Ultimate Mets Database: Game of June 16, 1997

Bonbolito
January 6, 2006
One of the most thrilling games I ever saw. I still remember my wife and I sitting on the edge of the couch with every pitch Dave threw like he was our kid at little league or something. It was magical and nerve wracking at the same time. It was a microcosm of what being a Met fan is. Something a Yankee fan cannot ever fathom. It was Wile E. Coyote opening the tiny umbrella waiting for the boulder to fall on him, and the exquisite relief of the boulder not falling - for once. A great, great Met moment.

Joseph Tyson
February 11, 2007
My fondest memory is of Yankees fans fleeing their own building (like rats deserting a sinking ship) so that by the 8th inning we Mets fans had the entiore park to ourselves.

Kevin from Flushing
November 25, 2007
I still get goosebumps thinking about the Mets unloading on the Yanks in the top of the first. It was LITERALLY unbelieveable. I kept saying to myself, "this is actually happening?! The Mets are really doing this?!" Just to be playing the Yankees in a game that counted was surreal enough, but to be spraying the balls all over the field from the get-go?! STUNNING.

That first inning layed on me a very specific type of unbridled joy that I had never felt before, and probably never will again. That's why this game holds a very special place in my heart.

And Dave Mlicki, wherever you are, next beer's on me.

sportsfan8690
September 25, 2009
I remember watching this game like it was yesterday at my friend's house (he was a Yankees fan) in Florida. Went to his house after work and had a bunch of friends there that were either Mets fans or Yankees fans. Wanted to see that historic first Mets-Yankees regular season game. The game was being televised on FX, so we were able to watch it at home. Otherwise we would have gone to a sports bar to watch it. Great way for the Mets to make a regular season inter-league debut in the historic house and Mlicki pitched a shut out. Always will remember this one.

Dutch
July 7, 2012
Saw it from the right field bleachers with my friend Gordon. Being at the 1st Mets-Yanks game that counted was electric. Late in the game when it was obvious that the Mets were going to win, a Yankee fan sitting behind me said, "This is the worst day of my life." Hearing that made my night. Thanks, Dave Mlicki!

Dave VW
September 25, 2023
I just recently watched this game back. I vividly remember watching it the first time at my friend Steve's house in New Jersey. We were 16 at the time, he was a frontrunner Yankee fan who only knew like 3 or 4 players, and I was the diehard Met fan who knew the team inside and out. I was going to keep the scorecard for the game but I couldn't even make it out of the 1st inning because I got too jacked up after the Mets took their 3-0 lead. Good times.

What a 1st inning it was, too. Four straight reach base against Andy Pettitte, who George Steinbrennar demanded open the series for his team as he thought the left-hander gave the Yankees the best chance to win. Then, after Butch Huskey reached on an RBI single, he gets picked off 1st base, but on the ensuing rundown Todd Hundley, who was on third, broke for the plate and beat the throw with a tremendous hook slide. In the record books, it went down as a steal of home!

The Mets didn't do much of anything after that until the 7th, when regular backups Matt Franco and Luis Lopez, only starting because Edgardo Alfonzo and Rey Ordonez were hurt, hit back-to-back 1-out singles. Lance Johnson, in his first game off the DL since May 1, grounded out to move the runners up, bringing up Bernard Gilkey. I was surprised to learn that, early in his career, Pettitte was actually way better vs. righties than lefties. In fact, in 1997 righties hit .239 vs. Pettitte, and lefties hit .324. Despite that, with 1st base open, it looked as though Pettitte completely pitched around Gilkey to get to the lefty John Olerud. And the splits didn't lie, as Olerud drove in a pair with a single that really put the screws to the Yanks.

No doubt, Mlicki was excellent and had the game of his life. But he was far from perfect, as he gave up 9 hits and had to strand 10 runners on base. He really started laboring over the final 2 innings, giving up multiple hits in the 8th and 9th but found a way to get key outs. It also helped that Charlie Hayes got thrown out by Gilkey trying to stretch a single into a double to lead off the 9th. And I thought it was a perfect cherry on top that it was Derek Jeter, the Yankee poster child for the next 20 years, who struck out looking to end the game. It was Mlicki's first shutout as a pro, dating back to his first season in 1990.

Looking back, this was probably the best I'd ever felt as a Met fan (I was only 5 when they won it all in 1986 so I had no real memories of that team), and the best I'd feel until Todd Pratt would hit one over the wall against Arizona two years later.

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