A few memories stick out...Aaron put on a superb BP session...At least 10 went yard...Mets were still in the game in the late innings when a single to right exposed the arm of rookie Cleon Jones... His toss was air mailed to the plate 4 or 5 rows behind the Brave dugout which allowed the winning run to score.

This was my very first Mets game. I had barely turned 7. I had seen softball in Brooklyn schooyards and baseball on black and white TV, and I don't think I actually realized that baseball was played on grass! And the outfield was so HUGE compared to the infield! That was amazing! Anyway, Joe Torre hit .315 with 36 hrs that first year in Atlanta, Aaron had another 44 hrs, Felipe Alou had another 31 and hit .317, but I had no idea who any of those players were. All I knew was that the Mets were MY team, and therefore were the best team, and they won.

The Mets came from behind to beat the Braves. Ken Boyer hit a two-run double in the eighth inning for a tie and Ron Swoboda walked with the bases loaded to win it in the 9th. The victory put the Mets over .500 for the first time ever.

In the second game of a doubleheader the Mets hand the Braves their first-ever loss in Atlanta. Mets starter Tug McGraw goes seven innings for his first win of the season. It was also Tug's first start of 1966.

Felipe Alou hit two homers in the game for the Braves, one off McGraw and one off Larry Bearnarth. Tug also gave up a solo homer to Dennis Menke.

With the Mets up 2-1 Tug was the first batter in the top of the seventh and drew a walk off Clay Carroll. One out later Tug came around to score after a Roy McMillan single and an error by Eddie Mathews. Ken Boyer hit a sac fly to drive in the fourth Mets run.

Another day, another Mets loss..they dropped to 17-27. But of more historical value: on this day the Mets select catcher Steve Chilcott with the number one pick in the free agent draft. The A's, picking second, take Reggie Jackson.

Chilcott retired after six years in the minor leagues and never made it to the show...

Braves pitcher Tony Cloninger drives in five runs as Atlanta wins easily. Cloninger is just getting warmed up: seventeen days later he hits two grand slams against the Giants and drives in nine runs.

Cloninger finished 1966 with five doubles, five homers, 23 RBIs, and a .234 average in 111 at bats. Try stacking Rey Ordonez' numbers against those!

I remember his game like it was yesterday. I couldn't sleep the night before and couldn't wait for the game. Our ace, Denis Ribant, was pitching. He was 4 games over .500 (unheard of previously). We had a chance to NOT finish last (gasp!). The Braves were starting some unknown rookie (which turned out to be Pat Jarvis, who had some success over the next few years). It didn't get better than this. (Well, I was 12.) Our ace got his clock cleaned early and another disappointing game was behind us.

The ace got traded the next year as did our only true hero, Ron Hunt. I was 12 and I needed a favorite player. It certainly wasn't going to be Tommy Davis or Ken Boyer, so I went with some rookie who pitched fairly well at Jacksonville in '66. That rookie went on to win 311 games and rarely disappointed us.

My first ever game at Shea! An eternally memorable day, even if the Mets did get clobbered!

Braves scored five in first off Ribant...Johnny Lewis made an over the wall catch in right field off Joe Torre(?) to prevent further damage...then- unknown Nolan Ryan made his major league debut in middle relief...I just missed catching a foul ball off the bat of Henry Aaron...ballpark looked gigantic to a very happy 7-year-old.

One of the longest and most extraordinary careers began when a 19-year-old fireballer stood on a major league mound for the first time. Nolan Ryan struck out Pat Jarvis for his first career strikeout and he went on to leave batters wetting their pants for another 26 seasons.

He struck out 5,714 batters, threw seven no- hitters and won 324 games. He also pitched in seven presidential administrations -- Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton -- before retiring at age 46 in 1993.

Of course, the METS felt that a washed up Jim Fregosi would better fit their needs!

Ryan was really facing it in his first game. OK, first batter he faced was the pitcher, Pat Jarvis, but then it was Alou, Aaron, Matthews and Joe Torre. Three HOF'ers and Felipe Alou having his best year in the majors (led the NL in runs, hits & total bases). Then Rico Carty, a good hitter, if nothing else. Torre hit a home run, but Ryan did OK against the rest of them. On the broadcast, Bob Murphy was gushing about his amazing minor league statistics that year.

Earlier in the game, on the recording of the broadcast, Lindsey Nelson mentioned that Dennis Ribant was the Mets' all time leader in wins by a right handed pitcher. He must have meant for one season, because Ribant won 11 in 1966 while Roger Craig won 10 in 1962. Anyway, a guy would come along the next year that would soon render these unimpressive "all-time records" moot, meaning Tom Seaver. Not even to mention Nolan Ryan himself, who was also right handed, and whose Mets career statistics weren't fantastic, but they were better than Dennis Ribant's. (BTW, in this game, Ribant was gone after 1/3rd of an inning, giving up 5 runs. He never would get that 12th win.)

Seaver may have been the first Met pitcher ever to get three hits in a game on this date, but he still lost the game. Doc Gooden (twice) and Chris Young are also Met pitchers who later got three hits in a game.

I remember the gritty performance of Dan Cardwell. Hank Aaron gets to second base late in the game and gets picked off! So exciting -it was a chilly wet night at Shea, I believe, but that could be another game. We went to so many Mets game because it was so affordable. We'd think nothing of jumping in the car in NJ and driving to Shea for a walk-up purchase. Went to more than 30 games in 1969!

This was the first game I ever attended at Shea Stadium. My father's workplace had purchased a block of tickets and we were recognized on the scoreboard. I was seven years old. Jerry Bucheck's home run was the only run of the game. It was a little chilly but not a rainy night as another fan recalled. None of us could believe that Don Cardwell pitched that well that night, and he didn't seem to be effective at all until late in the 1969 season when he was used in relief quite a bit.

Fantastic game... Hank Aaron got picked off second with one out in the ninth, with the Mets up 1-0. Stunning. The game probably lasted under two hours, but I can't find anything in the box score or scorecard that provides the game length.

My most vivid memory of that game some 43+ years later was how rookie Tom Seaver struck out Henry Aaron on three perfect pitches in the eight inning for out number 2.

Mets were leading by a score of 4-2 and every fan had one foot in the aisle, since the Great Hank was coming up to bat.

I remember after the strikeout the crowd went crazy, but Tom looked at his infielders as if to say, "We're not done yet. I still have got to get four more outs to close this game out." To have that poise under pressure was impressive. I thought he'd be a good one one day.

As Mets fans we didn't get our hopes up too high back then. He had a better career than I thought.

My fist major leauge game!! I'm looking for the box score. I know Hank Aaron played, but the only home run I remember hit was by Ed Charles!

It was my first MLB game, too. To honor that, I went to The New York Times and pulled up the story and the box score in order to write up a Web page about ... you guessed it ... my first MLB game. I hardly remember it, as I was a few days shy of my 6th birthday, but here's how it happened. The game was tied 3-3 going to the 8th when Hank Aaron hit his 22nd homer of the season. In the bottom of the 9th, with two out and the Mets needing a big hit, Wes Westrum pinch- hit Jerry Buchek for Bud Harrelson (who was 4-for- 4 at the time). Buchek delivered a homer to tie the game, and the Braves pitchers (Dick Kelley and Claude Raymond) fell apart. The game ended on a bases-loaded walk to Ron Swoboda, on a 3-1 count.

My first game too. Were we sitting together in the section for kids attending their first game? I remember the 9th inning being exciting.

This is the first MLB game I ever attended and, as much as anything, is the reason I am a lifelong dyed-in-the-wool Mets fan. I was 7 years old. I don't remember much from when I was 7, but I remember this game! My dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, so with them gone to the West Coast I inherited no favorite team from Dad.

Playing for the Braves that day were Hank Aaron, Clete Boyer, Rico Carty, Felipe Alou, Joe Torre, Cecil Upshaw and Bob Uecker! Those guys didn't matter to me at age 7. My team had Ed Kranepool, who had a pinch-hit double in the bottom of the ninth to drive in the Mets' first run and scored the tying run in the same inning. We had Bob Johnson, who scored that first run and hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the eleventh inning. We had Bud Harrelson, the little skinny shortstop, who immediately became the favorite player of a little skinny 7-year-old.

I have the complete play-by-play account and box score from the game (from Retrosheet). For the record, the Mets won 3-2 after being held scoreless for 8 innings by Denny Lemaster. Upshaw blew the save for the Braves and Jay Ritchie took the loss. Aaron was 0-5, Torre was 0-5, Alou was 0-4, Boyer was 0-4 ... in fact the Braves got just 5 hits (Denis Menke 2, Woody Woodward 2, and Rico Carty 1). Bob Hendley started and Ron Taylor got the win for the Mets.

This probably was the biggest game of Joe Moock's short MLB career. His first MLB hit, his first double, his first RBI, and one of only two times that he had two hits in a game. He actually was a key player in helping Tom Seaver to the 2-1 victory over the Braves.

