centerfield maz

Ruben Amaro Jr. was born on February 12th 1965 in Northeast Philadelphia. His father Ruben Amaro SR. played in the Major Leagues for eleven years, with the St. Louis Cardinals (1958) Philadelphia Phillies (1960-1965) AL New York team (1966-1968) & California Angels (1969). Amaro is Russian Jewish, Cuban Mexican American. Ruben Jr. graduated from William Penn charter school where he played baseball as well as soccer. He attended Stanford University playing for the 1987 College World Series Championship team. He led the club in runs, triples & stolen bases. The outfielder was drafted by the California Angels in the 11th round of the 1987 draft. In December of 1991, he was traded along with Kyle Abbot to the Philadelphia Phillies for Von Hayes. By 1992 he was the Phillies main right fielder playing in 126 games but hit just .219 with 7 HRs 15 doubles & 34 RBIs. He began the Phillies 1993 NL Championship season at AAA getting back to the Phils in mid June. A fe...

Arthur Lawrence "Bugs" Raymond was born on February 24, 1882 in Chicago, Illinois. The five foot ten, right hander supposedly got his nickname due to his antics on & off the field. Raymond pitched in pro ball in 1904, making a brief debut with the Detroit Tigers, pitching five games going 0-1.  He went back to the minor leagues, and began throwing a spitball which was legal at the time. All of a sudden he won 35 games (35-11) for Charleston in the South Atlantic League in 1907. The St. Louis Cardinals bought his contract & he was back in the majors that season. In St. Louis he was the last place Cardinals top pitcher in 1908, winning 15 games on a team that only won 49 games in total. He struck out 145 batters (fourth in the NL), posted a 2.03 ERA (10th in the NL) but led the league in losses (25) and wild pitches (9).  On average Raymond gave up fewer hits per games than the great Christy Mathewson did in New York with the Giants. Bugs threw five shutouts of...

The 1964 All Star Game was held at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York. At the time the area was jumping with a new excitement; Shea Stadium was a brand new $29 million dollar ball park & one of baseball's most glamorous. It was designed by the standards of that day, to be the greatest ever built for baseball. It was huge compared to most of the smaller parks still in use at the time, with seating for 56,000 fans. It was billed as having great views of the play from every seat, since it had no columns or pillars in the sightlines, like the older parks. The walkway rafts & escaladers were considered modern at the time, as to exit fans more quickly. Shea had its most famous feature, the tremendous state of the art scoreboard, 175 ft. long & eight stories high. A large screen in center top, originally projected photos of the players coming to bat, this was way ahead of its time in 1964. Shea was like nothing baseball had ever seen, ushers dressed in Mets colored s...

Wednesday August 31st, 2016: The hot New York Mets (69-64) hosted Don Mattingly's slumping Miami Marlins (67-66) in game three of an important four game series. Today the Mets learned that they will lost their second baseman Neil Walker for the rest of the season as he will need back surgery. With David Wright & Lucas Duda also gone for the year to back issues 3/4 of the Mets projected infield for 2016 was gone. But these Mets have stepped up & are making an exciting hopeful playoff run going into September. With the Mets win tonight, (their third straight) it marks their ninth win in eleven games, putting them within 1 1/2 games of the wild card. Bartolo Colon took the mound for his team leading 27th start of the year. Who would have though the oldest pitcher on the young staff would be leading the club in starts? In the top of the 2nd, sloppy Mets errors by Colon & Jose Reyes led to a Marlins run. But the resilient Mets answered back as Curtis Granderson le...

Eric Joseph Langhill was born April 9th 1979 in Kirkland, Quebec.  Growing up on Canada he loved hockey, idolizing Patrick Roy while also playing baseball where he exceled as an avid Montreal Expo fan. The five foot nine Canadian catcher attended Des Moines Community College, then was drafted by his beloved Expos in the 34th round of the 1999 amateur draft.  He was a career minor leaguer playing two seasons in the Expos organization & then five in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, hitting just one career HR batting .210 throwing out 18% of would be base stealers.  In 2011 he joined Dave Racaniello as a Mets bullpen coach & has been there for seven seasons, joining the team in that role again in 2018. Drama: During Spring Training 2012 Langill was involved in a car crash in Port St. Lucie Florida after a team bowling event. He was charged with driving under the influence & spent a night in jail. The team suspended him for a week & then he was ...

