centerfield maz

  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...

Monday, September 30th,2024: On this cloudy afternoon in Atlanta, the Mets (88-72) & Braves (88-72) played a double header with each team needing to win a game to get to the post season. If any team swept the twin bill, the other team would be eliminated & the idle Arizona Diamondbacks would get in.  These games were make-up games after Hurricane Helene postponed two games last week. The MLB regular season officially ended for everyone else yesterday. Carlos Mendoza went with Tylor Megill (4-5 / 3.98 ERA). Since August 29th, Megill was 2-0 with a 1.78 ERA & 28 strike outs in 25.1 innings over five starts.)   Braves skipper; Brian Snitker went with Spencer Schwellenbach (8-7 / 3.35 ERA).  Schwellenbach was 3-0 in his last three starts, allowing four runs in 19 inns, beating the Mets just five days ago, allowing one run in seven innings of work. Mets Trivia: It was 51 years ago today; the 1973 Mets clinched a playoff spot in a scheduled double header at r...