was born, he was diagnosed with glaucoma in his right eye. Horwitz reveals in the book that he was blind in that eye, and when he was in the sixth grade, the doctors recommended that it be removed.

Growing up with a disability was tough for Horwitz, who was bullied and teased for being different. However, working to overcome his disability gave Horwitz a different perspective on life, and he hopes that his story will resonate with others who may be dealing with a condition of their own.

Horwitz’s final chapter is dedicated to Shannon Forde, who Horwitz hired as an intern out of St. John’s University in 1994. Horwitz notes how Forde was part of a small group of trailblazers, as there were only a handful of women working in baseball PR at the time.

Forde quickly became indispensable to Horwitz, calling her his “right-hand person” and the “daughter I never had.” Forde passed away in 2016 at the age of 44, after a long battle with breast cancer. The connection Forde and Horwitz formed over two decades is evident in the way he describes his long-time friend and co-worker, noting that even when she was nearing the end of her battle with cancer, all she wanted to do was help others.

As Horwitz succinctly puts it: “She was one of a kind.”

I had the privilege of speaking with Horwitz, where we discussed his reasons for writing the book, the day-to-day operations of being a PR director, and how he advised players to handle the New York media.

MMO: What prompted you to write the book, and what was the overall process like for you?

Horwitz: A couple of reasons. I switched jobs a couple of years ago; I became the alumni director, and I was the regular PR guy for the Mets for 39 years. I have always been able to laugh at myself and was the butt of a lot of jokes through the years. People kept telling me that I had a good sense of humor and a lot of funny stories. So that was one part.

The other part, that people don’t know, was when my mother was carrying me in 1944-45, she came down with German measles, and I was born with glaucoma in my right eye. I was basically born blind in my right eye. When I was about in the sixth grade – I was ten or eleven – the doctor said to me that unless I take my right eye out, I have the chance of being blind altogether.

I had my right eye removed, and since then I’ve had an artificial right eye. I was always too embarrassed to tell people. I would always say that I can see a little bit, not a whole lot, just a little bit. Part of the reason for writing the book was so I could be an example to some kids who were born with some kind of disability or deformity. You can still make something of yourself and still go forward.

The other part of it was Shannon Forde; I wanted to have a tribute to her. When people die – and she’s been dead for over four years – people forget. One of the things I wanted to do was make people not forget.

The last part of the story is my mother died in 1990, and I’ve been kind of adopted by a family, Linda and Mark Emr from Little Ferry. They’ve always been asking me to write a book, and Mark passed away a year ago from cancer. I wanted to write the book as a tribute to my mom and dad, and to Linda and Mark and our family.

MMO: You mentioned the late Shannon Forde, who was so beloved and cherished by the organization. Can you talk about her impact on the club, and what made her such a special person?

Horwitz: She was one of the most courageous people I’ve ever met. I hired her as an intern from St. John’s in 1994, and I knew right off she was a keeper. She kept score, she knew the names of the players, she was a dedicated Mets fan and she progressed through the years.

She became one of the most respected PR persons, not women, but respected PR people in all of baseball and all of sports. Major League Baseball asked her to work the All-Star Game and World Series, and she put out one of the top press guides in all of baseball. We had the World Series in 2000 and in 2015, and she helped run the credentials for that.

The other part was when she got cancer in 2011, she never stopped working, and she was raising two young kids. She just came to work when she could, and on the days she came to work, she’d just shut the door, because she didn’t want to keep answering questions of how are you feeling.

Shannon never really asked for something from anybody. In the last year, she willed herself to go to the World Series in Kansas City. The cancer had spread all over her body, but she wanted to go. And she helped work the Series.

When she passed away in 2016, nine Major League teams held a moment of silence for her. That’s pretty remarkable! A PR person really has three separate audiences: the ownership who hired you, the media and players. And Shannon, through her personality, had all three facets love her. I never had one person say anything bad about her to me.

Major League Baseball helped build a field in her honor in her hometown of Little Ferry [New Jersey]. I just admired her courage, how she got along with people and I just didn’t want people to forget her.

MMO: You write in the book that you were a sportswriter early on, something you didn’t discuss much with many of the writers you came into contact with later on in your career with the Mets. Can you talk a bit about your early career as a sportswriter, and how that job aided you when you worked for the Mets as their PR director?

