Santo Clause

Cubs broadcaster Ron Santo is the patron saint of all walk-off broadcasters because he has the ability to express the feelings of all those who have suffered the agony of a walk-off defeat in just one cry of anguish...

"OHHHH NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While there is no need to get into the horrors that befell the Mets in the final days of the 1998 baseball season, we must at least acknowledge them to provide the context for this story.

The chase for the NL's wild card spot bore down to the last week of September, as the Cubs and Mets dueled, and the Giants made a quick, last-ditch uphill chase. The Cubs and Mets entered September 23rd tied, with the not-so-relevant Giants 2 1/2 back, with 4 games left to play.

The Cubs and Brewers were wrapping up a series in Milwaukee that afternoon, prior to the Mets game with the Expos. The Cubs were sputtering a bit, but they had won the previous day and took a comfortable early lead with Steve Trachsel on the mound. By the time Sammy Sosa hit his second home run in the sixth inning, it was 7-0 Cubs.

But these were the Cubs and it was Trachsel pitching, so WFAN's Mike and the Mad Dog were broadcasting from Shea Stadium, keeping close tabs on this game, updating Mets fans like me, who happened to be in the car for part of the day. At mid-afternoon, I had to head to work, and an easy Cubs triumph seemed to be just wrapping up.

In the 7th inning, Trachsel tired and started to gag a bit. By the time he finished (with the help of Jose Valentin's 2-run double), he allowed 4 runs and it was a game again at 7-4. By the 8th, Mike and the Mad Dog were in full play-by-play mode and built up the suspense a bit as the Brewers rallied for another run, but left two stranded, making the score 7-5 with one inning remaining.

By the time the last of the 9th commenced, I was in the parking lot for the office at the Trenton Times. I was right on time, but decided that in this circumstance that I was going to be a few minutes late. YES was not around to simulcast WFAN at that point and I wanted to hear this contest's conclusion.

Cubs closer Rod Beck got Fernando Vina to ground out, but Mark Loretta singled and Geoff Jenkins doubled, and suddenly things got REALLY interesting. A Cubs loss would be gigantic in the scheme of things. With Jeromy Burnitz due up, the Cubs gambled, issuing him a free pass to load the bases and put the winning run on first base. I don't recall mentally debating the merits of that maneuver because of my recollection of what happened shortly thereafter.

Marquis Grissom struck out, so now the Cubs were an out away from winning, but also a blunder away from losing. These are the Cubs, so what occurred wasn't really shocking, in reviewing it years later, but then it was monumentally amazing.

Geoff Jenkins, on a 2-2 count, lifted a fly ball towards the left field line, one that was playable for Cubs left fielder Brant Brown. The ball hung up in the air long enough for Mike Francesa to tell listeners: "Easy play...game over..."

I can't remember whether there was a pause, one long enough for NY Post columnist Phil Mushnick to tell you about Francesa's wrongness 100 times over, in Russo's play-by-play, but he did continue along. Then, all of a sudden, he started screaming in his silly, uncomprehensable manner..."HE DROPPED THE BALL!!!! Did they tie it or win it??? They won it!!!! Omigod, Mikey...HE DROPPED THE BALL!!!"

At this point, I got out of my car, did a full sprint for the steps and started screaming over and over again "HE DROPPED THE BALL!!" (explaining the meaning to my boss was tough, because I was so out of breath.)

I didn't know it, but Ron Santo was screaming too. For those who don't know Santo, he's a former Cubs 3rd baseman, borderline Hall of Famer, best known among Mets fans for annoyingly clicking his heels after Cubs victories. Santo has also battled diabetes throughout his life and while it has hindered him physically, his mental status is most dependent on whether the Cubs win or lose.

As good as listening to Francesa and Russo was, having the chance to hear the Cubs radio version of events was that much better. Santo, long tortured by the idea that the Cubs would never win a championship, let fly a cry of anguish that rivaled my vocal display in the Grand Central men's room not long after Carlos Beltran took strike three. I can't quite do it justice in print, even if I were to use 1,908 exclamation points, so you'll just have to trust my assessment.

