This was my first live game. Sat in the upper deck green seats. Mays hit a triple but scored on an error. Forever I thought he hit an inside the park Homer till I saw it years later in the box score on the internet. It was great. I'll forever remember that day

I was 19, waiting tables that summer out on Long Island. I came into town for the weekend and decided at the last minute to go to the game. I sat down the left field line way up in the upper deck, and still have visuals of this game in my head. After taking the 7 back into Manhattan--I was staying at my dad's place-- I still remember the mixed feelings of ALMOST seeing a perfect game, the excitement of beating the Cubs and maybe getting close enough to them to contend. What an exciting night that was!

The fall of 1969 I was 12 years old . I converted to a Mets fan from my beloved Mickey Mantle when I was 7 because no one from my hood would drive up to the Bronx and the subway ride was too complicated for the adults. Now here I sit full blooded Mets man for five years finally believing I did the right thing.

We were up in nose bleed heaven; cheapest seats in the house. Four boys and the strictest Mom in the neighborhood at the end of the row. We are screaming our heads off the whole game not believing our eyes what was unfolding. We all wanted to run out on that field because that was the buzz going around the stadium. But we knew our beloved chauffeur and school teacher Hood mom would discipline us back to the little blue Corvair and herd us back to city line. But then right at the moment of out three Mrs M. stands up, shouts very sternly down the row that we will all meet at the 410 mark at 11:00 sharp let’s go. I say thank you Jesus and the rest is history.

A childhood dream unfolded and I can’t thank Mrs M enough. God Bless you wherever you are??

The Pirates pinned the loss on Ray Sadecki with a tie-breaking run in the ninth inning. It was the 563rd and final game for Sadecki in his 18-year major league career.

The day the King died, Elvis Presley died :'( and I was devastated. So glad the Mets won today :)

Mike, this game was actually played one day before the death of Elvis Presley. The Mets built up a 7-0 lead over the first five innings on this night in St. Louis. John Milner led the scoring attack with a pair of two-run doubles. Craig Swan pitched scoreless ball over seven frames before the Cardinals got to him in the eighth. Bob Apodaca then struck out the side in the ninth to close it out.

Due to the impending strike later in the year, this was the Mets only visit to Florida in 1994. This was also the first time that Fernando Vina played LF, as the team was trying to keep his bat in the lineup.

As for the game, this very well could be the least watched broadcast in modern Mets history. This was the same night as the OJ car chase, the Knicks playing in the NBA finals and the Rangers parade during the day. All of that during a pretty mundane month for the Mets in which the team was playing poorly. I wish there was a way to find out the ratings for this kind of stuff.

I have great memories of the 1999 season, so it's surprising to see they lost in such uninspiring fashion on Opening Day. They left 14 runners on base, loaded the bases and didn't score in an inning twice, and trailed 3-0 after the first inning. Leiter labored through the afternoon, needing 124 pitches to finish 5 innings. Very disappointing.

The Mets were on the brink of having a huge first inning, with Alfonzo getting a single, Piazza hitting a ground-rule double (a pitch after fouling one off his kneecap), and Bonilla walking. That gave Robin Ventura (who hit 3 grand slams during the regular season in 1999) a chance for a grand slammer in his first at-bat as a Met, but he flew out harmlessly to center field instead. The Marlins then played small-ball in their opening inning, collecting 4 singles (though I think Ventura could have been charged with an error on a hot-shot hit to him by Derrek Lee) that led to 3 runs. In comparison, Leiter only gave up 6 first inning runs in total during the previous season.

Alex Fernandez was making his first appearance since 1997 as he missed all of 1998 recovering from a torn labrum in his shoulder. He looked pretty good, too, striking out 5 over 5 innings and only allowing a run on a Ventura sac fly in the 3rd.