Horwitz: Out of high school, I was hired by the Passaic Herald-News. I covered high school sports and one year they let me cover the Jets. I actually traveled with the Jets for a year after their Super Bowl. I really enjoyed covering them and I got to cover a lot of my high school games It really was a great experience.

When I got the job with the Mets, I tried to treat everybody the same. I came from a small paper and I knew the people from small papers worked just as hard as the people at the big papers, so I just tried to treat everybody the same.

MMO: Can you talk about getting hired by the Mets in 1980?

Horwitz: In February of 1980, I had already accepted a job to be the stat guy for Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola for the NBC Game of the Week.

One day, I got a random phone call in my office from a guy named Jim Nagourney, who said he was from the New York Mets. At that time, the Mets were a really bad team in the late ’70s, and they were looking for a PR guy who had a sense of humor and had some offbeat stories.

When I got the call, I hung up on him; I thought it was a friend playing a joke. The next day I find out that the guy was legit. I called him back and, to make a long story short, I took a plane down to St. Petersburg to interview with Frank Cashen, who was the GM of the team. I went to the wrong hotel, I finally showed up at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, and Frank was sitting there in his little white tennis shorts. I was so nervous as he proceeded to shake my hand, I spilt a gigantic container of orange juice all over his lap.

He asked me one question; I answered it correctly, and he said, “Well, that’s all that I need to know.”

The interview lasted about five minutes, and then I went back to the airport and I spoke with my late mom and said, ‘Mom, there’s no way I got this job.’

Forty-plus years later, I’m still here.

MMO: When you were hired, you were coming on during a losing period for the organization, as the Mets hadn’t finished above .500 since 1976. What were some of the challenges of doing the job the way you wanted to with the unfortunate losing culture of the time?

Horwitz: When I was at Fairleigh Dickinson for eight years [served as FDU Sports Information Director], I promoted a lot of offbeat stories. We had a priest who played hockey, a 43-year-old freshman football player, an Israeli and Arab goalie on the same soccer team, a one-armed fencer and a baseball player who got hit by a pitch 128 times in four years. Since the team wasn’t very good, I tried to look for different stories.

Lee Mazzilli was one of our stars, and he was also a world champion speed skater. Doug Flynn was our second baseman at the time and was a country-western singer. He sang with the Loretta Lynn Band and the Oak Ridge Boys, so I did a story on him. Joel Youngblood used to hunt with a bow and arrow.

I tried to look for offbeat stories that would transcend winning or losing. And things didn’t really change until May 6, 1983, when we brought Darryl Strawberry up. A month later, we got Keith Hernandez in a trade.

Then a key moment, and probably the best run we ever had with the Mets, was in 1983 when we hired Davey Johnson as the manager. At Davey’s press conference, his first words were, “Why did it take you so long to hire me?”

Davey was a forerunner of the analytics movement; he was a Texas A&M graduate, an accomplished pilot, he sold real estate. He didn’t need the job. But Davey brought a sense of cockiness, a sense of confidence in the team, where for the next six years we averaged over 90 wins a year and of course win the World Series in 1986.

For the first couple of years, it was trying to promote the team with some human-interest stories like in 1983, until a lot of the better players started to emerge.

MMO: How did you go about navigating through all the various personalities and egos of all the players you came into contact with?

Horwitz: What I had to do, Mat, was try to treat the 25^th guy on the team like the number one guy. I didn’t try to give any favoritism; if the 25^th guy needed a favor, I’d try and help him. I was conscious of certain players who after a game could do a lot of interviews, and certain players needed a group interview.

It was knowing the personalities of the players and knowing who you can lean on and who needed a little love and care. Know their personalities and really just treat everybody the same and not cater to just the star players in Strawberry, [Dwight] Gooden, [Gary] Carter, but being concerned with the guys like Joe McEwing, Vance Wilson, etc.

MMO: How long would it take you to get to know a player?

Horwitz: When we made a trade and after the GM and manager spoke to him, I would call and say, ‘Hey, this is Jay over in PR.’

At that time, I helped players get houses and pick out schools for their kids, maybe get them tickets to a Knicks or Rangers game. I always found spring training to be a great time to get to know new players or the young kids because you have a lot of free time on your hand and sit around in the clubhouse and in the dugout.

What a lot of people don’t do, but I tried to, was don’t always ask something when you approach a player. Let them know you’re there for them, and not always can you do this or that for me. Once you then let them know, it builds up a level of trust with the guys, which is important.

The player has to know that they can confide in you and they can trust you, and that’s what I really tried to do through the years.

