A Life On The Field

Former Met Jim Beauchamp passed away the other day, felled by leukemia. Beauchamp's career in pro ball spanned 50 years -- including 10 seasons as a major league ball player and 16 seasons as a minor league manager, twice managing International League champions. He was also Bobby Cox' bench coach with Atlanta for years, including for the 1995 World Series Champions.

Beauchamp spent the last two seasons of his playing career with the Mets, coming over after the 1971 season in a multi-player trade with the Cardinals that, among other things, sent Art Shamsky to St. Louis (though Shamsky never played for the Cardinals). Beauchamp's very first plate appearance for the Mets, on April 23, 1972, was a walk-off pinch-hit single in the bottom of the 12th inning. Beauchamp was pinch-hitting for Ed Kranepool with one out and bases loaded in the bottom of the twelfth, and his single allowed the Mets to complete a double-header sweep of the Cubs at Shea. Thereafter, his best day as a Met, and indeed the best day of his major league playing career, came on his 33rd birthday when, starting at first base and batting seventh, Beauchamp hit two homers at Shea, batting in 3 runs in a 4-2 victory over the Astros -- his only major league game with more than one extra base hit.

A classic journeyman as a player, Beauchamp averaged only 73 plate appearances a season, and was never a regular for any team, but he was still an important part of the Mets 1973 NL champions. For example, he had 4 RBIs for the Mets on May 13, 1973, in a 6-4 victory over the Pirates. The Mets only won the NL East that season by a mere game and half over the Cardinals and only two and a half games over the Pirates. So without Jim's performance on May 13, the Mets may never have gotten to the post-season in 1973, and Mets history might look a lot different.

Beauchamp's only appearances in the post-season as a player came in the 1973 World Series, when he pinch-hit for the Mets in four of the seven games -- his last appearances as a major league player. The Mets released him during spring training before the 1974 season but thought enough of him to offer him a coaching job, and though Jim still hoped to catch on with another team, he didn't find a taker, and by 1975 was managing in the minors.

Jim Beauchamp started in pro ball as an 18-year-old in the Cardinals' minor league system, and was still a coordinator in the Braves system this past season at age 68. Jim seems to have raised his son, Kash, to be a baseball lifer as well. Kash himself played 12 seasons, a thousand games, in the minors and has been working since his own retirement as a player as a coach and executive in both organized baseball and the independent leagues.

"Beauchamp" is French for "beautiful field", and sure enough Jim Beauchamp managed to spend his life on the "beautiful fields" of professional baseball, and pass on the life along with his name to the next generation.

Value Judgments

No Met has ever won the Most Valuable Player award, a fact made more painful to Met fans by the result of this year's NL MVP voting, in which David Wright of the Mets deserved the award as much as or more than any player in the league, and would likely have received it if the Mets as a team had won a couple of more games during the season.

Let's put the Mets' failure to win any MVP awards in perspective. Since 1962, when the Mets joined the National League, there have been 47 MVP awards handed out: one a year over 45 seasons, and two in 1979, when Willie Stargell of the Pirates and Keith Hernandez of the Cardinals shared the award. Of those 47 MVPs since 1962, 44 (or 94%) have been won by players with one of the eight NL franchises that date back to the 19th century. Since 1962, the NL MVPs won by these 8 longest-standing franchises break down as follows:
Giants 9
Cardinals and Reds 7 each
Phillies and Pirates 5 each
Dodgers and Braves 4 each
Cubs 3

The Giants top this list thanks to Barry Bonds, who has won 5 MVPs while playing for the Giants. The Cardinals, in contrast, have won their seven expansion-era MVPs with seven different players, the most different winners for any NL franchise (the A's in the AL also have had seven different MVP winners since 1962).

The only three NL MVPs representing teams other than the old original 8 franchises have been the Astros' Jeff Bagwell, the Padres' Ken Caminiti, and the Rockies' Larry Walker. Oddly these three expansion team MVPs were all awarded over a four season period, 1994 to 1997. The other expansion franchises in the NL, the Mets, Expos, Marlins, Diamondbacks and Brewers, have never had a player win an NL MVP award (Robin Yount, twice, and Rollie Fingers won AL MVP awards as Brewers when Milwaukee was in the American League).

