Tag: Rusty Staub

Morning Briefing: Happy Major League Baseball Opening Day!

Good morning, Mets fans! The day has finally come! Major League Baseball Opening Day is officially upon us! Unfortunately, the Mets have to wait another day. But let’s take a look at some of the games on the slate for today. The first game on the docket is the Orioles who will be hosting the Angels while Corbin Burnes makes his Baltimore debut. The Mets’ crosstown rival Yankees go to...

Morning Briefing: Astros Best Scherzer in Game 3 Win

Good morning, Mets fans! Wednesday night, the lone game on the docket was the Houston Astros going into Arlington to take on the Texas Rangers in Game 3 of the ALCS. The major headline heading into the game was the return of former Met Max Scherzer, who would make his postseason debut as a Ranger. The last time he was on the mound in October, it did not go well, to say the least, Scherzer went 4...

Spirit of ’73: Rusty Staub

We’re looking back at the 50th anniversary of the Mets’ 1973 National League pennant-winning team by reviewing the most inspirational figures of that remarkable run. We continue with a player who over a 23-year career compiled over 2,700 hits and many more fans—revered in Montreal and adored in New York.  The passion exuded by redhead Daniel Joseph Staub was not outward. He was a...

MLB Wants To Expand; Candidate Cities Identified

The 2023 baseball season will see pitch clocks, larger bases, a restriction on infield shifts, and let’s not forget, a new schedule format in which every team will play every other team for the first time in history. That’s a lot, but why stop there? Commissioner Rob Manfred wants to expand to 32 teams,  but questions remain on when this will happen, and which cities would be awarded...

Shoebox Memories – 1986 Topps Tom Paciorek

We all have Aunts down in Florida.  Okay, maybe not everyone, but I do.  And recently she sent some “vintage” mid-80s Mets cards up to me in NY from a neighbor who wanted to get rid of them after her spouse passed on.  In looking through them, I came across the 1986 Mets card shown below:             Several things about this card. Firstly 1986 is not “vintage”.  In 1986...

OTD 1972: Willie Mays Homers in Mets Debut

The pages of Mays’ storybook career were yellowing at the edges. But his star had yet to fade. Now, the Giant icon was returning to the city where it all began. Willie Mays became the game’s best player in San Francisco. Yet he remained a beloved figure in New York — even 15 years after the Giants had moved to the West Coast. Mets owner Joan Payson, once a New York Giants stakeholder when...

OTD 1972: Mets Manager Gil Hodges Passes Away

On April 2, 1972 Mets skipper and  Gil Hodges passed away from a heart attack during spring training after playing a round of golf. He was two days shy of his 48th birthday. Rob Silverman of MMO accurately wrote that Donn Clendenon was the final piece to the championship puzzle in 1969. Hodges was the first piece. Hodges, who played 18 seasons (16 with the Dodgers, two with the Mets) and slugged...

OTD 2018: Mets Icon Rusty Staub Passes Away

On March 29, 2018 (Opening Day of the baseball season), Rusty Staub, one of the most popular players ever to wear the orange and blue of the New York Mets, passed away in a West Palm Beach, Florida hospital from multiple organ failure just three days shy of his 74th birthday. He had spent eight weeks in the hospital prior to his death. The Mets had obtained Daniel Joseph Staub before the 1972...

OTD 1978: Bud Harrelson Traded to Phillies

One by one, the players who helped establish and sustain Mets success in the late 1960s and early 1970s departed. Rusty Staub in 1975. Tom Seaver in June 1977. Jerry Grote in August 1977. Jerry Koosman in 1978. All were traded, either due to front office negligence, player request, or some combination of the two. Harrelson’s turn came during spring training of ’78. The beloved...

MMO’s Great Eight Mets Teams: Team 8

People have been asking us all winter what we’ve been doing to pass the time during the MLB lockout. I’ll tell you what we do here at MMO — we come up with ideas that not only help us stay busy, but will help you all stay busy, too. Talking about the best teams and/or players in New York Mets history is always a good debate to have — especially during the cold winter months — but what if we...

OTD 1975: Rusty Staub Dealt to Detroit

In between the regretful trades of Nolan Ryan to Anaheim in 1972 and Tom Seaver to Cincinnati in 1977 was the departure of one of the most beloved players in franchise history. Months before that infamous Ryan-for-Fregosi deal with the Angels, the Mets were on the receiving end of a great trade for Montreal’s Rusty Staub. It was a move that broke the hearts of a city that had fallen in...

OTD: Rusty Staub Matches MLB Mark with Eight Straight Pinch Hits

If hitting is the most difficult feat in sports, as some claim, then think of the challenge that pinch-hitting presents.  Inning after inning on the bench without a chance to get into the rhythm of the game, and oftentimes being asked to then produce in a clutch situation. The late Rusty Staub made this demanding task his calling card during the back-end of his storied major-league career...

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