|
Though the Mets have
won four pennants and two World Championships, they
are not heavily represented in baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New
York. Only two players,
Tom Seaver and, to a lesser extent,
Gary Carter,
established their credentials for the game's highest honor while playing a
significant portion of their careers with the Mets. Seven other
Hall-of-Famers,
who had their glory years with other clubs, spent a portion of their
careers as players with the Mets. (See below.) Other Cooperstown immortals
who served in a Met uniform, though not as a player, are manager Casey
Stengel, and coaches Rogers Hornsby and Bob Gibson.
The list of Mets players in the Hall of Fame is certain to grow in the
coming years, as
Rickey Henderson is sure to be enshrined once he becomes eligible.
The late
Gil Hodges, the great Brooklyn Dodger firstbaseman who ended his
playing career with, and later managed, the Mets, gets annual
consideration from the Veterans Committee, but has not yet been selected.
He deserves to be, and we hope to see him get his due in the
not-too-distant future.
Joe Torre was an outstanding player with the Braves and the Cardinals
before coming to the Mets at the end of his career. He was, however, not
quite good enough to make it to the Hall of Fame. His recent success
winning World Championships with the Yankees has inspired talk that he may
make it to Cooperstown as a manager.
Among more recent Mets,
Mike Piazza,
Roberto Alomar, and
Tom Glavine
are likely to become Hall-of-Famers after their
playing careers end.
|
METS PLAYERS IN THE NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME
WHILE WITH THE NEW YORK METS
|
1972
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
YOGI BERRA
Yogi Berra played 18 seasons with the Yankees, and four games
with the Mets, but those four games in 1965 qualify him for a spot on this
list of Mets players in the Hall of Fame. During his Yankee career, Berra
hit 358 home runs, won three MVP awards, and played in 75 World Series
games. He retired as a player and became the Yankees' manager for the 1964
season, in which he led his team to the American League pennant, only to
be fired after a World Series loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. The Mets
coaxed him out of retirement for the 1965 season, but Berra's comeback was
limited, as mentioned above, to a mere four games.
He spent eleven years in a Mets uniform, however, first as a coach, and
then, after the 1972 death of
Gil Hodges, as the team's fifth manager.
Yogi became the first manager to win pennants in each league when the Mets
found their way to the 1973 World Series. Yogi's ties with the Mets
organization ended when he was fired as manager during the 1975 season. He
has gone on since then to become one of baseball's most colorful figures,
known perhaps more for his many memorable quotes (many of which he never
actually uttered) than for his distinguished career on the field and in
the dugout.
|
1973
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
WARREN SPAHN
Warren Spahn joined the Mets in 1965 after 20 seasons with the
Boston and Milwaukee Braves.
During that time he established himself as one of the greatest left-handed
pitchers in the history of the game.
He had thirteen 20-win seasons, and pitched in three World Series,
including the Milwaukee Braves' World Championship
season of 1957. When he put on a Mets uniform for the first time, however,
he was nearly 44 years old. He posted an unimpressive
4-12 record in 19 starts with the Mets before finishing 1965, and his
career, with the San Francisco Giants.
Spahn's 363 career victories represent the fifth highest win total of all
time, behind only immortals Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Grover Cleveland
Alexander, and Christy Mathewson. Spahn also has the somewhat less
impressive distinction of being the first Met player ever to draw a breath
on the planet Earth. His April 23, 1921 birth preceded his nearest
competitor,
Gene Woodling
by over a year.
|
1979
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
WILLIE MAYS
During over two decades with the New York and San Francisco Giants,
Willie Mays was, arguably, the greatest player of his time.
When he retired in 1973, he ranked
third on the all-time home run list with 660, behind only Babe Ruth and
Henry Aaron.
He collected 3,283 base hits, drove in 1,903 runs, and had a career
batting average of .302. He was a Rookie of the Year in 1951, and won
two Most Valuable Player awards.
In 1954 he led the Giants to their
final World Championship in New York, and, during the World Series that
year, he made a spectacular catch and throw on a long centerfield drive by
Cleveland's Vic Wertz that's still talked about to this day. Mays was a
five-tool player who dominated at virtually every phase of the game. Mays
continued to excel after the Giants moved to California in 1958. He
received one of baseball's most exclusive honors when he was named the
Player of the Decade for the 1960's.
When Willie reached the age of 41, with his skills in considerable
decline, the San Francisco Giants sent Mays back to the city where he
started his career, trading him to the Mets on May 11, 1972. Although he
hit a game-winning home run in his Mets debut, beating the Giants 5-4,
Willie Mays had few moments of glory with the Mets. He finished out the
1972 season and returned in 1973 for the Mets' "You Gotta Believe" season,
which allowed him to close his remarkable career with a World Series
appearance against the Oakland Athletics. After his retirement, Mays
remained with the Mets as a coach until 1979, when Commissioner Bowie Kuhn
banned him (and Mickey Mantle) from any involvement with baseball because
of a business affiliation with an Atlantic City casino. When the ban was
eventually lifted, Mays returned to the employ of the Giants, and has had
no further involvement with the Mets.
|
1980
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
DUKE SNIDER
Duke Snider
was one of the more beloved members of the great Brooklyn Dodgers teams
of the 1950's. New York fans endlessly debated the merits of the city's
three great
center fielders of the time,
Willie Mays,
Mickey Mantle, and Snider, immortalized in song as "Willie, Mickey and the
Duke."
The Dodgers won six pennants during Snider's eleven seasons with the team
in Brooklyn, and
one more during his five years in Los Angeles.
Snider slugged 40 or more home runs in each of his last five seasons in Brooklyn.
His production immediately tailed off with the switch from the cozy Ebbets
Field to the spacious Los Angeles Coliseum.