Charles Leonard Estrada was born on February 15, 1938 in San Luis Obispo, California. He was signed by the Milwaukee Braves out of high school and was sent to the new MLB, Baltimore Orioles in 1957. He began his 1960 rookie season in the bull pen but soon broke into the Orioles rotation. He ended up leading the A.L. in wins with 18, making two All Star games, and earning the Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award. He struck out 144 batters (5th in the AL) pitched over 200 innings and posted a 3.53 ERA. He had a successful sophomore season, going 15-9 with a 3.69 ERA but led the league with 132 walks. 1962 was a disaster for him as he led the league in losses (17) going 9-17 although his 3.93 ERA wasn’t all that bad. His career took a major downfall when he developed bone chips, as he eventually wound up back in the bullpen going 6-4 in only 25 games over the next two seasons. He was sent to the Los Angeles Angels who returned him back to Baltimore who then sent him t...

Samuel Francis Calderone was born February 6th 1926, in Beverly, New Jersey. Beverly is located in South Western New Jersey near the Pennsylvania border. There he played football, golf & baseball in his High school years. The five foot ten catcher was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, but was soon taken away by the New York Giants as a rule V draftee.  In 1949 Calderone hit .317 at AA St. Paul, playing in sixty games as a back up to Ferrell Anderson. He made the Giants club as a backup catcher to Wes Westrum in 1950, playing in 33 games behind the plate. He posted a .972 fielding % throwing out one of the nine runners attempting to steal on him. He hit .299 (20-67) with one HR & 12 RBIs.  Calderone made his debut on April 19th, 1950 finishing off a game at the Polo Grounds against the Boston Braves. In his second career game he drove in his first run in a 4-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds. On May 21st, he had a huge game against the Pittsburgh Pirat...

Saturday July 14th 2001: Bobby Valentine's reigning NL Champion Mets were having a bad follow up season. They were 40-52 at this point 12 1/2 games out of first place. In front of a big Shea crowd of 52,006 the Mets hosted Jimmy Williams' second place Boston Red Sox (52-38) in a nostalgic rematch of the 1986 World Series. The Mets starter was Glendon Rusch (4-5) and on this day he would turn in one of the best performances of his career. Starting Lineups Boston Red Sox         New York Mets 1 Jose Offerman 2B 1 Joe McEwing RF 2 Chris Stynes 3B 2 Desi Relaford SS 3 Trot Nixon CF 3 Robin Ventura 3B 4 Manny Ramirez LF 4 Mark Johnson LF 5 Dante Bichette RF 5 Lenny Harris 1B 6 Scott Hatteberg C 6 Edgardo Alfonzo 2B 7 Lou Merloni SS 7 Timo Perez CF 8 Brian Daubach 1B 8 Vance Wilson C 9 Rolando Arrojo P 9 Glendon Rusch P In the top of the 1st, Trot Nixon bunted to third base & reached for an infield hit. This would be ...

Robert Michael Picciolo was born on February 4, 1953, in Santa Monica, California. The middle infielder was a star player at Pepperdine University getting drafted in the first round, (4th pick overall) in 1975 by the Oakland A’s. He was known for his fine glove work more than his weak hitting or low on base percentages. Picciolo never posted an on base percentage above .290 & never drew double figures in walks in his career. By 1977 all the Oakland A’s from the World Series Dynasty years of the early seventies were gone. After a second place finish in 1976, the A’s had fallen to a seventh place finish by 1977, Picciolo was brought up to the A’s as their starting shortstop to replace the departed Bert Campaneris. In his rookie year, Picciolo batted just .200 with 2 HRs & 22 RBIs as the teams main shortstop playing in 148 games. He remained in Oakland for parts of six seasons, playing four of those as the A’s main shortstop. He had his best season in the strike shortened...

Tuesday April 27th 1965: In 1965 the Houston Astrodome opened up with great fanfare & was billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World.  It was the first of its kind, an indoor multi purpose stadium, air conditioned for the Houston heat & dry if it ever rained on game day. The futuristic park included female usherettes in space age suits & grounds crews dressed like astronauts. It featured fake grass, an artificial turf known as Astroturf, as well as Astrolite the world's first animated scoreboard. The dome is 710 feet high, with skylights in the roof panels & lighting around its brim above the upper decks. This would be the first game the Mets ever played indoors. Mets manager; Casey Stengel brought his young ball club in to face a hot Astros team lead by skipper, Lum Harris. Harris had the team on a five game win streak, without having lost yet in their new ball park. 16,837 fans came out to watch the Astros; Don Nottenbart take on the Mets Jack Fisher. ...