My first Mets game. A Friday night outing with the Cub Scouts. Nice night weather-wise. My father made us leave somewhere around the 13th inning. It's almost as if he could smell a Met defeat coming. So I was spared seeing the end of this drawn out loss. The '68 Mets couldn't hit. The truly amazing thing about the '69 Mets is that the personnel wasn't radically different from '68, the '69 team didn't hit much better than the '68 team, and yet the stars were in alignment, the moon was in the 7th house, Messers Armstrong and Aldrin strolled on the moon and somehow the 1969 Mets won the World Series. To quote the famous baseball philospher, "and you could look it up."

This was the first game I ever attended. I was 8 years old and this was a Cub Scout trip. My dad was the Cubmaster and took us out to Shea. I don't remember many details, but I remember it was a spring Saturday afternoon and the Mets beat the Braves. I was lucky to catch them on a day they won--they weren't very good - 9th place (just wait another year).

$1.30 to sit in the top deck, the best bargain in town! The yellow field level box seats were $4!

The Braves swept this doubleheader. In game one, J.C. Martin gave the Mets a 2-0 lead in the third with a bases loaded single that scored Cleon Jones and Art Shamsky.

With the Mets clinging to a 2-1 lead in the eighth and Nolan Ryan working on a four hitter, Nolan's control troubles bit him again. He walked Sonny Jackson leading off the eighth. Then after retiring Henry Aaron he walked Tito Francona. Felipe Alou, who had homered earlier for the Braves' first run, singled to tie the score. Then after Ron Taylor came in from the bullpen, Felix Millan singled to give Atlanta a 3-2 lead.

Ron Reed closed strong to get the win and improve to 5-0. He allowed just two baserunners (both on walks) after the third inning.

I'm trying to determine the date of my first Braves game attended in person in 1968 (Atlanta Stadium) at the age of 9. I'm positive that it was against the Mets and I'm reasonably certain that Joe Torre hit a HR for the Braves. The final score of 4-2 Braves also sounds familiar. 5-24-68 was a Friday, which would work because I was in school at the time and probably wouldn't have attended a game with school the next day. There was also a 4-2 Braves win on 7-25-68, but this game was on a Thursday, and although I was out of school for the summer, my parents would have had to work the next day, so this date is less likely. I tried to find a box score of these games on-line, with no luck.

The game was called by rain after six innings. According to the scoresheet, the umpires wore turtlenecks that day and NY GM John Murphy asks: "When are they going to wear beads?"

My first major league ballgame. I was nine years old and remember after the bottom of the first inning, my five year old brother asked how much longer it would be. As it was a doubleheader, he was told at least 4 hours! However, this was the beginning of a lifetime as a Mets fan for me, and the 1969 season was my first full season as a fan. Which means it can never get better than that!

Fifth tie in Mets history.

Fifth and last Mets tie game of the 1960's and the only one to occur while Gil Hodges managed. The next Mets tie game would not occur until 1979.

I was 14 years old and my dad came home from work and said he got 4 freebies to this game. We went with 2 of my friends who lived on the block. One was a big Yankee fan. If I remember, the Braves were up 3-0 in the 7th. My Yankee fan friend went to buy a Braves pennant at the concession stand and as soon as he got back the Mets put up a 9-spot. I think Cleon had a big hit, and I 'm pretty sure Phil Niekro was on the losing side of the ledger.

Thanks again to retrosheet.org, I see that my earlier post on this game was not quite accurate. The Braves were indeed up 3-0 in the 7th, but the Mets got one in the 7th, then 8 more in the 8th, scoring the 8 runs with just 4 hits! Otis struck out to lead off the inning but reached first when Niekro's knuckler got by Bob Didier. Then came a single by Harrelson and Shamsky, batting for Seaver, reached on an error to load the bases. Agee doubled to drive in two and tie the score. George Stone came in to relieve Niekro and Ed Charles was intentionally walked to re-load the bases. Ken Boswell was hit by a pitch to give the Mets the lead, and then, to confirm what I said earlier, Cleon did indeed have a big hit--a grand slam! The Mets added another run on a J.C. Martin triple followed by a wild pitch.

The win took the Mets record to 14-17, but at that time that was a great record for the Mets after one month of a season. This game first got me thinking that something special could be happening at Shea in 1969!

The Mets scored eight runs in an inning for the first time ever in this game. The inning was highlighted by Cleon Jones' only grand slam of his major league career. The slam was noteworthy in that it came off George Stone, who became a key pitcher for the Mets' pennant winner four years later. It also started a rather unique tradition of Mets grand slams on May 14th. Six more bases-loaded homers would be hit by Met players on that date over the next half century.

NYB Buff, you're a little off on the eight-run inning being the first in Mets history. They also had one against the Braves in a game at Milwaukee five years earlier. Joe Christopher hit a grand slam in that one.

Jones' grand slam in this game was featured on the "Miracle Mets" vinyl disk record that came out after the season. A re-enacted Bob Murphy call of the slam started the '69 part of this record after a series of Met moments from earlier years. It would serve as a sign of things to come.

I think this was the game where Cleon lined out to a leaping Felix Millan with the bases loaded for the last out. I also believe that after this game Hodges held a team meeting to let the team know he was not happy with their play of late. Can anyone verify this ?

Retrosheet.org lists the final out of this game as "Jones popped to second." Maybe they are guilty of a little understatement? The Mets did indeed leave the bases loaded in the ninth with one out...first Ken Boswell grounded into a force play at the plate and then Cleon made the final out.

The Mets were down 6-2 but got three in the eighth to get back in it. Don Cardwell got knocked around early and took the loss to fall to 1-6. Jack DiLauro made his major league debut in this game, giving up a double to the first batter he faced but retiring everyone else in his two- inning outing.

I can't recall if there was a team meeting after the game. This loss dropped the Mets to 15-18 but came one night after a terrific come-from-behind win against the Braves which I was lucky to have attended.

This was the very first baseball game I ever went to. My Dad took me to Shea on a school day off, couldn't believe how far up we were with general admission tickets so he gave an usher a couple of bucks and we sat on the field level.

A big moment I remember was a diving catch by Cleon Jones where he ran in from LF on a line drive, rolling after he caught the ball. My dad called this a "circus catch"! I've never heard that phrase again.

The Mets threatened at the end but fell 1 run short, and my Dad told me that Hodges called a meeting about their lackluster play. Shortly after they won 11 in a row and were in the pennant race. Fond memories!

This was my first game too. I remember that my father called Hank Aaron's 2 home runs....amazed the hell out of me but it pissed me off enough to tell him to be quiet when he got up for his fourth at bat.

Looking at the box score, why would George Stone get a save in this game?

My first Mets game. Grote hit a homer into the left field bullpen. At the time, I always rued when Cardwell was starting, because he was getting bombed a lot. He didn't last long in this game. Actually, beyond Seaver and Koosman, the Mets starting pitching wasn't that stong, with Gentry a .500 pitcher with an average ERA, Ryan usually hurt, and Cardwell and Koonce ineffective.

My first major league game!!! I was 10 years old and our little league sponsered a trip to Shea to see this game. What memories! We got to the park for a pregame dinner in the Diamond Club, hot dogs, etc. The big surprize was when Tug McGraw and Bud Harrelson showed up for us. Wow.. The ball signed by them sits behind my desk on the bookshelf, somewhat scuffed and muddied (we didn't always have a ball back then, so 10 year olds will forget the future to enjoy the present). We sat in the mezzanine on the 1st base side, near some loud ( and a little drunk) fans. I remember everytime Jim McAndrew got a strike, the guys yelled out "That a way Jimmy Baby!!!". Soon us little leaguers joined in (the shouting, not the beer). McGraw finished the game. It was the NLCS preview and we didn't know then. The thing that sticks the most though, is that this was the first and last game I ever went to with my Dad. My parents split up soon after that. My boys, on the other hand, have already been going to games since they were 3 years old. Hope to have many more, too.

Cleon Jones had the night off. I think he had some sort of mild injury. Anyway comes the seventh inning and he had to go to work. He singled in the game's only run and then was pinch run for by Tom Seaver. On Kiner's Corner that night Ralph said to Cleon "You're on the show so much you might just take it over." Cleon replied, "Ah Ralph, you can keep it another year."

This marked my first visit to Shea Stadium. Seats were in the upper deck about halfway between 1st base and the right-field foul pole. I remember my disappointment that neither Seaver or Koosman were the scheduled starters but that was forgotten when Jane Jarvis hit the first notes on the organ to play "Meet the Mets." Jerry Grote's line drive into the right field bullpen ended the game in the 11th inning. When I look back I can say I saw Hank Aaron play in person. I was fortunate to also see Mays, Mantle, Killebrew, Stargell and others during my pre-teen and teenage years growing up in the New York area.

I remember this game because my brother was born on this day. And it was Tom Seaver's first win in a streak of ten wins in a row to lead the Mets to their first Division title. Thanks, Tom.