The dearth of expansion-franchise MVP winners in the National league is not replicated in the American League. In the AL, expansion teams have won 14 of the 46 MVP awards (over 30%) given out since 1962. The Rangers alone have won 5 AL MVP awards (despite having never even made it to the World Series), the Brewers won 3 during their years in the AL, the Mariners and Angels have each won 2, and the Royals and Blue Jays have won one MVP award each.

A large part of the reason that the Mets and other NL expansion teams have done relatively poorly in the distribution of MVP awards over the years, compared to AL expansion teams, may lie in the fact that NL expansion teams have played a preponderance of their seasons in pitcher-friendly parks, parks that dampen the big homer and RBI numbers that MVP voters respond to most enthusiastically. AL expansion teams have generally played in less pitcher-friendly settings than NL teams, producing more big homer and RBI seasons and more MVP winners.

Rounding Home

As 2007 draws to a close:
Most homers hit in his career by a player who turned 50 in 2007
Tim Wallach 260
Kirk Gibson 255
Lou Whitaker 244
Bob Horner 218
Steve Balboni 181

By a player who turned 60 in 2007
Darrell Evans 414
Johnny Bench 389
Carlton Fisk 376
Ken Singleton 246
Richie Hebner 203

By a player who turned 70 in 2007
Orlando Cepeda 379
Brooks Robinson 268
Clete Boyer 162
Tom Tresh 153

And happy 70th birthday to Bobby Klaus, born December 27th, 1937. He only hit 6 homers in his short, two-season career, and was a lesser player than his brother Billy (who had some solid seasons in an 11-year career, including a rookie year in 1955 when he was second in the AL Rookie-of-the-Year voting to Herb Score), but who did start in the lead-off spot more than any other Met in 1964. Surprisingly, neither Bobby nor Billy seems to have garnered the nickname "Santa".

Savings Acounts

The longest save in Mets history (in terms of both innings pitched and batters faced) was a five inning outing by Doug Sisk on June 23, 1983. The game came in the midst of an unusual, double-header-filled, six-game series against the Cardinals, who were the reigning World Series champs. This long series was especially poignant because the champion Cards had just traded, only days before, one of their stars, Keith Hernandez, to the Mets for the Mets' promising young pitcher Neil Allen. Sisk was a rookie and was pitching really well -- he was one reason the Mets could afford to part with Allen. In this June 23 game, Ed Lynch gave up 4 early runs and was lifted for Carlos Diaz in just the third inning. But the Mets took the lead with a four run bottom of the fourth, highlighted by a Hubie Brooks three-run homer. Sisk entered in the fifth and faced 21 batters, scattering 5 hits over five innings, surrendered only one run, which was unearned. In 332 major league games, this was one only three outings of five innings in Sisk's career, and he never pitched longer than that. The new Mets' manager, Frank Howard, (George Bamberger had recently resigned) explained that he had allowed Sisk to remain in the game because the recent spate of double-headers had left his bullpen pretty much empty.

The shortest save in Mets history, in terms of batters faced, was achieved by Cal Koonce on May 30, 1968 at Forbes Field, Pittsburgh. The Pirates had 4 future Hall-of-Famers in their starting lineup: Clemente, Stargell, Mazeroski, and the starting pitcher, Jim Bunning. Nevertheless the Mets, with Jerry Koosman pitching, dominated most of the game, led by three hits each from Agee and Kranepool, and held a 6-0 lead going into the bottom of the eighth inning. The Bucs finally got to Koosman in the eighth, and after Roberto Clemente knocked in the second Pirate run, Ron Taylor came in and wrapped up the inning. In the bottom of the ninth, though, Taylor gave up two singles wrapped around a strikeout. In came journeyman reliever Bill Short, who proceeded to hit Manny Jimenez, loading the bases, bringing the potential tying run to the plate, and followed that up by surrendering a sac fly, which made the game 6-3, and left men on first and, at third base, Matty Alou. Koonce came in and threw a pitch that catcher J. C. Martin couldn't handle cleanly -- but Alou was thrown out on the play, ending the game and giving Koonce the save without ever having pitched a full at-bat.