MMO: For a 7:10 night game at home, what would a prototypical day look like for you?

Horwitz: I live in New Jersey, so I have to go over two bridges. I would get over the bridges, read the papers in my office, make sure I was up to date on the latest things, then I’d answer some emails.

When I first started, I used to do all the game notes myself, about ten or eleven pages. Then slowly I would hand off parts of it to Shannon and parts of it to Ethan Wilson. I would do the notes, make some phone calls, take some interview requests and then I’d go down and sit with the manager around one o’clock and try to bring him up to date. Whether it was Bobby Valentine, Willie Randolph, or Terry Collins, I’d try to give them a heads up of questions they might get and kind of brief them [on it].

It was a league rule that you had to open up the locker room three and a half hours before the game. We’d have the press in the locker room, and I’d be a presence to answer the reporters’ questions or help do some interviews. The team would then go on the field for an hour and a half for BP. You come back and go up to the press box about six o’clock and get something to eat.

During the game, I’d answer questions like, if Darryl Strawberry were to hit two home runs, how many times did he do that? Be available, have injury reports ready, and then after the game you have to open up the locker room ten minutes after. I’d have to be down there to monitor interviews and answer any requests.

One thing I liked about the job, Mat, was no day was ever really the same. I never felt I was working, I was doing something I loved as a kid. I loved sports as a kid, and the one regret I have is my dad passed away in 1970, and he was never able to see me get the major leagues. My dad was a diehard football and baseball Giants fan. Thank god my mom got to go to the ’86 World Series, which is great.

That’s why I loved it. Not to skip ahead, but in the summer of 2018, when Jeff Wilpon asked me to change jobs to become the alumni director, I really wasn’t thrilled about it. I liked the camaraderie in the locker room and I liked the travel. But after being on the job for two years, I think we’re doing some good with reaching out to people and letting them know we care.

I’ll give you an example: Hobie Landrith was the first player the Mets picked in the 1961 expansion draft. I called him about a year ago, and during the conversation, Hobie said to me, “You know, Jay, you’re the only person from the Mets organization who has called me in fifty years.”

Basically, what we try to do is let these guys know that we gave a shit, let them know we care and just try to bring them back into the Mets’ family. We worked with the ’69 Mets last year, and we had a great time working with Cleon Jones, Ed Kranepool, Jerry Koosman, etc. I worked with most of these guys during my career, so once I got used to the transition, I really love what we’re doing now.

MMO: You mentioned your new role with the Mets as vice president of alumni public relations and team historian. What other responsibilities do you have with this new position?

Horwitz: Last year we did the biggest thing: Every home weekend we brought in two guys and they signed autographs in the Hall of Fame Club, did social media, went down to the dugout and met the current players, and did TV and radio interviews. Last year Pete Alonso and Todd Frazier were really great, because every time we had alumni in the dugout, they would always come over and introduce themselves and ask what they did and what position they played. It’s good to see the current guys know what the other guys did.

We do a newsletter four times a year, and we support the player charity events, like Cleon Jones had a golf tournament in Mobile. Cleon has done great work helping to reconstruct his neighborhood.

We were fortunate to work with Ed Kranepool and got him all the publicity to get the kidney transplant last year. We were going to retire Jerry Koosman’s number this year. We increased the membership of our Hall of Fame, we were going to do Ron Darling, Jon Matlack and Edgardo Alfonzo. With Jeff’s leadership, we’re just trying to reach out more and more to the past.

MMO: Do you have a favorite moment or two from your four decades with the club?

Horwitz: Listen, ’86 was a great season, but for me, what I’ll remember most and what I’m most proud of is what the team did after 9/11. From ownership down to Bobby Valentine and the players like Al Leiter, Johnny Franco, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, Vance Wilson, Joe McEwing.

We made a difference in the community. We went to Ground Zero on more than one occasion with no media. We handed out Mets stuff to the fire and policemen. Shea Stadium became a parking lot, and we sent stuff down to the recovery areas.

And of course, Mike’s [Piazza] home run was great. It was more than a home run, we had guys that really cared about the community and wanted to give back. We donated a day’s salary to Rusty Staub’s police fund; we just made a difference. Looking back beyond the hits, runs and errors, we made a difference in the community.

Of course, ’86 was a different kind of thrill, and I remember sitting in Davey Johnson’s office during Game Six of the World Series. We’re losing by two runs, two outs, two strikes, and I’m saying to myself, ‘How in the name of God are we going to alibi to the media that we were supposed to win the World Series after winning 114 games and we fell short?’