Amazing. This is a word that describes not only the 1969 Mets, but also the fact that nobody has commented on this game yet - the team's first ever in post-season play. Trailing by a run, the Mets scored five times in the eighth inning for a 9-5 win over the Braves. Three Atlanta miscues in the inning helped the Mets' cause. On Ken Boswell's missed bunt attempt, Cleon Jones (who had singled to tie the game) got caught in a rundown and advanced to third base on catcher Bob Didier's high throw. Jones scored the go-ahead run when Ed Kranepool hit a grounder to first base on which Orlando Cepeda made a throwing error. With the bases loaded, pinch-hitter J. C. Martin got a two-run single that Tony Gonzalez misplayed in the outfield and allowed a third Met run to come home. Gonzalez then threw out Martin at third to end the inning, but enough damage was done to give the Mets a one-game lead in the first ever NLCS.

With the exception of two games (1972 ALCS Game Two and 1973 NLCS Game One), the video broadcast of every League Championship Series through 1975 has been lost because NBC decided to wipe the full games and only keep highlight reels. Even with the saved highlights, the only video that I've found from the 1969 NLCS is from Game 3 played at Shea, and it's just a few highlights from that game.

However, today's (and future) baseball fans must be thankful for those intrepid souls who recorded audio of the radio broadcasts from this era. Thankfully, the audio of this game is on YouTube, so we can place ourselves back to that cool Sunday afternoon in October, imagining the Mets in the bright daylight at Fulton County Stadium in their road uniforms. The Braves' uniforms of that era were a dark navy blue, almost black, so I can imagine myself as a young Mets fan seeing this series as a true battle between the good guys in the bright blue and orange uniforms and the bad guys with the black hats.

The Braves pitcher (and former NBA player, according to Lindsey Nelson) Ron Reed came into this one with a lifetime record against the Mets of 4-1, but on this day he did not have good control. After giving up a single to Agee, he walked Garrett, then Jones. He then got Shamsky and Boswell to strike out, but Kranepool singled to right to drive Agee in.

In the 2nd inning, Koozman was given a 3-0 lead after he walked and then Agee homered. The Mets kept hitting the Braves starter hard in the second, with Jones doubling and Shamsky driving him in with a single, knocking Ron Reed out of the box after 1.2 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, good for an ERA of 21.60.

The Mets scored two more runs In the top of the 3rd to make it 6-0, then two more in the 4th inning to make the score 8-0. A single by a Braves hitter in the bottom of the 4th made the score 8-1, but then the Mets got that run back in the top of the fifth to make the score 9-1. With Koozman pitching, things were looking pretty good for the Mets. However, Jerry could not get out of the 5th inning, allowing 6 ER and ending his day with 4.2 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 4 BB, and an 11.57 ERA, slightly better than Reed.

With the score 9-6 Mets, Ron Taylor pitched the good guys out of trouble in the fifth and also pitched a scoreless sixth.

In the top of the 7th, Agee was also part of a scary play when he narrowly avoided a line drive that just went over his head on an attempted steal of home. The "wicked line drive" (as Bob Murphy put it) by Cleon Jones seemed to barely miss Agee's head, and both players needed to take a moment to compose themselves. According to the New York Times, in the dugout right after the play, Gil Hodges said, "the Mobile Express almost got derailed." Two pitches after that near disaster, Cleon hit a two-run homer to left to make it 11-6 Mets.

Tug McGraw pitched three scoreless innings for the save, sending the Mets back to New York with a 2-0 lead in the series.

By the way, Casey Stengel was in the stands, as well as Joan Payson. Casey was apparently being considered by the team as something of a good luck charm because he travelled with the team and rode on the team bus to the games in Atlanta.

After the game, Casey was asked what he thought of the Mets and he responded, "This team has come along slow but fast."

October, 1969, I was seven years old and fell in love with the Braves. But, as they did for a decade and a half, they broke my heart. Though favored, with more veterans, than New York the Braves were simply outclassed. T. Daiss, Savannah, Georgia

My father tricked me. I was a Met's fan from the start- and now I was 11. I had a broken wrist that fall. My folks went under the cover of a check-up at the Doctor. Mom took me in to Dad's office in Brentwood and then we were to go to the Doctor. Dad asked me "Do you think the Mets will win?" and I said, "Yes- I know they'll win!" He laughed and held up the tickets- and I remember saying "You're kidding!" We headed off to Shea. Parking was so bad that day that Dad sheeplishly said- "I don't think we can find a parking space." Well I started to cry and he found one pretty fast. When we got to the gate we heard a crack of the bat and the crowd groaned. Henry Aaron hit a massive home run off of Nolan Ryan. But the Mets roared back. Gentry relieved Ryan- and the crowd poured on top the field. I asked my Dad if we could get some turf- and that's where he drew the line. My younger brother has never quite forgiven me for going to game three of the first NLCS. But I never will forget what my Dad did for an 11 year old with a cast on his arm.

Richard, it's not my style to email posters on this site directly, so I'll just say here that although you wrote your post on this game in 2004, I have to say that it made me cry.

I only read your comment on this game after my post on the previous game had been published. Reading your story of your dad's surprise led to an emotional outburst, a kind of a purging of the mourning for my father that I have kept inside for over four years now. I never cried when my dad passed in 2019, but my tears after your post made up for that.

Your wonderful story of your dad surprising you with tickets to this game is one of the heartwarming stories I think I have ever heard in my life, just because it reminds me of that special connection that baseball can bring between young boys and their fathers.

Honestly, before 1986, I was a momma's boy and therefore somewhat distant from my dad because he was working so much, but the 1986 Mets brought us closer together. We went to eight games that year.

Being a single dad (after December 1986), he didn't have the means to surprise me with playoff tickets like your dad did, but I remember in 1988, he and and my uncle took me to the game for my birthday (a tradition that started in 1986) he had the Shea Stadium scoreboard wish me a 'Happy Birthday' (along with about 10 other names).

It was just before the 7th inning I think, and I needed to go to the bathroom or get a soda or a pretzel and was about to go down the ramp, but my dad stopped me and made me look at the scoreboard, and it flashed HAPPY BIRTHDAY (with my name after in all caps) and that is a memory I will never forget.

It must have been great to see this game in person. I'm just as envious as your brother, but also extremely thankful that you shared your story so that it can be an example to all dads out there of the best a dad can be.

I remember coming home for lunch from Catholic school, 2nd grade in the Bronx, and my father and 2 uncles getting in the car and heading to the Big Shea. One of the uncles worked on Wall Street and got his firm's tickets. My dad told me years later that after they went over the Whitestone they found a spot in the marina and walked over since the parking was difficult. They did the same for the Jets Chiefs playoff game over 2 months later. I remember rushing home two blocks and leaving my grandmother in the dust to watch the last inning and change!

Pat Jarvis goes the distance. Rico "Beeg Boy" Carty hits home run number 15 and is hitting an incredible .435! He maintains this torrid pace throughout June making it to June 10 with a .420 average before tailing off. He will wind up with an incredible .366 mark.

Imagine this hard hitting free swinger in Coors Field? .400 a strong probability!

Despite a middle of the lineup of Hank Aaron (.298, 38 HR, 118 RBI), Rico Carty (.366, 25 HR, 101 RBI) and Orlando Cepeda (.305, 34 HR, 111 RBI), the Braves finished the 1970 season 10 games under .500, which I find unbelievable. You would think it must have been the pitching that stunk, and while that may have been true by in large, on this night Pat Jarvis was just dandy. After the Mets got a run on an RBI single by Bud Harrelson in the 3rd, they managed just 3 more hits the remainder of the game, and collected just 1 extra-base hit all night -- an Art Shamsky double to lead off the 9th. That still meant the Mets sent the tying run to the plate 3 times in the inning, but Ken Boswell, Ron Swoboda and Joe Foy all came up empty. On the night, the Mets #5 through #9 hitters went a combined 0-for-18.

Foy came into the contest having drawn a walk in 12 straight games, which they said on the broadcast was a National League record. He failed to extend it, and I tried to look up on Baseball Reference if that streak still stands as the benchmark, but the website doesn't want to cooperate :(

Meanwhile, Tom Seaver lost his 4th straight game, a span in which the offense criminally scored just 2 runs total. The lack of support has seen Tom Terrific drop from a 6-0 start to 7-5.

Was 8 years old at this game. I remember seeing Hank Aaron and getting a Mets yearbook.

This game was the first major league baseball game I ever attended. I was 10 years old and had the best time I ever had. I remembered all the home runs hit that night, In particular Tommie Agee’s two home runs , which looked to me like they’re still flying. But as a kid watching that game, I was sold on baseball. I never wanted to leave the ballpark that night. I stayed and watched the workers covering the field with the tarp because of the threat of rain. I ended up going to my second game on August 27, 1970. The Mets also played the Braves on that date and won. Thanks for posting these games. It brings back the best of memories.

This was the first Met game I ever attended. I was 8 years old and in 2nd grade - my brother took me (a 3 hour drive from Troy, NY) and from then on - I was a Met fan forever. I will never forget seeing Henry Aaron in person for the first time. Great database!

This was my first Mets game. First major league baseball game. My dad and several other dads in the neighborhood and at his job (IBM, Owego) organized a father/son bus trip from the Endicott area to the game. I bought a baseball bat pen/pencil set, a cap and a little adhesive pennant for the 1969 world champs. I still have the cap and pennant (affixed to a bulletin board). The pen/pencil set didn't survive to adulthood. My best friend, Eric, and his dad were there. His dad took pictures. If there's a place to post photos, I'll add them.

