Ultimate Mets Database: Game of July 16, 1991

a mets fan
February 23, 2003
Was awsome to see the Mets pull this one out for a win., even though neither team was in contention. I remember totally losing respect for Kevin Mitchell once he left us, and he got a lot of booing that day. 1991 was the first year of the authentic collection MLB baseball caps, and I remember after this game going to Modell's and getting myself an authentic blue Mets cap. By the way in this game I saw Kevin McReynolds' hat. He takes a size 7 and a half.

Dave VW
September 2, 2022
The previous comment here says neither team was in contention, but that's not really true. Though the Mets fell out of the race by August, beating the Giants here moved them to 14 games over .500 and made them winners of 11 of their last 13 games, getting them to within 4.5 of the first-place Pirates. So the Mets were very much alive by this point in the season. Also, not sure why you'd lose so much respect for Mitchell considering he didn't leave on his own accord but was traded. It's not like he picked another team over the Mets, like Strawberry did. Watching the game back, I didn't really hear many boos for Mitchell, aside from when he parked one off of Gooden in the 6th inning, but I wasn't really listening for them either so maybe there were a few boos I didn't notice.

The major news before this game was the trade of Ron Darling to Montreal for Tim Burke, marking the end of his 7+ year stay in New York. With Fernandez coming back from a broken arm, the Mets were going to be stuck with too many starters, so someone had to be the odd man out, with that being Darling. Burke definitely helped solidify the bullpen in '91 but struggled mightily in '92.

The third inning was an fun one for the Mets. O'Brien led off with his first hit at Shea since April, then Gooden followed with a butcher boy double. After a walk and a strikeout, Jefferies delivered a bloop 2-run single, and the Mets tacked on 2 more and pretty much coasted to a win despite some late-game home runs by SF. It was also neat to see Rod Beck and Mike Remlinger as rookies in this game, as both would go on to become some of the best relievers of the decade.

One final note: When Francisco Oliveras was taken out of the game, McCarver, delivering one of his famous one-liners, said, "You can now say the Giants are 'sans Francisco.'" After Kiner gave no reaction to the joke, McCarver asked, "No?," to which Kiner quickly responded, "No. I don't think you can say that." It was quite LOL worthy.

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