centerfield maz

50th Anniversary of the 1969 World Champion "Amazing Mets"   It was always a big deal when the Giants & Dodgers came back to town, in those good old days. It had been just a dozen seasons ago, that the Giants & Dodgers had left the Polo Grounds & Ebbets Field for the West Coast.  Many of their loyal fans would still come out to root for their old teams when they visited New York. So it was an exiting weekend in New York as the Giants started out a three game series with the three game set with Dodgers to follow. This was to be a big week for the Amazing Mets as they went on an 11 game win streak, opening up some eyes around the league & starting to show they were for real. 1969 S.F. Giants: The 1969 San Francisco Giants won 90 games (90-72) finishing second in the NL West just three behind the Atlanta Braves. Th e outstanding player of the '69 Giants was Willie McCovey who led the NL in HRs (45) & RBIs (126) batting ....

Saturday September 14th 1996 : Bobby Valentine's New York Mets (67-81) hosted Bobby Cox's first place Atlanta Braves (86-61) in front of 22,857 fans at Shea Stadium.  Tonight the Mets fans witnessed Todd Hundley set a season for most HRs by a catcher, as well as setting an all time Mets single season HR record. It was to be a long four hour, 12 inning affair that saw Bobby Valentine & Bobby Cox each use 23 players on the extended September rosters. Overall 14 different pitchers were used by both clubs in total.   Starting Lineups Atlanta Braves         New York Mets 1 Marquis Grissom CF 1 Lance Johnson CF 2 Terry Pendleton 3B 2 Edgardo Alfonzo 2B 3 Chipper Jones SS 3 Bernard Gilkey LF 4 Fred McGriff 1B 4 Todd Hundley C 5 Ryan Klesko LF 5 Butch Huskey 1B 6 Javy Lopez C 6 Alex Ochoa RF 7 Andruw Jones RF 7 Alvaro Espinoza 3B 8 Mike Mordecai 2B 8 Rey Ordonez SS 9 Steve Avery P 9 Mark Clark P  The Braves jumped ou...

Friday Night May 25th 1984: Davey Johnson's third place Mets (21-18) hosted Tommy Lasorda's first place Los Angeles Dodgers (25-22). A good crowd of 27, 340 came out to Shea Stadium to watch the Mets new young, 19 year old pitcher; Dwight Gooden, whom everyone was starting to talk about. This youngster not only had one of the games best blazing fastballs, but a curve so good, Mets Broadcaster; Ralph Kiner named it- "Lord Charles". At this point Gooden had a 3-3 record with a 4.15 ERA in eight career starts. He had struck out 59 batters in 43 innings pitched & already had three games where he struck out ten or more batters. Looking back you could say it was tonight that Gooden came into the spotlight for good, Doctor K established himself in the National League. He would allow just one run & three hits to the mighty Dodgers while striking out a career high up that point 14 batters. In September Gooden would have back to back 16 strike out games. The ...

Jose Manuel Mangual was born on May 23, 1952 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Jose became known as Pepe, & is the brother of former Oakland A’s player, Angel Mangual who played against the New York Mets in the 1973 World Series going 0-6. Angel Mangual began his career in Pittsburgh playing six games in the 1969 season. He was then sent to the Oakland A's in 1970 to complete the Mud Cat Grant trade toward the end of his career. Mangual was lucky enough to be a reserve outfielder on three consecutive A's Championship teams (1972-1974). In 1971 he was third in the Rookie of the Year Voting batting .286 with 4 HRs 8 doubles 17 RBIs 32 runs scored & a .324 on base %. In his seven year career he batted .245 with 22 HRs 44 RBIs 125 RBIs 122 runs scored & a .279 on base %. The Mangual brothers, were cousins of early seventies Montreal Expos infielder Coco Laboy . Laboy was the Expos main third baseman in their inaugural season in 1969 coming in second in the Rooki...

50th Anniversary of the 1969 World Champion "Amazing Mets" Wednesday May 21st, 1969: A modest crowd of 14,669 attended Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium, to see a marquee match up of two future Hall of Famers, the Braves Phil Niekro (6-2) & the Mets Tom Seaver (5-2). Not many people were thinking these were to be the two teams that would matchup in the first ever NLCS later that October, but it would be the case.  The Braves managed by their former Hall of Fame slugger, Eddie Mathews, fielded two other Hall of Fame players that day, besides Niekro- Hank Aaron & Orlando Cepeda. Starting Lineups Mets 1 Tommie Agee CF 2 Wayne Garrett 3B 3 Ken Boswell 2B 4 Cleon Jones LF 5 Art Shamsky RF 6 Ed Kranepool 1B 7 J.C. Martin C 8 Bud Harrelson SS 9 Tom Seaver P Braves 1 Felix Millan 2B 2 Sonny Jackson SS 3 Hank Aaron RF 4 Orlando Cepeda 1B 5 Bob Aspromonte 3B 6 Tommie Aaron LF 7 Bob Tillman C 8 Mike Lum CF 9 Phil Niekro P Tonight...