This was my first Mets game. First major league baseball game. My dad and several other dads in the neighborhood and at his job (IBM, Oswego) organized a father/son bus trip from the Endicott area to the game. I bought a baseball bat pen/pencil set, a cap and a little adhesive pennant for the 1969 world champs. I still have the cap and pennant (affixed to a bulletin board). The pen/pencil set didn't survive to adulthood. My best friend, Eric, and his dad were there. His dad took pictures. If there's a place to post photos, I'll add them.

My first live ballgame ever. I was 6 and developed a deep affection for the Mets. My brother took me and seeing that green field for the first time. Great memories at Shea.

A solid victory for the Mets. Ray Sadecki held the Braves scoreless on two hits for seven innings and eventually came away with a five-hit complete game win. Tommie Agee led the Mets' hitting with a solo homer and a double that drove in a run. Al Weis and Bud Harrelson also had run-scoring singles in support of Sadecki. The win gave the Mets a 29-29 won-lost record at that point in the season. The team would not drop below a .500 percentage for the rest of the year.

One noteworthy item about this game is that reliever Ron Kline pitched the bottom of the eighth inning for the Braves. He gave up a leadoff double to Donn Clendenon and then retired the next three Mets batters. It was Kline's 736th and final appearance of his 17-season major league career.

One of my earlier memories of attending a Met game at Shea Stadium. Quite a collection of HOFers, Cepeda, Aaron, and Seaver in this game. But the personal highlight is my Dad catching a foul ball off the bat of Tommie Agee in the fourth inning.

I'll never forget listening to this game on the radio. Mets are in Atlanta and are leading, 2-1. Bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, 2 outs. Tom Seaver is pitching and has two strikes on the batter, Bob Tillman. Seaver throws and Tillman swings (strike 3) but the ball goes past Jerry Grote and to the backstop. Tony Gonzalez scores from third, and somehow Rico Carty also comes in, and the game is over.

(Thanks to Retrosheet for the Atlanta players' names)

I remember hearing that when Jerry Grote threw the ball back to Tom Seaver, and when Seaver covered home plate, the ball passed him and that's how Rico Carty scored from second base.

Seaver was 17-6 going in to this game, better than the same point of 1969. (He finished 9-0.) He finished 1970 1-6. This was a major cause of the Mets not catching the Pirates. For some unknown reason, Seaver went into a funk. Maybe being a power pitcher he ran out of gas for the rest of 1970? I think somehow Seaver and Grote got pitches mixed up? I listened to the game on radio and was a very confused 10-year-old. This was really the end of any chance of winning the East title, even though they stayed close to the Bucs during the next month.

My first-ever major league ballgame -- I was nearly 8 years old. We schmeared an usher and sat in the loge. I remember that Art Shamsky ran into the RF fence and knocked the wind out of himself in the late innings. Jim MacAndrew pitched the complete game. I watched my dad keep score.

After the Mets take the lead in the top of the tenth, Ralph Garr homers for the Braves to tie the game back up. Then he homers again in the bottom of the twelfth off Ron Taylor to give the Braves a 4-3 win. Garr becomes just the fourth player in history to hit two extra inning home runs in the same game.

1st time I was at a game; I never forgot it. I was 9 years old. How classic, thank you God!

We get to Shea but there are no tickets next to each other. Fireworks Night. Zoilo Versalles in lineup for the Braves, one of my favorites. We stay for two innings, leave and hang out rest of night in Flushing Meadow drinking wine. Later that month, we are back at Shea for Grand Funk Railroad/Humble Pie concert. Think Jumbo Nash started that game by the way.

One of many Hank Aaron games I try to attend. This a Saturday night game featuring Zoilo Versalles as the starting Braves SS.

My best friend and I are forced to buy seats away from each other. No one will trade us, even though we're in the same row! Teed off, hot and being 15, we split in the third inning as Jumbo Nash is soft tossing and head to Flushing Meadow Park to hang out and party. We return to Shea later that week for Grand Funk Railroad and Humble Pie concert.

This was the first game that I ever attended. It was a shame that Seaver got no run support that day. But then again, run support was scarce back then

The Mets lost again on this July 4 Sunday afternoon, to fall to 0-4 in the month of July. It was a sign of things to come as the Mets started July 1971 in second place, just two games behind the Pirates. They finished the month in fourth place, 11.5 games out of first, thanks to a 9-20 record in July.

In this game Henry Aaron hit his 23rd homer of the year on his way to 47. It was number 615 of his career. Aaron broke a scoreless tie with a one-out solo homer in the third off Tom Seaver, and the Braves added another run later in the inning on an RBI single by Sonny Jackson. They might have had more but Mike Lum was picked off third base by Jerry Grote for the second out of the inning and then Seaver struck out Marty Perez.

The Braves also left the bases loaded in the sixth, as Tom didn't have his best stuff in this game, allowing nine hits in six innings. Tom left the game in the bottom of the sixth as the Mets loaded the bases with two outs and Gil Hodges decided to send up Donn Clendenon as a pinch- hitter, but Donn popped to second.

The Mets had nine hits (all singles) and four walks off Phil Niekro but coundn't get a run in.

I wasn't born yet when this game took place, but this was the only game my Dad went to with his Dad (my Grandfather). My Dad had a paper route (the good old days). He was 13 in 1971 and one of the customers on his route gave my Dad 2 tickets for this game as a tip. My Grandfather died in 1982, 5 years before I was born so I never got to meet him. My Dad remembered it was a very hot day and my Grandfather was miserable. He had always told be that Seaver started and Aaron hit a homer. He wasn't sure the year. He thought it was between 70 to 73. Thanks to Mets database I found the game about a year ago. I am looking to find a ticket or stub from the game so I can give it to my Dad.

This game set a club record at the time for runs scored by the Mets. The previous high had been a 19-1 victory in Wrigley field in the early 1960's (1964?).

Phil Niekro shut out the Mets in this game, one day after the Mets scored 20 runs.

This was the final game of a four game series in Atlanta, and each team won twice. The Mets scored a total of 1 run in the two games they lost, and they scored 29 runs in the two games they won!

It was a Friday night and Aaron and Mays were tied for 2nd in homers at that time. There was a lot of anticipation that one (or both) of them would hit one out that night. Not to be. The Mets were horrible. The only saving grace was Milner hitting a homer in the 9th to break the shutout. It was also the first time I saw the Braves candy-ass blue uniforms. Too bad it wasn't the last.

As Kevin McLaughlin said in March of 2002, Henry Aaron and Willie Mays were both in the starting lineup this night, and they were tied for second place in career home runs behind Babe Ruth with 648.

Neither man added to his total this night. Aaron struck out twice, grounded out, and fouled out. Mays struck out, flied out, popped out, and walked as the Braves won behind Phil Niekro.

Rico Carty hit a two-out, three-run homer in the sixth off Gary Gentry to break a scoreless tie. Felix Millan and Ralph Garr drove in runs in the seventh, and Darrell Evans homered in the eighth off Ron Taylor to give the Braves a 6-0 lead. The only Mets run came on a ninth inning homer by John Milner, who had all three of the hits allowed by Niekro.

The Mets are 31-12 and have the best record in baseball after this win. But during the game with the Mets up 4-1 Rusty Staub is hit in the hand by a George Stone pitch. Rusty's hand is broken, and he will miss three months of the season.

After Staub's injury the Mets go 52-61 the rest of the way and finish the year 13.5 games out of first place.

I'm pretty sure that this was the first Met game I ever went to. At least it is the first one I can remember. I was 8 years old at the time. I distinctly remember the Mets beating the Braves and Tom Seaver hitting a ground double. I remember him hitting it down one of the foul lines but I can't remember which one. I don't remember Rusty Staub breaking his hand though.

Johnrd, yes...Seaver grounded a double just inside the first base bag in the fourth inning.

My second Mets game. Went with my brother. Remember Duffy Dyer hitting a home run to left. Loved Tommie Agee but he was having some issues in center field. Definitely remember my favorite player (Rusty Staub) getting hit by George Stone.

This is the game where Rusty Staub was hit by a pitch from future teammate George Stone. He fractured his his hand. What a damn shame. Rusty was hitting .317 up to this point and the Mets were in first place. The injury woes began and the Mets slipped in the standings. Rusty played through the pain but would later on have surgery and would go on the DL not returning till September. His numbers in '72 and '73 were very misleading as he would eventually get hit again on the other hand, this time by the Pirate's Ramon Hernandez in '73.

I was at this, and it was the beginning of the end after Staub got hit. I remember Dyer really filling in well for Grote that summer at the plate. His blast was so unexpected and was long gone.

I enjoyed this entire Sunday afternoon game on television. The Mets put together a solid 14-hit attack against a Braves team that seemed to have their number all season. John Milner got it started with a home run in the first inning and Tom Seaver contributed by slugging a two-run shot of his own in the second. Eight of the Mets' hits went for extra bases in their highest scoring game of the year. Even reliever Danny Frisella got into the act with an RBI single in the top of the ninth. It was a big display of offense that did not come from the Mets too often in those days. Just a great game to watch.