But lo and behold, the Mookie [Wilson] miracle happened. We came back and won and had a parade, and I’ll have a ring to always look back and a lot of great memories from that great team.

MMO: When you look back on your tenure, was there anything you would’ve done or handled differently with a particular player or situation?

Horwitz: What comes to mind is when Darryl and Dwight came up. Darryl first in ’83 and then Dwight in ’84. I said yes to too many things. We put a lot of pressure on them in the beginning, and we should’ve said no and should’ve monitored it a little better and done more group interviews.

Especially when Darryl came up in ’83, a number one draft pick, he was the black Ted Williams, Sports Illustrated cover boy. There was no Keith, no Gary yet, he was really by himself. He managed to hit 26 home runs and won the Rookie of the Year Award.

Next year, Dwight was 19. He struck out 300 batters the year before in Lynchburg. I fostered him a little better but not great. Looking back, if I had just been a little bit more protective of those two young guys, I would’ve felt better about myself in those decisions.

MMO: When I asked you about your daily routine, you mentioned writing up the game notes. That’s something I utilize for each Mets game. Can you talk about where you’d get the statistics and information from, and how you’d turn that into the daily game notes?

Horwitz: The Elias Sports Bureau sent us stats, we got league stats. And the stats have gotten so much more complicated now with the launch angle and what a player is hitting when it’s 3-2 and nobody out in the bottom of the eighth inning.

When I was out there doing the stats, the Elias Sports Bureau would give us daily stats, team leaders, league leaders, and you would call the stuff from there. I kept my own record book that would keep streaks of nine-straight games, four-homers in his last three games, and I would keep score.

I had a scorebook from 1980 until I retired in 2018. I don’t know where they are now, and the problem was my handwriting was so bad that nobody could probably read them! I’m not great on the computer, and as things got more complicated, I said, ‘I can’t do this myself,’ so probably at the end I would maybe do a page.

Now, everything is on the laptop. And with the different programs, it’s beyond me now, to be honest with you.

MMO: What advice would you give players on handling the media in New York?

Horwitz: Be upfront. I’ll give you what I told Jacob deGrom and David Wright when they came up. Good or bad, be in front of your locker. The media respects you, and if you made an error, stand in front of your locker and say you made an error. It’s easy to stand in front of your locker after you hit three home runs, but you get your respect from the media, the guys in print, TV, radio, you’ve got to be there either good, bad or indifferent.

That’s my advice to them: Don’t keep complaining, don’t go to the food room or the exercise room. As soon as the game is over, and when you physically can be there, answer the questions. If you had a part in the game, tell them what your part was, that’s what I tried to let the guys know.

MMO: Who were some of your favorite players or guys that you had the best rapport with?

Horwitz: That’s really hard, it really is hard. I can honestly tell you that I can’t remember a guy that I had a bad rapport with. On the top of my head John Franco, Al Leiter, David Wright, Mookie Wilson, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden.

I owe a lot of gratitude to my first manager in Joe Torre. I was a young kid coming out of college in 1980, and Joe took the time and had the patience to tell me what it’s like to be in the major leagues, introduced me to all his friends like Pete Rose, George Brett, Reggie Jackson and the opposing managers.

My first road trip to Montreal, he took me to a tie store and bought me 70 plus ties. I was fortunate to work with great managers through the years like Bobby Valentine, Willie Randolph – who I can’t understand why he hasn’t gotten another job managing – Terry Collins, who I consider one of my closest friends.

I was fortunate to be with a lot of great people, even Dave Kingman, who a lot of people didn’t like, stayed at my house for two weeks when he came back in 1981 because he didn’t have a place to stay. We used to commute back and forth to Shea Stadium, and he even paid the tolls!

I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of good guys, and I can’t tell you one person that I really didn’t get along with. It’s just hard to pick out one or two guys who were my closest friends.

MMO: I thought I read that you would attend World Series games for opposing teams. Is that right?

Horwitz: I did and I liked to do that for a couple of reasons. I tried to keep in touch with the latest trends with what other teams were doing, and I liked to keep in touch with the national media, so that if I had a story I wanted to get out, it would.

I stopped going to the World Series after the ’08 World Series. I remember doing interviews with Jamie Moyer and Jimmy Rollins and I said, ‘What the heck am I doing?’