Pat Hughes (play-by-play): "How much more can the nervous system take? Seven to five Cubs, bottom of the 9th...2 down...the Brewers have the bases loaded and a 2-2 count on the hitter...here's the pitch...swung on, fly ball left field...Brant Brown going back...Brant Brown mmmdrops the ball!

Ron Santo: "OHHHHHH NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hughes: "He drops the ball..."

Santo: (best described as 'wounded-puppy') "NOOOOOO!!!!!"

Hughes: "Three runs will score...and the Brewers...have beaten the Cubs. The Brewers beat the Cubs by a score of eight to seven. Brant Brown dropped the fly ball in left....Three runs score and the Brewers have beaten the Cubs by a score of eight to seven. Brown went back...he then came in and he dropped the ball. An error on the left fielder Brant Brown...and in shocking fashion, the Cubs lose a game to the Brewers...eight to seven the final...we'll be back with the totals, after this...on the Cubs...radio network."

I did some reading about this game and the most popular story, told by Hughes, was of how Santo, down in the Cubs clubhouse later that afternoon, had to be consoled, by, of all people, Cubs manager Jim Riggelman. I didn't need such consoling. It made for an early holiday season for Mets fans, who were able to chant "Ho, Ho, Ho" for a few hours in celebration.

Those who Met it Snow know...Ron Santo played for the Cubs from 1960 to 1973. During that time, the Mets had 15 walk-off wins against the Cubs. The Cubs had 12 walk-off wins against the Mets in that span, including one on July 29, 1965 in which Santo hit the game-ending home run.

Last year's Christmas-themed entry can be found at
http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/2005/12/santa-klaus-is-coming-to-town.html

Good for the Goose

I'm in the mood to wish a Happy Hanukkah to someone and since I've already written about the likes of Shawn Green, Elliott Maddox, and Norm Sherry, I thought I'd offer a friendly shout-out to former Mets catcher Greg Goossen, since obscurity seems to be our specialty here.

Goossen appeared in 99 Mets games from 1965 to 1968, serving as a third-string catcher behind Jerry Grote his first three seasons and a backup first baseman in his last Mets campaign. That he not well remembered (other than for Casey Stengel saying "He's a 20-year-old kid. In 10 years, he has a chance to be 30.") may have something to do with the fact that in those 99 games, the Mets only won 28 times (they lost 70 and tied once). In 1967, his appearance virtually assured a Mets defeat, as he played in 37 games and the New Yorkers were victors only thrice.

The next year, Goossen had a little bit more good fortune. In a season bereft of walk-off victories, Goossen had the opportunity to partake in two of three. He even played an integral role in one.

We're referring to an otherwise fairly insignificant Mets-Reds game which took place on May 16, 1968. Goossen was in the midst of a streak in which he was playing regularly, which lasted about two weeks. Since Tom Seaver was pitching, this was the kind of game that could go against the Goossen odds and be a Mets victory.

While Seaver pitched well, the Mets had offensive troubles of their own against Gerry Arrigo. With two outs in the home second, Goossen doubled, a liner that news accounts describe as having scooted under Vada Pinson's glove in center field . Jerry Buchek followed with an RBI single, scoring Goossen and producing the game's only run until the Reds tied it in the sixth on a Tony Perez single.

That 1-1 deadlock held, with both starting pitchers remaining in until the 9th inning. Seaver was sharp, escaping trouble in both the 8th and 9th inning against the likes of Johnny Bench and Pete Rose. In the home 9th, Goossen came up with two outs and nobody on and this time, he worked out a walk. Alas, Gil Hodges realized that the Mets chances of victory were better with Goossen out of the game, so he removed the first baseman for pinch-runner Don Bosch. It was Bosch who came home with the victorious run, following singles by Buchek and Tommie Agee, for whom the hit made him 12-for-99 for the season.

While the performance was good enough to earn Goossen a three-word subheadline within the text titled "Goossen Spurs Attack," such come-throughs were not good enough for him to maintain his status with the Mets. In 1969, he was sold to the Seattle Pilots, and while he was productive on a part-time basis for them, his career ended two seasons later, his batting average .241 in 193 career games.