The unfortunate Atlanta starter was Denny McLain, who was in the final season of his once-productive career. McLain lasted up to the third inning in his only appearance ever against the Mets.

This game set a record for the shortest nine-inning Met game in history: 1 hour and 36 minutes. I believe that record still stands.

This is the game in which Marty Perez lined one back through the box and fractured Jon Matlack's skull. I had just turned 9 and have memories of watching on TV. Looking at retrosheet they have it listed as "Perez doubled to center." However I have a recollection on the ball ricocheting off Matlack and into the Met dugout. Anybody else recall this? I remember Matlack lying face up on the mound and being alert. Then when I heard he had a fractured skull I thought it meant that he might die. He actually returned to the mound 11 days later. Also, 2 batters later, Davey Johnson hit a grand slam to put the game away for Atlanta.

I also remember this game and the chilling/sobering replays shown on WOR-TV of the ball ricocheting off Matlack's forehead, and yes, into the Mets dugout. Also remember that the crowd had diminished noticeably in both size and "sound" after the incident. The Knicks, as I recall were in the playoffs that year and I remember hearing someone's very prominent radio in the stand, and the owner was giving scoring updates; again, it was easy to hear because the crowd had diminished and those who remained were eerily subdued.

There was little information on Matlack's condition throughout the remainder of the game, only that he was conscious, and I remember that he was visited the next day by Marty Perez in either Roosevelt (?) or Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. Definitely a scary moment.

Yes the ball did ricochet into the Met dugout. The official scoring was a ground rule double. Two runs scored on the play. I thought John Matlack died. I was in a complete state of shock. I can't believe he made it back after a couple of weeks. Hank Aaron homered afterwards and then Davey Johnson. Are you kidding me? Davey Johnson. Didn't he have over 40 homers that season? I hardly call him a long ball hitter. Hmmmm...was he the first of the juicers? Makes you wonder. Ok I'll take it back Davey. You won a W.S for us!

My first Mets game!

8 years old, with my Dad & my uncle.

I loved the experience, but I remember leaving the game mad, because "we" lost. Somebody threw a 1-hitter at us (Phil Neikro, possibly?).

OK, so now I know it was Ron Schuler and it was a 2-hiiter, both hits coming in the bottom of the 9th...

Charlie, if you're still out there, I'd like to say to you that I remember this game very well myself. Ron Hodges singled on Schueler's first pitch of the ninth inning to break up the no-hitter. Hodges hit a ground ball that went just past the second baseman, who just happened to be Davey Johnson. Felix Millan also got a single before it was over.

The Post ran a late afternoon article asking who should be fired Berra, Scheffing, or Grant. Grant won or lost but we had 6 more years of his Wall Street nonsense.

This was the game where Don Hahn and George Theodore collided viciously in left-center chasing a fly ball by Ralph Garr. I had just turned 7 and my Dad had taken me to Shea so I could see Hank Aaron and Willie Mays play before they retired. My best memory though is of Ralph Garr looking guily and circling the bases very slowly while the two Met outfielders were lying in the outfield and nobody even made a play. It was kinda scary. He got an inside the park home run on that play.

I remember this game like it was yesterday. I turned 10 years old 3 months earlier and was just getting to love baseball and the Mets. The game was on T.V. (WOR, channel 9) on Long Island. I couldn't believe it when Hahn and Theodore collided at their midsections, and I thought for sure George was gonna die on that play. Geez, the things you remember. I kinda always hated Ralph Garr after that because I thought he should have run out to help Hahn and Theodore instead of running the bases. But I was only 10. Anyone else remember this?

I remember it well. Watching it on Channel 9 and that collison was scary. I still remember the next day's Daily News back page: Mets Lose Theodore, Hahn in collision; Blow Game 9-8.

I remember this game well. My mother took me to the game for reasons that are lost on me now. It was about 3 weeks before my 9th birthday. At the time we lived in Jackson Heights so like most of the local kids I was a Met fan.

We were sitting in the Loge seats down the left field line. I couldn't believe what I saw on that play. I thought that one of the guys was dead at first because they hit so hard and one didn't move at all. I couldn't figure out who was who.

I remember watching the two Mets being led away on stretchers, but I also remember some idiot sitting near me laughing at the heavy guy who carried the stretcher out to the outfield. Other than that jerk, the place was like a morgue.

That play is the only thing I remember about the game. Until I found this web site I was convinced it was the Stork's last ever game, but apparently not.

I sort of lost touch with the Mets after '73 when we moved north to the suburbs of Albany. Didn't get back in touch with the Mets until cable t.v. came to our neighborhood in 1978.

I was not at this game, but I do remember it well. I had just turned 12 the day before and was swimming at a friends house that Saturday afternoon. We were all Mets fans and had the radio on outside in the yard, and I remember listening to this game. In addition to the collision, I seem to remember it being a crazy game.

I was at this game. I remember the collision, and that Willie Mays and Cleon Jones replaced Hahn and Theodore. I felt bad for the fallen Mets, but Cleon was my favorite Met, and he had been injured, so this was his first game back, if I recall correctly.

This was the first game I ever went to. I was 7 years old and my Dad took me. I remember walking out through the tunnel and seeing the field from the stands for the first time and thinking this is the greatest. I was disappointed that neither Hank Aaron or Willie Mays started the game. I definitely remember the collision and Garr running around the bases as Hahn and Theodore were on the ground. Hahn was able to get up and throw the ball back towards the collision before collapsing back down. Then they were both carried off on stretchers. Willie Mays and Cleon Jones replaced them in the outfield. The Mets went on to lose this game but I will always remember it.

This was the game we saw when we went home to visit relatives in New York the summer of 73. We were living in the KC area at the time so it was special to see the Mets when we could. The game was interesting because it was so unusual to see a Mets game with so much offense. Remember, the Mets in those years could pitch, but not necessarily hit. So Ralph Garr hits a fly ball out to centerfield and everyone around us was saying "Look out!" because you could clearly see Don Hahn and George Theodore on a collision course. And then "BOOM." When Willie Mays and Cleon went in to replace them, Willie flipped the ball to Cleon for him to throw it back after a single, I asked my dad "How come Willie couldn't throw it back?" He said "He's old, Jo Jo."

I was thirteen years old and I was at the game with my mother. This was my "once-a-year" game tradition that I received as a kid. As far as I knew, this was my real Christmas gift! Anyway, I remember clearly the moment Don Hahn and the Stork Theodore collided in the outfield, it was terrible to see. They crashed into each other so hard I thought at least one of them was dead! Then just while they were finally being carried away I got chills when I saw #21 and 24 emerge from the dugout and replace them in the outfield. Cleon Jones and the great Willie Mays! The roar of the crowd was so loud and exciting as if 2 heroes came to the rescue! What a thrill that was and although the Mets lost that game, I always think of it as the turning point of the team's season... You Gotta Believe!

This was the game in which the infamous collision between George Theodore and Don Hahn happened. It allowed Ralph Garr to circle the bases for an inside-the-park homer and a 6-3 Atlanta lead. It seems to be forgotten that after both George and Don were taken away on stretchers, the Mets rebounded by scoring four times in the bottom of the eighth to go ahead by a run. Still, the Braves rallied in the ninth and came away with the win.

An interesting fact about the collision is that Phil Hennigan was on the mound for the Mets when Garr hit that ball. Hennigan never appeared in another major league game after this one.

Our family was at this game. Our seats were in the Loge section behind home plate. I recall that I chose this game because of Willie and Hank, and so I was a little disappointed that Willie didn't play. But then after the Hahn/Theodore collision, out of the dugout runs Willie! Frankly, I didn't even remember that Cleon joined him until reading now.

It was a crazy back & fourth game. It would have been perfect if the Mets had actually won, but life is seldom perfect.

One other memory from this day.... Willie's pink Lincoln Continental with CA "Say Hey" plates parked right out front at Shea. Wonder what ever became of that car?

I remember the Sunday paper having Theo with a body cast on for dislocated hip. Guy got hit with a pitch around the eye breaking his glasses earlier in SD. Rough year for da Stork.

I remember being at Shea with my father for this game. He and I used to go to at least one game a year when I was a kid. It was a sunny and hot July Sunday, and Hammer'in Hank knocked 2 out against the Mets. I was disappointed the Mets were never in this game, and lost it 4-2. Looking back it was fun to be with my Dad and head out to the ball park, watch a game, and get a few sips of his beer (what a treat). I also got to see some great players in Aaron, Mays, and Neikro play.

There is a video on you tube of Hank Aaron hitting his 695th career HR in this game...good stuff. Titled : Hank Aaron home run 695

Watching on TV, this was one of the greatest comebacks I had ever seen. Seven in the ninth to pull out an 8-7 win.

I watched this one on TV too. I was 11 at the time. They were down 7-1. Millan walked to lead off the 9th, then Staub homered. Jones walked, then Milner homered. They scratched out 3 more, with Mays driving in 2. I remember how I danced with joy in front of the TV. Great memory!