I went to the All-Star Games to the end. It was less travel and I used to like going to the All-Star Game because you have the media across the country know who you were, and if you had a really good story and need something to play in Los Angeles, you let the guy from the L.A. Times know who you were. I enjoyed doing that and I really did that right up until the end.

MMO: What advice would you give those who are looking to get into the sports public relations industry?

Horwitz: Don’t be a clock-watcher. You’ve got to sacrifice a lot. If you’re talking about baseball – which is all I really know – there are no summers at the beaches, no Friday night movies. You’ve got to make sacrifices.

The hours are long, but the rewards are great. It’s a great business and I really wouldn’t change anything in my forty-plus years working for the Mets.

MMO: Thanks very much for some time today, Jay. It was great speaking with you. And congratulations on the book.

Horwitz: My pleasure. Thanks so much.

Follow Jay Horwitz on Twitter, @Jay_HorwitzPR

Purchase Jay’s book here.

The post MMO Exclusive: Jay Horwitz Discusses Four Decades With Mets appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Good Morning, Mets fans! Happy Friday, and welcome to the weekend! Here’s what you need to know:

Latest Mets News

Reliever Jeurys Familia has lost a total of 30 pounds this offseason as he prepares to put a disappointing 2019 behind him, reported Mike Puma and Pat Ragazzo of the New York Post.

Per Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline: Mets’ pitcher Matthew Allan would sit at #109 if his Top 100 prospects list ran over.

On Thursday, Ron Darling stopped to chat with MLB Network about new Mets manager Luis Rojas, the recent Hall of Fame elections, and the Houston Astros’ cheating scandal.

Jay Horwitz, on behalf of the entire Mets organization, released a statement voicing support for former Met Ron Swoboda and wife Cecilia after the loss of their son, Ron Jr., who passed away unexpectedly this week from a sudden illness.

Latest MLB News

Pitcher Wei-Yin Chen has signed a deal with the Seattle Mariners, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

Also from Jon Heyman of MLB Network: Infielder Jordy Mercer has re-signed with the Detroit Tigers.

The Seattle Mariners announced that they have also signed pitcher Yoshihisa Hirano to a one-year major league contract.

Eno Sarris of The Athletic reported on some of the very latest techniques used by ballplayers around the league to give their bodies a bit of an advantage in the long run.

Latest NL East News

In case you missed it: Jeff Schultz of The Athletic posed five questions for the Atlanta Braves to consider before Spring Training- including one involving some guy named Kris Bryant.

Latest on MMO

Matt Mancuso broke out the numbers as he reflected on a rather unpleasant 2019 for pitcher Edwin Diaz.

Starling Marte never truly made sense for the Mets, and Jeffrey Bellone tries to help us understand why.

Alex Worth presents the next group of MMO’s Top 30 Mets prospects for the 2020 season.

This Day in Mets History

1962: Today we honor the late Ralph Kiner, who- on this date 58 years ago- joined the Mets’ broadcast booth to call games with Bob Murphy and Lindsay Nelson.

Birthdays: Nolan Ryan turns 73, Rafael Santana turns 62, Bob Apodaca turns 70

The post Morning Briefing: Jeurys Familia Drops 30 Pounds appeared first on Metsmerized Online.

Good morning, Mets fans.

Saturday was filled with many minor transactions and other rumors. Only 88 more days until Opening Day!

Latest Mets News

2019 National League Rookie-of-the-Year Pete Alonso was named the Daily News Sports Person of the Year.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post says there is evidence that Yoenis Cespedes‘ potential comeback can be valuable for the Mets.

Fans can listen to long-time Mets media leader Jay Horwitz’ podcasts, including one with special guest Dwight Gooden 

Latest MLB News

The Toronto Blue Jays signed pitcher Shun Yamaguchi to a two-year deal.

The Los Angeles Dodgers released pitcher JT Chargois.

Latest NL East News

The Miami Marlins signed outfielder Corey Dickerson to a two-year deal.

While the Braves have interest in Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado, they will not aggressively pursue him until Josh Donaldson is no longer a free agent.

Latest MMO News 

Josh Finkelstein says the Mets cannot afford to trade either Marcus Stroman or Steven Matz. 

John Sheridan shares the Mets’ best five draft picks of the decade.

On This Day

Birthday: Emil Brown (45).

1999: The Texas Rangers signed ex-Met Kenny Rogers.

The post Morning Briefing: Pete Alonso Gets Some More Recognition appeared first on Metsmerized Online.