Down by 4 in the 8th, the Mets brought the tying run to the plate when they loaded the bases with 1 out. Matt Franco pinch hit and lined a bullet that was caught by 2B Luis Castillo. Then Rickey Henderson tapped one to 3B Kevin Orie, who raced to the base to beat Brian McRae for the third out. The Fish tacked on another run in their half of the 8th off Turk Wendell, and Olerud got a run back with a homer in the 9th. The Mets put 2 more on via walk in the 9th but McRae flew out to end the game.

Indeed, Franco became the second in ML history to reach 400 saves by striking out the side in the 9th (with a bloop double that Edgardo Alfonzo failed to catch off the bat of Kevin Orie mixed in). He joined Lee Smith in the club, a group that has now reached 8, with the additions of Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, and two other former Mets, Francisco Rodriguez and Billy Wagner. We're not likely to see a 9th member for quite some time, however. The closest active player is Aroldis Chapman (322 as of this writing), but he's no longer a closer. After him, you have go all the way down to our own Edwin Diaz at 209.

However, Dunwoody was Franco's first strikeout victim of the inning. It was actually former Met catcher Jorge Fabregas who made the final out.

Ventura's homer was his first at Shea. Also, Orel Hershiser, who retired the first 11 batters before allowing a hit, got his first win as a Met. It was his first win at Shea since being a member of the Dodgers in 1993. The number 11 also popped up as the number of times the Mets walked in this game, which tied a season high. But outside of a pair of doubles in the 2nd inning and Ventura's homer in the 7th, the Mets didn't have any other hits, which is why Franco was given the save chance instead of this being a Mets blowout.

Terrence Long also made his ML debut in the game, striking out on 3 pitches as a pinch hitter. I thought home plate umpire Kerwin Danley did him dirty, though, calling strikes on pitches 5 inches outside. Poor T-Long would go 0-for-3 in his career with the Mets, with 2 strikeouts and a double play, before getting traded to Oakland in July.

The Mets won their 6th in a row, tying their longest streak of the season. Rick Reed came back from the disabled list and held a good Astros offense mainly in check through 6 innings to get the win. Spotted to a 4-0 lead in the 1st inning, Reed gave up an RBI single to the pitcher in the 2nd but settled in after that, retiring 11 in a row. A 2-run homer by future Met Richard Hidalgo in the 6th tightened the lead to just 1 run, but the Mets added an insurance run in the bottom of the 6th and coasted from there as Turk Wendell and John Franco faced just 1 over the minimum over the remaining 3 innings.

This is the first time I noticed two new things about the 1999 season: 1) The Mets aren't wearing their names on the back of their home jerseys (a look I did not like), and 2) Shea got a bit of a facelift behind home plate, as the seating now completely envelops the area, whereas previously there was a windowed area where I believe the grounds crew would assemble.

Not mentioned by Lee was that this was Bonilla's first time back in the lineup after missing 18 games while on the DL. Also, Lee's memory might be a bit fuzzy, as Bonilla hit one into the second deck but foul on the pitch before he connected for his home run, which was a mammoth shot that sailed over the Mets bullpen. Brian McRae then went back-to-back with Bonilla, which gave the Mets a 3-1 lead that unfortunately didn't last very long.

That's because Leiter, who had his last start skipped to help him recover from a cranky knee, gave up 2 runs in the 3rd, and then allowed home runs to Vaughn in the 5th and Pokey Reese in the 7th. It was his 5th straight start giving up at least 5 runs as he ended the month of May with an ERA of 9.00. A far cry indeed from the pitcher we saw in 1998.

Meanwhile, after Mike Piazza doubled with 2 out in the 3rd, the Reds yanked starter Brett Tomko, and Ron Villone and Brian Williamson combined to hold the Mets hitless the rest of the game. Villone got the win by throwing 4 no-hit innings, his first in the majors since 1997. Robin Ventura had a particularly rough day, earning the golden sombrero by going 0-for-4 with 4 strikeouts. It was his only 4-strikeout game as a Met, and he was the only Mets position player to strikeout 4 times in a game in 1999 (pitcher Octavio Dotel also did it later on in August).