Top Catch

The ideal lead-off man gets on base frequently and has the capability to move around the bases quickly. Catchers, on the other hand, need to squat. Managers thus generally don't think of their catchers as lead-off guys. Indeed, in all of the Mets 46-season history only once has a Mets catcher played a full game batting in the lead-off position. That was May 2, 1963, when Casey Stengel's lineup put Choo Choo Coleman behind the plate in the fielding and also in the first spot in the Mets batting order. On the one hand the experiment was not particular successful, as Coleman was on base (with a single) only once in five plate appearances, and Choo Choo neither scored nor batted in a run. On the other hand, by batting first Choo Choo somehow managed to stay out of the way of the rest of the lineup, as the Mets scored 10 runs on 13 hits and demolished Houston by a score of 10-3. Leonard Koppett's beat story summarizing the game for The New York Times the next day is quite amusing -- riffing on the odd spectacle of the early Mets trouncing the opposition -- but does not mention Coleman's unusual place in the lead-off spot. On the other hand, how was Koppett to know that a catcher leading off for the Mets was not to happen again over the next 45 years?

The unquestioned king of lead-off catchers in contemporary baseball is Jason Kendall. Here are the catchers with the most major league games, since 1962, in which they batted in the lead-off spot and had at least 3 plate appearances in the game (the 3 PA minimum is there to try to make sure we are only including true lead-off games, and not merely pinch-hitting, double-switch or defensive replacement games):
Jason Kendall, 446 games
Butch Wynegar, 48 games
Craig Biggio, 35 games
Paul Lo Duca, 33 games
Charlie Moore, 21 games
Johnny Oates, 17 games
Brad Ausmus, 15 games
Ivan Rodriguez 14 games
Ron Brand 12 games
Tim McCarver 10 games

Since 2000, the only catchers to start a game as the lead-off hitter have been Kendall (over 400 games), Lo Duca (who in his spectacular 2001 season was the Dodgers' second most-frequently used lead-off man), I-Rod (the Tigers used him 12 times in the lead-off spot this past April and May), Brad Ausmus (a few times for the Tigers in 2000 and a couple of times for Houston in 2002), and Marty Barrett once for the Cubs in 2004.

America's School

Oberlin College, located in Ohio, about 35 miles from Cleveland, was founded in 1833:
--Oberlin was the first college in the United States to regularly admit African-American students, beginning with four such students in 1835.
--Oberlin is the oldest continuously operating coeducational college in the United States, having first admitted women in 1837. Three women graduated from Oberlin in 1841, becoming the first women in America to receive bachelor of arts degrees.
--Oberlin was the first college degree to grant a degree to an African-American woman, in 1862. -- Oberlin was a key stop along the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves flee to freedom from the pre-Civil War South.
-Oberlin's college football team, was coached by John Heisman in 1892, that's the Heisman after whom the Heisman Trophy is named.
--Oberlin is the only leading liberal arts college in the U.S. that also includes a leading music conservatory.
--Oberlin also has one of the leading college libraries in the U.S. as well as one of the leading college art museums in the country.
--Oberlin pioneered the concept of coeducational dormitories, with Life Magazine putting Oberlin students on the cover of its November 20, 1970 issue first identifying the new co-ed dorm phenomenon.
--In the 1970s, Oberlin was a national center for radical approaches to sports and athletics, with Jack Scott and Tommie Smith (who famously protested American policies from the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics) leading the way.

Oberlin has produced four major league baseball players:
--Cy Voorhees, who pitched 61 innings for the Phillies and Senators in 1902, 3 wins, 4 losses in his career, with one shutout and an overall ERA of 3.94.
--Bill Garfield, who pitched in the NL in 1889 (for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys) and 1890 (for the Cleveland Spiders). He pitched 99 innings altogether but his win-loss record was only 1-9 and his ERA was 5.73.
--Clay Fauver, who pitched in one single game in the majors, but made it a complete game victory, giving up 4 runs but none of them earned. He pitched his one game for the Louisville Colonels in 1899.
--Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker, who was a catcher and played in 42 games in 1884 for Toledo in the American Association (which at the time was a major league). Walker is the best-remembered of a handful of African-American players who found jobs in the majors before the color line hardened.