But shed no tears for Greg Goossen because I believe his tale to be a happy one. After his baseball career, Goossen found other work. Besides assisting his brother, a boxing promoter whose clients included Mike Tyson, Goossen became a movie "star" and has enjoyed lengthy employ as stand-in for none other than Gene Hackman. He also has some good fortune this year. This year, he gets to celebrate both his birthday and Hanukkah on consecutive days, as he turned 61 this past Thursday.

True Metssen know...Gene Hackman won an Oscar for his portrayal of Popeye Doyle in the movie, The French Connection. The character was based on Eddie Egan, a New York City police detective and former minor league ballplayer, who had the distinction of being replaced upon joining the marines by Mickey Mantle.

Santa Klaus is Coming to Town

Thanks to those who helped us clear the 20,000 hit mark. Happy holidays!

Santa Klaus, and yes there's a reason I've spelled it that way, came down the Shea Stadium chimney a little prematurely in 1965, but Mets fans didn't mind, as he came bearing a perfectly nice gift- a walk-off win over the Houston Astros.

April 15 of that season marked an unusually early time for the Flushing 9 to be celebrating victory, as it was only their third game of the season. It was a taxing day for some (pardon the pun), but one of the last good ones as Mets manager for Casey Stengel, a jolly, happy soul if there ever was one.

There was some early excitement in this one, as in the second inning, the Mets defense turned a triple play. With runners on first and third, Jimmy Wynn hit a fly ball to right-center field. Johnny Lewis made the catch, and his throw home was in time for catcher Chris Cannizzaro to tag oncoming runner Walt Bond for the second out. Meanwhile, future Met Bob Aspromonte got caught unsure on the throw home, freezing when he thought it might get cut off. When he made a late dash for second, Cannizzaro threw to shortstop Roy McMillan, who tagged Aspromonte out.

The Mets were an out away from a 4-2 win when Aspromonte drew a walk from Mets starter Jack Fisher. Wynn followed with a game-tying two-run homer, ensuring he wouldn't be wearing the goat horns (or maybe, more appropriately reindeer horns) for this contest, which was sent into extra innings.

The Astros missed out on a great chance to take the lead in the 10th. With 18-year old reliever Jim Bethke in the game, and runners on first and second with one out, Al Spangler hit a grounder to third. Third baseman Charley Smith got the force at second, and when Astros baserunner, reliever Claude Raymond, rounded third base a little too far, he was thrown out when second baseman Bobby Klaus fired the ball to McMillan, who had raced to cover third.

Klaus led off the bottom of the 10th, giving him a chance to be a baseball hero in another respect. To be frank, this was someone who was not a good hitter, which likely explains why his major league career lasted only two seasons. Stengel made a list and checked it twice whenever he gave Klaus a chance to play.

In his first 40 at-bats of 1965, Klaus managed only five hits, but it was the second of those that was most valuable. Klaus took a mighty poke at a Raymond pitch and plunked it off the foul screen down the left field line for a walk-off home run. He dashed, danced and pranced around the bases, or at least we can pretend he did for the sake of invoking the names of some reindeer.

It was a victory both naughty and nice, if you know what I mean, and those were few and far between in the early days of the Mets.

True Metclauses know...Ok, a couple of things that I wanted to reference here

Yes, I know his last name isn't pronounced like "Claus." It's actually pronounced to rhyme with "louse" but it works better for blogging purposes not to acknowledge that until now.

The Mets have turned nine triple plays in their history, but this is the only game in which the Mets had both a triple play and a walk-off win.

Happy birthday and happy holidays to Jack Hamilton, Rickey Henderson, Dennis Musgraves, and Tom O'Malley, who were all born on December 25. O'Malley does have a walk-off hit to his credit, but we'll get around to referencing that another time.

