centerfield maz

  Thursday October 2nd, 1986: Davey Johnson's The Mets (104-54) were winding down the regular season, fine tuning themselves up for the playoffs. Tonight's game had a few personal achievements at stake, as Dwight Gooden was trying to become the first pitcher in history to reach 200 strike outs in his first three seasons & Gary Carter was trying to become the first Met t drive in 100 runs in two straight seasons.  The Mets were in Montreal playing the rubber game of a three game series against Buck Rogers fourth place Expos (77-80) at Stade Olympique in front of 10,726 fans. Expo legend Gary Carter still a popular figure in Quebec was greeted by the fans. The starting pitcher for Montreal was Floyd Youmans. Youmans Trivia:  Youmans was a high school teammate of Dwight Gooden in Tampa. Floyd was a 1982 second round draft pick of the Mets, having been traded to Montreal along with Hubie Brooks, Mike Fitzgerald & Herm Winningham in exchange for Gary Carter prior to th...

  Saturday October 2nd, 1965: Wes Westrum's last place New York Mets (50-110) were playing in the second game of a double header against Gene Mauch's sixth place Phillies (83-76).  Wes Westrum the former New York Giants catcher had taken over as Mets manager in late July when Casey Stengel fell & broke his hip. In this twi-night double header, a small Shea crowd of 10,371 saw the Phil's take the first game 6-0 behind Jim Bunning's two hit shut out where he struck out ten. The win got Bunning to 19-9 on the season. The starting pitchers in the night cap were 20 year old Mets rookie Rob Gardner & Chris Short for Philadelphia. Gardner a native of Binghamton, NY had been brought up as a September call up going 0-2 with a 6.92 ERA thru his first four appearances, tonight would be his third start. In the top of the 1st, Adolfo Phillips led off with a base hit. Gardner then walked Cookie Rojas but he then retired Dick Allen, struck out "Dr. Strange Glove" Dic...

October 1st, 1973: The crazy 1973 New York Mets season, all came down to the last games of the regular season which had ended for the rest of the league the previous day. After the previous rain outs earlier in the weekend, a double header was scheduled between the Mets & Cube at Wrigley Field to close out the season. All the Mets had to do was win one game in order to clinch the N.L. East. as both the St. Louis Cardinals & Pittsburgh Pirates lost their final games of the season on Sunday. In recapping, most of the Mets regular players were struggling through injuries most of the season, not getting healthy as a team until the final month. Also, they had the best pitching staff in the league & everyone stepped up from starters to relievers. The Mets had won 22 of their last 31 games dating back to August 27th when they were still in last place, six & a half games of first place. They had won eight of their last ten games as well. They took over first place on Friday Se...