Former Met of the Day: Mike Bordick (2000)

Michael Todd Bordick was born July 21, 1965 in Marquette Michigan. He came up at the end of the Oakland Athletics late eighties hey days in 1990. He spent the next seven years there as their main shortstop hitting .300 once in 1992. He was a consistent player and very sound defensively, always among the tops in the league in games played. He signed as a free agent with Baltimore in 1996 and became their main shortstop as well. He led the AL in sacrifice hits in 1998 & had been in the top seven in that category four times in the nineties. He also was in the top ten of getting hit by pitches three times, doing it 227 times in his career (#67 all time). He had his best season in 2000 with career highs in HRs (20) RBIs (80) and batting .285 with 30 doubles. He made the All Star team representing the Orioles and then on July 28th was traded to the Mets for the stretch run. He hit .260 with 4 HRs & 21 RBIs for the Mets in August & September and was their post season short stop. He only went 4 for 33 in the post season, never hitting above .200 in any of the three Series. After the season he signed on with the Orioles again as a free agent.

In the trade acquiring Bordick, the Mets gave up 3 minor leaguers and Melvin Mora. Mora went on to have a real good career in Baltimore, he’s still there nine years later a life time .280 hitter who enjoyed 2 seasons hitting over .300 with 20 or more HRs. Bordick came after the fall of Rey Ordonez who was only hitting .188 and the only other short stop they had was Kurt Abbot, (remember him?) who was hitting .217. Mora was still being used primarily as an outfielder in New York.

Bordick played two more seasons in Baltimore and closed out his career in Toronto hitting .274. In a 13 year career Bordick played in 1720 games hitting .260 with 257 career doubles. Defensively he made 128 errors with a .982 fielding percentage. In 2005 he was invited to the White House to honor the Little League Champions from Toms River, NJ.