You may have noticed I invoked a little bit of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" which might be my all-time holiday song. I've done some Rudolph parodies in the past, but couldn't come up with one for blogging purposes. I did learn that the only Met player with Rudolph in his name was one-hit wonder Greg Harts, who batted .500 in a two at-bat career with the 1973 Mets.

Then Dreidel I Shall Play

Regular readers may recall that I got a little prematurely excited during the season regarding the religious status of former Met Mike Jacobs, thinking initially that he, like me, was Jewish before learning that he was not.

While Jacobs won't be lighting the menorah or spinning the dreidel this Sunday (yes, the first night of Hanukkah coincides with Christmas), six other former Mets will. Two had walk-off hits for the Flushing 9. As it turns out, we've already written about one, but we'll give the other recognition today.

Elliott Maddox, a native of East Orange, New Jersey, was a baseball star at the University of Michigan, whose baseball claims to fame are varied. You can read more about them here

http://jewsinsports.org/profile.asp?sport=baseball&ID=121

but to summarize, Maddox played on the 1971 Washington Senators (the final season of baseball in D.C. until 2005), finished as high as eighth in the AL MVP voting while with the Yankees, and, before joining the Mets, sued New York City regarding a baseball-related knee injury and his issues with the Shea Stadium field.

Maddox was a decent major-league player, particularly adept afoot (stole as many as 20 bases in a season) and at drawing walks (he finished his career with more walks than whiffs), but by the time he became a Met in 1978, his speed, or lack thereof (six stolen bases in 28 attempts over three seasons!), sabotaged his ability to get on base.

In 1980, manager Joe Torre made Maddox a regular at third base, moving him from the outfield after getting brief looks at Maddox on the hot corner the previous two seasons. Maddox had a really good April (unlike the Mets), but fizzled a bit in May and was in the midst of a 1-for-17 funk in his previous six games heading into a May 24 contest against the Braves.

The Mets started Pat Zachry, recently recovered from elbow surgery, that day and he put the Mets in an early 2-0 hole by surrendering a first-inning homer to Gary Matthews. The Mets hung in, but this one looked like a lost cause after Matthews singled in a run in the eighth to give the Braves a 4-2 edge.

We've previously referenced the fighting spirit of the 1980 Mets and this was one contest in which it was on display. Back-to-back doubles in the eighth inning by Joel Youngblood and Frank Taveras produced a run and a sacrifice fly by John Stearns tied the game.

The game went the Bonus Baseball route after the Mets failed on a scoring chance in the last of the ninth. Neil Allen held the Braves off in the 10th and in the bottom of the frame they went to work against Rick Camp. The Braves righthander would become both famous (for his game-winning home run in the crazy July 4, 1985 game) and infamous (he received a prison sentence for a conspiracy conviction in September) later in his career but that's another matter for another time.

What mattered here was the Mets game-winning effort. Lee Mazzilli singled and was bunted to second by Stearns. The Braves intentionally walked Steve Henderson (a wise move, given Henderson's walk-off penchant) but Jose Morales kept the inning alive, beating out the relay throw on a potential double-play grounder. So with the score even and runners on the corners, Maddox came up, partly annoyed at Camp, who hit him with a pitch in the ninth inning. This time, he lined a pitch off the glove of first baseman Chris Chambliss, for a game-winning walk-off single.

When Jacobs got his walk-off hit against the Marlins in September, I researched the history of Jewish Mets and I know I surprised some people when I told them about Maddox, the most recent Jewish Mets position player.

Maddox, an African-American, converted to Judaism in 1974, after learning about the religion while growing up, in college, and during his baseball career. It's a rather interesting story, best told in a piece that ran last year in the magazine, New Jersey Jewish News (for which I unfortunately can't find a link).

"The more I studied about different religions,the more I found I had more interest in Judaic history and moved further away from the Christian faith," Maddox told writer Ron Kaplan of his initial studies at Michigan, adding later that "My parents were religious people, especially my mother. They thought it was great that I finally believed in something."

True Metukkah Celebrators know...The other Jewish Mets are Joe Ginsberg, Greg Goossen, Dave Roberts, Art Shamsky, and Norm Sherry.