I was 7 years old, going on 8 at the time. The neighbors were over the house having coffee. Mr. Schuster, a big Mets Fan, had given up on the game. I was watching it alone in the living room. At the end, I went to the kitchen to tell them that the Mets had won. No one believed me.

I was in the Bronx at the Yankee game this evening. A friend of mine invited me and we went with his dad and a couple of his other friends. The game was pretty humdrum, as the Yanks beat the Twins 4-1. The highlight for me was that we sat just above the broadcast booth and we got to see Phil Rizzuto. Anyway, as we were leaving the game, we heard over the car radio about the Mets' game and how they'd scored seven runs in the 9th, with Willie Mays driving in the winning run! As a long-time Willie fan (even before he was on the Mets), I was thrilled.

I'm a Braves fan, and this was my only time to see Tom Seaver. At the time, we had Buzz Capra starting against Seaver, and I believe Buzz led the league in ERA at the time, so we all anticipated one of the greatest pitching duels ever. Capra, however, lasted only 1 and 2/3 innings, so the big matchup fizzled. For years, I remembered that Seaver also bombed, but I just recently located the box score and it turns out he did fine. But the Braves somehow won. That was very rare back then.

This was Hank Aaron poster night. Every fan got a nice poster, which I wish I still had. Bowie Kuhn was booed when he was introduced before the game.

My seat was a box seat down the right field line. Ken Boswell lined a foul ball right over my head. If I had brought my glove I would have tried to catch it.

I remember this game vividly. This was my major league debut. I was almost 8, and my Dad had asked me in the offseason to pick a game for my 1st trip to Shea Stadium. Hank Aaron was my favorite non-Mets player, and so I picked this Braves game the year he broke Ruth's HR record. Two weeks or so before, I caught chicken pox, and it was possible I wouldn't be able to go. Like Gary Carter refusing to make the last out in Game 6 in '86, I willed myself to shake off the pox. June 19 was the 1st day I was healthy enough to go back to school, and, thankfully, my parents let me skip school to go to this afternoon game. What a thrill. My 1st time walking in to the beautiful stadium, seeing the amazingly dark green grass. We had box seats about 20 rows up behind the 1st base dugout. We got there early, and walked down to the dugout railing, and I was so excited to get backup shortstop Teddy Martinez to sign my very 1st scorecard and program! I didn't even know who he was at the time, but I didn't care. I got a Met's autograph at my 1st game!!!

Jon Matlack started, pitched 4 shutout innings, and shut down Aaron, who was later removed from the game, to my disappointment. Then, whichever Bob Miller relieved Matlack let the game get out of hand in the late innings, and the Mets had no chance to come back. My Mets heroes showed NO offensive abilities that day against former teammate Buzz Capra. We stayed to the end, however, soaked up all the atmosphere. And my 5 1/2-year-old sister capped off the day with comic relief by asking Dad and me after the final out was made and we sighed together in disappointment: "Who won?" The Braves did. A forgettable, midseason, lopsided shutout loss, but a HUGELY memorable, once-in-a-lifetime day for the ages for this little boy, who managed to not get busted by the Channel 9 cameras for "claiming" to be out of school with chicken pox, only to be taking in a Shea matinee on "a beee-yooo-tiful day for baseball," as Bob Murphy must've said that lovely Wednesday.

This game certainly had an ironic twist to it. Ray Sadecki pitches a complete game and drives in the only run with a single for a 1-0 shutout win. The player who scores the run on Sadecki's hit is Jim Gosger. When the Mets acquired Sadecki in a trade with the Giants a few years earlier, Gosger was sent to San Francisco in the deal.

Isn't it funny how things can work out in baseball?

I remember one very unique moment from this game. In the eighth inning, the Mets had runners on second and third base and Wayne Garrett was being walked intentionally. On the fourth pitch to Garrett, the ball sailed over the catcher's head and a run came home. It was the only time I ever saw a wild pitch thrown during an intentional walk.

It was the first Mets game I ever attended and I went with my Cub Scout pack when I was 9 yrs old. The thing I remember most about this game was the Triple Rusty Staub hit to drive in the winning run against the Braves. It was also Hank Aaron's last appearance in New York with his original club in the National Leauge before going to Milwaukee, then in the junior circuit. Back to Staub's Triple, it was a rare sight to see and I'm sure he didn't hit too many of those in his career after that! Final score Mets 6, Braves 5

Glenn, your facts about this game are a little mixed up. Rusty Staub's triple came with two outs in the fourth inning. Ed Kranepool (no faster a runner than Staub) scored from first base on the hit and it gave the Mets a 4-0 lead. After a Braves comeback that put them ahead, Rusty came through with a two-out single in the eighth to drive home the tying and winning runs.

Also, Hank Aaron did not play in this game. His last appearance in New York as a Braves player and National Leaguer came the next day.

This was clearly the best starting assignment of Tug's career. Relief pitchers like Tug rarely start games today, but Tug did make occasional starts throughout his career with the Mets.

This was Henry Aaron's final appearance against the Mets. He batted cleanup and went 1-for-4 against Tug McGraw, who pitched a complete game five-hit shutout for the only shutout of his career. It was also the fifth and final complete game of Tug's career.

Aaron grounded into a double play in the first, singled in the fourth, lined out in the sixth, and popped out in the ninth.

I remember the 14th inning of this game. It was after 6:00PM on a Sunday and my family was getting ready to leave for a 6:30 church service. Seeing that the Mets had a runner on third, we hung around to see if they could win it right there.

As a result, there we all were, in church attire, watching the Mets! I said to everyone that a wild pitch would be good here so that they'd win and we can leave. Sure enough, that's exactly what happened! The pitcher threw one that got away and the winning run scored.

We headed off to church very happy. I don't remember if we got there on time or not. I just remember that the Mets won in 14 just before we left.

I was at this game with a friend and his mom and all I really recall was that they noted when "Bob Gallagher" PH, that it was also his dads name. Although I knew he stunk, I said something like "maybe he'll hit a HR" and the mom kind of smiled and said "he'll probably strike out." She was right.

I do also remember the mom wanted to leave as the game crawled on and I think when they won, it was our last inning regardless. At that point in my young life I had never left a game early and I was in shock that he we might, so I started rooting for a balk when they loaded the bases (and neither my friend of his mom knew what that meant...they asked don't you mean walk). I guess by 9 years old I already knew asking for a clutch Met hit was a stretch!

Didn't recall until I perused the box score that Torre almost hit for the cycle.

I was at this game. A typical Jon Matlack loss in the later innings.

But what made it most memorable was after Cleon Jones pinch hit (and flied out I believed for the third out) left field was empty when the Mets took the field. Yogi sent him Cleon out there but he refused to go.

It was the last time we'd see him in a Mets uniform.

This was my first Mets game. Seaver wasn't at his best (he gave up a homer to Mike Lum, for god's sake), but it was good enough for the win. It's funny, but what I remember most about this game is Dave Kingman's lackluster fielding.

This game was Mickey Lolich's first NL win.

Since this was a bicentennial year, my seventh grade class went on a field trip to Liberty Village in New Jersey to see what life was like in 1776. I brought my radio with me because the Mets were playing an afternoon game against the Braves and we die-hards wanted to hear it on the way home.

We heard the early innings, and for some reason we lost the frequency. We got home around six-ish and I was surprised to discover that the game was still going on and the Mets were down a couple of runs to Atlanta.

With runners on and two out, Bruce Boisclair BARELY ticks a two-strike fastball from Pablo Torrealba (I think) before jacking a double to win the game. I also remember seeing Bruce's guest spot on "Kiner's Korner," where he was describing the pitches he was getting.

Although I did not see the entire game, I have the feeling that this game had about the same excitement as that Mets-Astros game in July 1975 that I wrote about it earlier. I do recall the fans really getting into it as well as this 12-year old being absolutely glued in to what Boisclair was doing.

Good memory, Joe. Yes, it had the same feel as that '75 game vs. Houston. By this time, I was living in Howell, N.J. We moved in October, 1975. I was in my living room watching this game and the Mets were down to their last strike, down 5-4. On 1-2. Boisclair hit a two-run double to win the game. In April, it really felt like the Mets would challenge the Phillies and Pirates for the division. But the Lolich bust and lack of offense (partially brought on by Vail's injury and Staub's departure to Detroit) put the Mets out of it fairly early. May 1976 was really the last exciting time for a Mets fan until the Steve Henderson game in 1980. In between was a lot of heartache and anger.

I remember watching this game after school. I think it mught have been a 4pm start because I seem to remember seeing the whole game and maybe even keeping score. I thought it was very exciting to see Bosclair come through in the clutch. If you look at the Mets lineup this day, there was a lot of age on that roster, especially among the position players.

The team was also totally devoid of speed. Bosclair was young and fast and he, as well as Mike Vail who had broken his ankle during the off-season semed to hold out some hope for the future. Of course that promise never materialized. There even seemed to be cause for optimism for the whole team. The Mets were closing out April on a 7-game winning streak and were in the midst of a 12-2 run through the beginning of May.

My first Mets game (fan since the 69 season). Was in awe when Ed Kranepool stopped so I could take his picture next to the dugout.