As with Mays,
Yogi Berra, and
Warren Spahn, Duke Snider's best days were behind him when he
finally put on a Mets
uniform. Snider, however, was a little bit younger than the above
mentioned players, as he
was a tender 36 years of age when the Mets acquired him for the 1963
season. In his only
season with the Mets, Snider played in 129 games and hit .243 with
14 home runs, including the 400th of his career.
He would finish his career in 1964 with the San Francisco Giants.
|
1992
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
TOM SEAVER
And then, of course, there's
Tom Seaver.
Seaver was the first Met to go into the Hall of Fame
as a Met, with a Mets cap on his plaque and an
impressive list of accomplishments in a Mets uniform on his
resume: four seasons with 20 or more wins, nine consecutive
seasons with 200 or more strikeouts, three Cy Young awards,
a Rookie of the Year award, and three ERA titles,
including a 1.76 in 1971. He won 198 games as a Met, out of a
total of 311 in his career. But Seaver's impact on the Mets
transcends a mere listing of his impressive accomplishments.
Seaver, along with manager
Gil Hodges,
was primarily responsible for changing the attitude
and personality of the team, as well as its position in the standings.
When Seaver arrived as a 22-year-old rookie in 1967,
the Mets had never enjoyed a winning season, and in fact
had rarely managed to escape the National League
cellar. They had had a reputation as lovable losers,
but that was starting to wear thin. During the
1969 season, when the Mets reached the .500 mark for the first time in
their history, Seaver refused to see that as anything noteworthy. His focus was on
loftier goals. The Miracle Mets World Championship of 1969
simply would not have happened without Tom Seaver on the ballclub.
After 1969, and through the much of the 1970's, Tom Seaver was the player around
whom the Mets revolved. He was called "The Franchise," a nickname which irked Mets
management but was nonetheless accurate. Tom Seaver
put the Mets on the baseball map,
and he should have spent his entire career pitching at Shea Stadium.
It wasn't meant to be, however. Following the death of owner Joan Payson
in 1975, her heirs went into penny-pinching mode,
under the direction of the despised M. Donald Grant.
Grant openly feuded with Seaver and, ultimately, ran him
out of town, trading him to the Cincinnati Reds
on June 15, 1977 for four moderately talented young players.
With Seaver gone, the Mets immediately lapsed into the
most dismal stretch of their history. Seaver returned for one season
in 1983, and then was lost to the Chicago White Sox when the Mets
left him unprotected in the free agent compensation draft.
After pitching for the Red Sox in 1986, Seaver attempted a 1987 comeback with the
Mets, but called it off when he felt he was no longer capable of pitching
up to his standards. When he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992, he
had the highest percentage of votes in history, breaking a record set by
Ty Cobb.
|
1995
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
RICHIE ASHBURN
Richie Ashburn followed a similar path
as most of his fellow Mets in the Hall of Fame. After
a successful and productive career elsewhere, he came
to New York in his twilight, and didn't stay long.
Ashburn spent the first eleven years of his career as
a slick-fielding center fielder with the Philadelphia
Phillies. He was one of the famous "Whiz Kids" when
the Phils won the 1950 National League Championship.
He was a lifetime .308 hitter who amassed 2,574 hits in
a 14-year career in which he won two N.L. batting titles.
After leaving the Phillies, he spent two years with the
Chicago Cubs before joining the Mets for their inaugural
season in 1962.
Ashburn performed well for the Mets, hitting .306 with 60
runs scored in 135 games. He was named the team's MVP,
which was a somewhat dubious honor, considering that the
Mets lost a record 120 games in 1962. By the end of the
season, Richie had decided that he had had enough, and
retired rather than return for another year with the Mets.
His year playing for Casey Stengel provided Ashburn with
a number of colorful anecdotes, which served him well
during his many years as a beloved Phillies broadcaster.
Ashburn died in a New York hotel in 1997, shortly after
broadcasting a Mets-Phillies game at Shea Stadium.
|
1999
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
NOLAN RYAN
Nolan Ryan was the second Hall-of-Famer produced by the
Mets farm system. Unlike
Tom Seaver, though, Ryan had the vast majority of his
success after leaving the Mets.
Ryan was a baby-faced 19-year-old when he made his major league
debut with the Mets in 1966. He stayed with the Mets through 1971,
pitching both as a starter and as a reliever. By 1971 he was a
member of the starting rotation, and he won 10 games. Nolan Ryan,
at the age of 24, was a hard thrower who was prone to wildness.
He struck out 137 batters in 1971, while walking 116. Since the Mets
had pitching depth, with Seaver,
Jerry Koosman, and
Gary Gentry, the Mets felt Ryan was expendable, and traded
him to the California Angels for veteran All-Star shortstop
Jim Fregosi, who they planned to convert to a third baseman.
The trade may have seemed reasonable when it was made,
but it did not take long for it to become apparent
that the Mets made a terrible mistake, probably the worst
trade in their entire history. Fregosi hit .232, with
5 home runs and 32 runs batted in for the Mets in 1972.
And meanwhile, Nolan Ryan was an immediate sensation with the Angels.
He won 19 games in 1972, and struck out an astounding 329
batters. In 1973, Fregosi was shipped off to the
Texas Rangers, and Ryan won 21 games and struck out 383.
As the years went by, Ryan kept going strong. Over the course
of his career, he would strike out the record total of 5,714
batters. He pitched a record seven no-hitters. He won
324 games. He didn't retire until the age of 46, in 1993,
after a record 27 seasons.
Surprisingly, though, with all the success Ryan had, and all
the longevity, he only pitched in one World Series. And that
was early in his career, when he was with the 1969 Mets.
|
2003
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
GARY CARTER
|
2003
BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE
EDDIE MURRAY
|
|
|