Divided Loyalties

Almost every player with a substantial career in major league baseball plays for more than one major league team over his career. The only Mets to accumulate at least 500 plate appearances over his career as a Met, and then going on to retire without also at some point playing for another major leage team, have been Ed Kranepool, Ron Hodges, Bruce Boisclair, Rod Kanehl and the Twins' current manager, Ron Gardenhire. The only pitchers to pitch at least 162 innings for the Mets and retire having played only for the Mets are Bob Apodaca, Jeff Innis, Eric Hillman and Rick Baldwin.

Far more frequent are the players who play for mutiple teams over a career. For example, 120 Mets also played, at some point in their careers, for the Dodgers. That's the highest number of players the Mets have shared in common with any single franchise. The top 5 franchises, in terms of the number of players who played for the franchise and also the Mets at some point, are:
Dodgers, 120 players
Cardinals 114 players
Cubs 106 players
Padres and Yankees: 101 players

The franchise with the fewest players who also played for the Mets at some point in their careers is the Diamondbacks, with only 25 players who were future or past Mets. of course, that's not quite a fair comparison because the D-backs have only been around for 10 seasons, compared to the 46 seasons teams the Mets and Dodgers (and other teams dating back to 1962 and before) have had in common. In fact Arizona is quite close to the Dodgers if you look at average players in common with the Mets on a per common season basis. With 120 players, over the 46 years the Mets franchise has been playing, who have also played for the Dodgers, that averages out to 2.6 players per season of the two teams' common existence. With 25 common players over ten years, the Mets and D-Backs have averaged 2.5 common players per season. Using this method, the Rockies, with 54 players who have also been Mets, over just 15 years of the Colorado franchise's existence, have the highest per season average of any franchise -- 3.6 players per season who have also been Mets. The franchise with the lowest percentage is the Twins, with only 58 players who also played for the Mets at some point.

I offer the neologisms "multijugular", for players who play for multiple teams over their careers, and "unijugular" for the opposite. Jugular comes from the Latin word for yoke, especially in the context of yoking oxen together in a team, and is the basis for English words related to bringing things together, such as join, joint, conjugal, and subjugate.

Switch In Time Part 2

The rest of the Mets Switch-Hitters All-Time Team:

SS Bud Harrelson
The choice between Harrelson and Jose Reyes is simply a choice between quantity and quality. Harrelson played in 1322 games for the Mets and accumulated 130 Win Shares for them (Win Shares being the Bill James-developed summary stat that tries to reflect all aspect of a player's contribution to team wins). Reyes, still a mere youth in normal baseball career terms, has played in less than half as many Mets games (596) and accumulated 87 Win Shares. But notice how many more Win Shares per game Reyes is piling up. Harrelson's contribution was almost all in his defense, Reyes makes an enormously greater contribution than Buddy did on offense and his defense has become top-drawer recently as well. Jose's Win Shares totals the last three seasons have been 17, 29 and 24. Harrelson's best three Win Shares seasons of his whole career were 19, 17 and a couple of 14's. And Reyes is still only 24 years old. I picked Harrelson here in deference to his very long and graceful service to the Mets (Harrelson is second only to Ed Kranepool in most games played in the history of the franchise). But assuming no precipitous drop in performance or an unexpected trade, Jose will have to replace Buddy on this All-Switch-Hitter team in just another season or two.

OF: Mookie Wilson, Lee Mazzilli, Carlos Beltran
I'm kind of cheating here, by picking three center fielders instead of a left fielder and a right fielder. But Mookie and Mazzilli played enough corner outfield to allow them to fit in here. And if I forced myself to choose left field and right field specialists here, I'd have to choose from among a group of least favorite Mets in history: Vince Coleman, Roger Cedeno, Carl Everett. Thank you, but with that choice I'll Mookie and Maz.