King Kong Kingman hit 2 home runs and it was great to see them win. Mickey Lolich pitched like he did when he was the Tiger's ace.

What a great day!

The Braves employed an interesting marketing strategy in this game played right before the all- star break.

First, 34 couples were married before the game at home plate, then they brought out a ring and there was professional wrestling (no, the couples were not involved).

Finally, the game started, and it was pretty entertaining too. The Mets led 4-1 after six, then the Braves scored five in the seventh. The Mets came back to take an 8-6 lead going to the bottom of the eighth, but the Braves took the lead for good on a two-out, bases clearing double by future Met Willie Montanez.

Despite all that excitement, only 14,661 fans paid their way in. Another oddity about the game: Jon Matlack, Jerry Koosman, and Tom Seaver all pitched in this one. Matlack started, Kooz and Seaver came in to face two batters each. Many teams would use that strategy back then in the game right before the all-star break....kind of an "everyone in the bullpen can pitch" mentality.

Read somewhere in a story about the early days of maverick Braves owner Ted Turner, that he came up with this promotion. Called it 'Wedlock & Headlock Day'.

There was even a picture of the Mets & Braves players lined up opposite each other holding their bats up to let the newlyweds pass through. Pretty hilarious!

My second Mets game (first game was day before). I was really stoked because Seaver and Koosman were used in relief of Jon Matlack, because next day was the beginning of the All-Star break. That was a once in a lifetime chance to see all three in one game!

Got to see all my favorite pitchers in just two games!

This was the Monday night game where Phil Niekro hit a line shot in left field. Dave Kingman dove for the ball and injured his thumb. He was out for the next month or two. I remember as I was sitting in the mezzanine. Kingman wound up losing the NL Home Run title to Mike Schmidt by one.

I was at this game with my Dad in the upper deck along the right field side. (Gee, it seems every time I've attended a game with seats along the right field side, bad things happen to the Mets!) As of this writing, this was my last time at Shea.

Other than the Mets losing and the injury to Kingman, I remember a play involving Mike Vail. I remember one inning where there was, I guess, a runner on second. I watched Mike Vail, who was in right field, imitating throws to the plate in between pitches. Lo and behold! The batter (who it was I don't remember!) hits a single to right and Mike throws the ball over the head of the catcher for an error.

We had a country cousin who came to New York that summer to spend a couple of weeks with us in the big city. She was about 16 years old and a big baseball fan. The three things she wanted to do in New York was go to Coney Island and see a Yankee game at Yankee Stadium and a Mets game at Shea. So this was the Mets game we took her to, and of course in those days the Mets were always flirting with disaster and Dave Kingman breaks his wrist diving for a sinking liner. I wonder if anyone coming to New York anymore thinks it's a big deal to go to Coney Island.

People were watching this game less than listening to the radio at the trading deadline (June 15th back then) and afraid for the worst. After midnight, it was announced that Seaver was traded to the Reds for four players and Kingmen to the Padres for Bobby Valentine. The Mets sank into oblivion under Joe Torre for the rest of the 1970's and into the 1980's.

This was the Day that a sportswriter got Seaver traded. I was at a lost. And we got nothing for him. Mets sunk deep into Grants Tomb. Seaver was the face of the team. We grew up with him and he was ours. At 16 I finally learned that the Pen was stronger than the Man. Seaver jealous of Nolan Ryan???????THAT WOULD BE THE DAY.

This was the night of the infamous Midnight Massacre. I was so depressed and felt completely hopeless of anything good coming out of this trade for the Mets. I could not believe this was happening. I was hoping I would wake up the following morning and realize it was only a nightmare! If only it were. This trade marked the beginning of the dark ages which plummeted the Mets into their 7 year tribulation.

This was my first baseball game, I was 5 1/2. Marc got sick and I went instead. I want with Mike and Michael Friedman and my dad. I don't remember much about the game but I was told all I did was look at the scoreboard and all game said "Mr. Peanut man, can I have some peanuts" and I was told that I might of played you show me yours and I'll show you mine. I was only 5. What memories

I went to this Sunday afternoon game with my friends. The day before, we went as well, and one of my friends caught a foul ball. I was jealous of how close I came. Then, on Sunday the 4th, as luck would have it, I catch a foul off the bat of Len Randle (pitched by Phil Neikro). I still have the ball to this day, and have never come close to catching another baseball at a game.

Bobby Valentine hit his last major league homer in this game. It came off Phil Niekro.

Lenny Randle became the first Met to score 5 runs in a game in this extra-inning contest.

Skippy Lockwood became one of the few Met relievers ever to hit a home run in this game. Mets had lost the first game of the doubleheader but came back to win the nightcap with Skippy pitching the last three innings.

I was a kid back then and was so proud a Met could be 5-0. Maybe Pat Zachry would go undefeated, I thought. Did not quite work out that way.

I remember this game, Doug Flynn hit a home run on fireworks night. I was 7 years old, he became my favorite player until Strawberry came to New York

I think this game was the very first fireworks night. There was such a good crowd at this game that I prayed that the Mets wouldn't embarass themselves before so many people.

Doug Flynn's home run just barely reached the left field stands in the corner -- an out anywhere else in the park. And then they gave a preview of the show by shooting off fireworks as Dougie rounded the bases. VERY cool!

I remember being so impressed with fireworks night that I wrote a letter to then Mets owner Linda DeRoulet, suggesting that they set off fireworks every time a Met hits a home run at every home game (along with other suggestions, such as getting rid of that pathetic mule mascot).

Ms. DeRoulet actually wrote me back, very politely explaining how the air traffic patterns at LaGuardia Airport prohibited fireworks with any regularity.

But it was a night that actually created just a tad of, and short lived, optimism for Mets fans. A great evening.

This game was suspended after eight innings and completed later in the season. A predetermined stopping time was put into place due to the fact that the Mets had a flight to Houston scheduled that evening. When the curfew time arrived, play was halted so the Mets could catch their plane.

News of this strange happening was reported on the "Today" show the next morning. Anchorman Floyd Kalber, after telling the audience the reason for the suspension, started laughing. Who could blame him? Having to stop a game because of poor travel planning is ridiculous! This is the kind of thing that typified the '79 Mets, who were simply a laughingstock.

When looking at the basic facts of this game, one might think that Jeff Reardon got the win in his major league debut. Not exactly. The game was suspended (as Hank M points out in the previous entry) and not completed until ten weeks later. Reardon pitched the top of the ninth inning and recorded the victory on Alex Trevino's RBI single in the bottom half after the game resumed on August 27th. Two days earlier, Jeff made his first actual appearance on a major league mound.

This was the first Mets game I ever went to. I was able to convince my mom to take me since it was a day game in the middle of the week. We bought tickets when we got there and got field level seats. I remember my first look at the players uniforms and noticing how vivid the colors were. I had binoculars and used them mostly to watch the starting pitchers — Ray Burris and Rick Matula. It was overcast most of the game, but started raining heavily with Ed Kranepool coming to bat with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning. They played on through the rain with the Mets down to their final out and the potential tying run on first. Joel Youngblood had just singled, driving in Frank Taveras and Alex Trevino, to get the Mets within a run, but Kranepool popped up to the second baseman to end the rally and the game. The next day, I looked at the box score in the newspaper and saw that the attendance was 6,602. I told my mom that we were the “2” in that attendance number.

I recall that Neil Allen had an unusually good fastball in this game, and was getting lots of swings and misses. The Mets' announcer (I think it was Bob Murphy) commented that he was "throwing bullets."

My friends and I switched to this game right after the third period of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals had ended. The Islanders were about to go into overtime and the Mets were just coming to bat in the bottom of the 10th inning. We watched during the intermission and got rewarded when Elliott Maddox hit a two-out grounder just past Chris Chambliss's glove to drive home the winning run. Even with our minds more focused on hockey at that moment, we were very excited to see it.

With one 5-4 victory in extra innings now complete, we went back to hockey and hoped for another in sudden death. Bobby Nystrom scored the biggest goal of all-time a few minutes later. While celebrating the Isles' Cup championship, we thought of the Mets and realized that both teams went past regulation and won by the same score. What a cool thing this was! Maddox's single didn't have quite the same impact of what Nystrom did, but we still toasted both Elliott and Bobby on the greatest Saturday afternoon of our lives.

Just 11 days after the legendary brawl with the Expos, the Mets very nearly threw down in this game, too. It happened after Lee Mazzilli took Al "The Mad Hungarian" Hrabosky deep. The two were jawing at each other as Maz circled the bases. Just after reaching home plate, Maz handed his glasses to the bat boy and went out to dance with Hrabosky, but it was broken up moments later. This symbolized an exciting summer in which the Mets - albeit four years prematurely - were starting to show the rest of the National League they would no longer be pushovers.

43-43.... The Mets are playing .500 ball in July. At a mere 4.5 games out, the Mets are contenders. The magic is back!

Of course, they lost the next game and it was all down hill from there. But Joe Torre's Mets were never better.

Forgettable game , except that I had box seats and witnessed the pathetic sight of Dan Norman flailing away in the Mets pathetic attempt to turn him into a switch hitter.