Beltran has 958 Runs Created through 2007, his age 30 season (I'm using baseball-reference's Runs Created, which is basically Total Bases multiplied by On-Base Percentage, with a bunch of additional tweaks to reflect other aspects of run creation). That is third highest Runs Created number ever for a switch hitting outfielder through his age 30 season:

1. Mickey Mantle 1,577
2. Tim Raines 1,031
3. Carlos Beltran 958
4. Pete Rose 915
5. Lance Berkman 906

(Lee Mazzilli appears at 20th on this list, Mookie Wilson at 40th)

BTW, Rose counts as an outfielder on this list because through his age 30 season he'd played in the outfield in more games (746 games) than the infield (644 games)

P: Mickey Lolich
Not many pitchers switch-hit. Lolich was not a good hitter, even for a pitcher, but he was better than the only other two Mets pitchers, Pete Harnisch and Victor Zambrano, who switch hit and played with the team for any significant amount of time.

The best switch-hitting pitchers in modern baseball (since 1900)were probably Early Wynn and Ted Lyons. In the era since 1962, when the Mets became a franchise, Jim Perry (Gaylord's brother) was a good pitcher who switch-hit and Carlos Zambrano today is a switch-hitter who is both a fine pitcher and a pretty darn good hitter.

Switch In Time, Part 1

Here are the first four places in a proposed Mets Switch-Hitter All-Time Lineup, the rest to come in my next entry:

C Todd Hundley
In NL history, only Ted Simmons had a clearly stronger career than Hundley among switch-hitting catchers. Old-timer Duke Farrell, who played well for several NL teams in the 1890s might have have had a comparable career value to Hundley. The Mets just picked up Johnny Estrada in a trade, and if he does play for the team this year, he will become the only other switch hitting catcher in team history.

1B Eddie Murray
David Segui and Tony Clark also switch-hit and played first the Mets. Murray is far and away the best switch-hitting first basemen in major league history.

The group after Murray consists of old-timers Lu Blue, Tommy Tucker, and Dan McGann, three guys who together represent a euphonious trio of baseball names and three really fine players, too. Lu Blue was a Dave Magadan-type first baseman (high on-base percentage, low slugging percentage). Over the period 1921 through 1931 only Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby and Joe Sewell were on base more times than Blue. Back in the 19th century, Tucker was the first real good switch hitter in baseball history. He was also a renowned heckler of opposing teams, and was designated with nicknames such as "Foghorn" and Noisy Tom". McGann was a tough guy long associated with the rambunctious player and manager John McGraw; McGann also died violently, apparently a suicide, not long after his major league career ended.

Mark Teixeira has a serious shot at moving past all three of these guys and becoming the #2 all-time switch-hitting first baseman before he's done. Teixeira already has 104 Win Shares and won't turn 28 until April. Blue, Tucker and McGann all had between 175 and 200 Win Shares for their careers.

2B Gregg Jefferies
Wally Backman was technically a switch-hitter but he was just awful as a righty hitter. As a second baseman for the Mets he had 353 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers; in those PAs he had .140 BA, .232 OBP, .166 SLG and .398 OPS. No wonder the Mets needed Tim Teufel for a platoon.

Indeed, the Mets have had a whole bunch of fine ball players play second baseman for them and also switch-hit: Roberto Alomar, Carlos Baerga, Lenny Randle, Tommie Herr, Jose Reyes, Jose Valentin and the current incumbent, Luis Castillo. But none of these guys has played long enough for the Mets at second base, with as much ability to hit from both sides of the plate, to put them ahead of Jefferies on this particular list. Of course Jefferies couldn't really play second base despite the many games he did so for the Mets, so picking the right player for the second base spot here is a tough call. Mets fans hope that Castillo's new contract means he will make himself the obvious choice for this list over the next few years.

3B Howard Johnson
Hojo was certainly one of the best switch-hitting third basemen ever. Chipper Jones has moved past him decisively, and you can make an argument for Ken Caminiti and Terry Pendelton ranking ahead of Hojo, but that's about it. The only other significant switch-hitter to play mostly third base for the Mets was Lenny Randle, who played well but was only with the Mets for two seasons.

More to come....

Exclusive Club

Most home runs by a Met player who retired without playing for any other major league team:
Ed Kranepool 118
Ron Hodges 19
Bruce Boisclair 10
Dave Schneck 8
Rod Kanehl 6
Ron Gardenhire 4
Kelvin Chapman/Billy Murphy 3

I was going to put Danny Garcia on this list with 5 career homers for the Mets, but it was pointed out that Garcia, although he did not appear anywhere in "organized baseball" in 2007, was still playing professionally. Garcia, whose claim to fame, thus far, is as the first Brooklyn Cyclone to make it to the majors, played in the independent Atlantic League in 2000, playing in 70 games with the Somerset Patriots based in Bridgewater, New Jersey (Bridgewater is in New Jersey's Somerset County -- just as England's Bridgwater is in England's Somerset County).

Garcia was a Somerset teammate of the indefatigable Alan Zinter, who will turn 40 in May. Alan Zinter was the Mets first pick in the 1989 draft and has plugged away in pro ball year after year ever since, with only brief stops in the majors at age 34 and age 36 (84 major league plate appearances altogether). In any event, it appears that Danny Garcia is still trying to get back to the majors, so I din't include him on the list above.

Most wins by a Met pitcher who retired without pitching for any other major league team:
Bob Apodaca 16
Jeff Innis 10
Randy Tate 5

They Try Harder

With Luis Castillo re-signed, it looks as if the Mets may have the same primary number 2 spot hitter for two years in a row. In each of the last five seasons, the hitter who started in the #2 spot in the Mets' lineup more than anybody else has been:
2003 Timo Perez
2004 Kaz Matsui
2005 Miguel Cairo
2006 Paul Lo Duca
2007 Luis Castillo

In team history, the 5 guys who batted in the second spot in the lineup in the most games for the Mets:
1. Felix Millan 628 games
2. Edgardo Alfonzo 542 games
3. Wally Backman 396 games
4. Bud Harrelson 262 games
5. Dave Magadan 236 games

Since 1962, the year the Mets entered the majors, the major league players who have batted in the second spot in the lineup in the most games overall:
1. Ozzie Smith 1,533 games
2. Omar Vizquel 1,473 games
3. Jay Bell 1,335 games
4. Ryne Sandberg 1,223 games
5. Rod Carew 1,149
If Derek Jeter bats second in 2008 as often as he did in 2007, he will move past Carew and Sandberg on this list. Omar Vizquel has signed a one-year deal to be back with the Giants in 2008 and could conceivably pass Ozzie on this listm, though by the end of last season he was batting second for San Francisco only ocassionally, having mostly moved down toward the bottom of the order.

Center Points

All the current talk in Metsland is of the trade of prospect Lastings Milledge for two veterans. Milledge will presumably play center field for the Nats. The last two seasons, the Nats' primary starters in center have been Nook Logan in 2007 (2007 OPS .649) and Marlon Byrd in 2006 (2006 OPS .667) -- you can't get much worse than that.

Of the 5 guys who have played the most games in center field in Nats/Expos franchise history, two have also played for the Mets:
1. Andre Dawson 1,027
2.Marquis Grissom 610
3. Rondell White 513
4. Herm Winningham 331
5. Endy Chavez 303

The players who have played the most career games in center field against the Mets:
1. Willie Davis 200
2. Andruw Jones 173
3. Garry Maddox 160
4. Willie Mays 149
5. Curt Flood 136

Though Willie Davis played most of his career for the D0dgers, his prime fell during the period (1962-1968) when the Mets played every team in the NL 18 times, including the West Coast teams, and Davis played in center for years after that as well, including two seasons (1974 and most of 1975) in the NL East.

Base Pincher

A player whose only role in a game is as a pinch runner can only do so much. When such a player manages to steal two bases, that's pretty much as close to a perfect game for a pinch runner as he is likely to get. The game being played is probably an exciting one -- when a team sends a player in to pinch run, and he's stealing two bases, it's likely that there is much at stake. No Met pinch runner has ever stolen two bases as pinch runner (Bob Bailor and Pepe Mangual each stole 2 bases for the Mets after entering a game as a pinch runner, but in both cases stole one of those bases after staying in the game and taking a position in the field). But there have been four cases where a pinch runner coming in against the Mets stole two bases in his pinch running role (Davey Lopes actually once stole 3 bases against the Mets after entering the game as a pinch runner, but again only one of those was as a pinch runner):

On June 28, 1979, Matt Alexander, who was essentially a professional pinch runner by trade (168 career major league ABs, 103 career major league stolen bases, 42 career times caught stealing), pinch ran for Phil Garner after Garner singled in the bottom of the 9th inning with the Pirates trailing the Mets 3-2 and the Met's Ed Glynn pitching for the save. With one out and Rennie Stennett at the plate, Alexander stole second and then third (John Stearns was behind the plate for the Mets) but then got thrown out at the plate trying to score on Stennett's grounder to Frank Taveras at short.

On July 22, 1986, in a famous thriller against the Reds, the Mets watched Eric Davis pinch run for Pete Rose (who himself had pinch hit for John Franco) in the top of the 10th inning of a 3-3 tie. With Eddie Milner at the plate Davis stole second, and then third as Milner struck out. On arriving at third base, Davis got into a shoving match with Ray Knight, who threw a punch and a brawl broke out. Davis and Knight were thrown out of the game, along with Kevin Mitchell, who himself had come in after Darryl Strawberrry was tossed earlier after arguing with an ump (oh, those '86 Mets!). Running out of players, Davey Johnson pulled one of the most famous managerial moves in Mets history, bringing Roger McDowell in to pitch, and moving Orosco from the mound to right field, allowing Orosco and McDowell to "platoon pitch". McDowell got the third out, and McDowell and Orosco switched off the rest of the game between pitching and playing the outfield. The Mets finally won after Orosco walked in the top of the 14th, Howard Johnson homered to put the Mets up by two, and McDowell got the Reds three up, three down (with sinkerballer McDowell pitching, three ground balls of course) in the bottom of the 14th. The Mets bullpen pitched 9 innings of shutout ball in this wacky game.

On May 6, 1988, Eric Davis did it again, coming in as a pinch runner for the Reds in the top of the 9th inning of a 2-2 game, Doc Gooden having gone the whole way for the Mets. Davis replaced Jeff Treadway after Treadway's two out single, then stole second with Lloyd McClendon at the plate. After McLendon walked, bringing up Barry Larkin, Davis stole third as well. But Larkin grounded out to end the inning, and the Mets eventually won in the bottom of the tenth on a walkoff homer hit by Darryl Strawberry, John Franco on the mound for the Reds. This was one of only 11 homers Franco gave up to left-handed hitters in his twenty-one season career, two of them to Strawberry and two to Bobby Abreu. The winner for the Mets in this game was Randy Myers, who the Mets traded to the Reds for Franco the following year.

The fourth and most recent two-SB pinch runner game against the Mets occurred on May 11, 2003. Jake Peavy for the Padres and Pedro Astacio for the Mets had pitched well at Shea but the Mets had 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 9th, and brought Armando Benitez in to try to preserve the lead. Xavier Nady flied out to start the inning fo San Diego, but Dave Hansen walked and young Shane Victorino came in to run for him. With Lou Merloni up, Victorino stole second and Merloni walked. With Ramon Vazquez now at the plate, Victorino stole third. Vazquez popped out to short. With Mark Loretta at the plate, Merloni stole the Padres third base of the inning, and put the lead run in scoring position. But Loretta popped out to the catcher, and Benitez had his save -- no runs, no hits, no errors in the nonetheless adventurous inning.

All told, the four multi-stolen base pinch hitting appearances against the Mets (two of them by Darryl Strawberry's buddy Eric Davis) resulted in no runs for the pinch runner's team, and the Mets won all four games.