Also seem to recall that assinine burro mascot of theirs from the 80's taking a dump on the warning track. Mettle was its name I think.

I was at this game. Pat Zachry almost lost his shutout in the ninth inning. Biff Pocoroba hit a ball that would have been a home run if it had stayed fair.

This was the first baseball game I ever went to. I remember going down to the field and trying to get autographs, Gaylord Perry passed us by, and I wound up getting Luis Gomez to sign a piece of paper for me. During the game the fans were riding Lee Mazzilli and Randy Jones gave up a home run to Dale Murphy that I think is still in the air. I remember the Mets got the bases loaded and Kingman came up to pinch hit. Everyone was so load and excited, this was my first great live baseball moment, unfortunately Kingman struck out, and it was on a pitch that bounced in front of the plate. I don't know if he was trying to fool the other team or what. This is my first live game baseball memory.

Mustve been a promotion or something because this was my first Mets game too. My dad turned me into a Mets fan that day. (I was a Yankee fan for 1980 and most of 81.) He knew the place real well and we got autos of a lot of the players. It really meant a lot to a 10-year-old kid at his first game. I still have the ball, the topper was meeting Mookie Wilson. As a kid, anybody with the name Mookie, you remember that name forever. He was extra nice and wrote on my program, "Wish we would've won your first game, but we'll get them next time for you." It was an awesome day.

It was Memorial Day and school was closed so some people I knew had an extra ticket but they decided to take someone else instead of me. I was NOT a happy camper whatsoever; Btw, had to listen to the game on WMCA 570 because my area would NOT be wired for cable for at least 5 years! Even though it was a cool, cloudy holiday, I was mad as heck I wasn't included on going to Shea!

This was a heartbreaking loss for the Mets. The kind of loss that used to make me swear I'd never watch another Mets game again. Ed Lynch pitched nine shutout innings, but he was matched by Pascual Perez. The Mets finally scored a run off Perez in the top of the 10th on a home run by Brian Giles (no, not that Brian Giles). Pat Zachry comes in to try to finish the game off in the bottom of the 10th. I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but I do know that Zachry got the first 2 outs and the Braves got 2 or 3 runners on base. The next batter hits a routine grounder to Hubie Brooks...who picks it up and throws it past the first baseman, allowing the tying run to score. Then Zachry proceeds to walk in the winning run. Mets give it away, 2-1. I still remember Hubie's quote in the next day's paper: "I just threw it away. I just threw the ball away." He felt terrible about it.

This was the fifth loss in a losing streak that would eventually reach 15 games.

One of the first games that I ever went to, were tickets given for the Cub Scouts. The seats were at the top of the Upper Deck and it was freezing. Mets were losing 8-0, came back to tie only to lose in the 8th. I remember Dave Kingman bunting for a hit to try and get the average above .200. No one was at the game and the Mets were in the middle of losing 15 in a row.

This was the first game I ever went to. I was six years old and sat in the loge section near the Braves' bullpen. My brother and sister got Rick Mahler's autograph before the game.

I don't remember much detail of the game except that I believe Mookie was called out for running out of the baseline rounding first on his way in for what would have been a double.

The Rangers also played the Islanders is a softball game in a pregame promotion. Much like on the ice during that era, the Rangers had their butts handed to them.

It was a Sunday afternoon when the Mets were in the throes of that 15-game losing streak. It was a sunny and unusual chilly August afternoon; it felt more like November than August and the Mets were making mistakes on the field and a fan near me yelled out sarcastically "Look What I Found" whenever the Mets made a routine play in the infield. To this day, I still yell that saying when the Mets defense messes up in the infield.

My friends and I went to this game. We were 16 years old. It was either helmet or jersey day. What I remember most was my friends hitting on the ballgirl manning the right field line. Where have you gone, Mary Jane Koester?

This was my first Mets game I went to. I was 7 years old. It was bat day, where us kiddies got a blue full-size wooden bat. I remember it being very heavy. Got to see two Hall of Famers, Niekro and Seaver pitch.

This was the first game my brother and I went to. I was 7 he was 5. That's when bat day was bat day (full size). I had that thing for years. My mother took us because Tom Seaver was pitching. I remember the program had a lot of stuff about Dale Murphy in it. There were people from Atlanta sitting in front of us, they kept looking at us when we booed the Braves. I still boo the Braves.

I was at this game, the Mets mounted a 4 run 9th inning come from behind that ended on George Foster's 2 run double.

For some reason, the brawl games all stand out to me. Here, Mike Torrez turned in his best accomplishment as a Met on the mound - punching out Braves pitcher Rick Camp after he charged him. With the Mets having such a miserable year, I remember telling my mom about the fight, to which she wisecracked: "Maybe they should be boxers instead of baseball players."

I was at this game and sitting behind the visiting team dugout. Camp hit Mookie with a pitch and then Mike Torrez drilled Camp. Camp charged the mound and Torrez wisely took his glove off and nailed Camp with a couple of good punches. I remember Kingman charging out of the Mets dugout like a madman and grabbing one of the Braves by the throat. I was about sixteen years old and had never seen anything like it before. Then Mookie came up in the bottom of the tenth inning and hit a homer to win it for the Mets. I've been to a lot of baseball games in the last forty years and this is one that I haven't forgotten. Torrez also pitched a ten-inning complete game.

Wow, this is a memorable day in my life cuz well I was born on this day. So no wonder why I am a Mookie fan he goes 2-4 w/ a SB

On the day Jay was born, the Mets had a pretty remarkable game. On this day, after Hubie Brooks was called out at the plate on a controversial call, umpire Joe West ended up ejecting two cablevision cameramen positioned in the box next to the Mets dugout, for obligingly showing replays of the play to players in Met dugout.

The truth shall set you free, Doug.

I was watching this game on the Braves' station. Referring to whoever was posting the out-of-town scores on the Shea Stadium scoreboard, Skip Caray said, "The scoreboard operator must be on drugs, because the Tigers have gone from a 5-5 tie to a 5-3 loss."

I have been an Atlanta Braves fan since 1983, and used to live in New York. I was at this game, and it was one of the most frustrating games I can remember as a fan. The first eight innings of this game, until the last of the eighth, were very well played, and well pitched. A pitcher's duel between Braves starter Steve Bedrosian, and the Mets Ron Darling. After the Atlanta bullpen shut the Mets out for a couple of innings, and Darling got the Braves out in the eighth, things unraveled, and then, "Mr $40 million dollar closer", Bruce Sutter, came in for the Braves, and served up a Grand Slam homer to Gary Carter. At this point, with Atlanta trailing 5-1, my father and I decided to leave the game, and listen to the rest of it on the radio with Bob Murphy and Gary Cohen. Suddenly, the Braves started coming back against the Met bullpen. Then, with Dale Murphy as the tying run, Jesse Orosco struck him out, and got the final out, to preserve the win for the Mets. I remember shutting off the radio in disgust. Not only had the Braves lost with their ace "fireman" on the mound, but they had made a vailiant comeback, and fallen short. One of the most frustrating games I've ever been to as a fan, this game is fresh in my memory, even 21 years later, and I was only 15 at the time of the game.

Funny how Tom Gorman is apart of two memorable games of the 85 season. How can any fan forget this one? Rain delay after rain delay, John Sterling, a Brave announcer at the time!?!?! He is still biased. Hernandez hitting for the cycle. Lenny Dykstra showing his scrappy play, after the Mets blow a late lead (around 8th inning). Rick Camp!!! Rick Camp!!! Danny Heep placing his hands over his head in disbelief. Carter and Hernandez playing all 16 innings, untill 4:05 AM!!!! Unreal...one of the most memorable of all time.

I remember watching the game as a 12-year-old (and as a 13-year-old, as my birthday is July 5). Gooden's shortest outing to that point in his career, the two rain delays, the score tied 8-8 after nine innings. HoJo hits a two-run homer in the top of the 13th (I think), only to have Terry Harper hit an 0-2 slider off the left field foul (fair?) pole with one on in the bottom of the inning to tie the score. The Mets scratch across a run in the top of the 18th, only to have poor Tom Gorman hang an 0-2 forkball (why a forkball?) to Rick Camp (lifetime .036 hitter, five extra-base hits), who followed the old adage, "Swing hard, because you might hit the ball", and deposited the pitch over the left center field fence. Heep covers his head and Dykstra throws his glove up in the air in disbelief. Gorman struggling to complete the inning. The Braves then give up 5 runs in the top of the 19th (at least 3 unearned, thanks to errors by Claudell Washington and Camp himself, I think)...only to score two in the bottom of the 19th and have the tying run at the plate...Rick Camp again! However, Ron Darling strikes him out on three pitches.

I didn't realize Hernandez had hit for the cycle until years later. Poor Ronn Reynolds, didn't make it into the game because Carter caught all 19 innings, and Davey Johnson didn't want to use him as a pinch hitter in case Carter got hurt.

And then, after the game ends at 3:55, the fireworks go off at 4:01. Oops. Too much noise for sleeping citizens. What were they thinking?

I believe this game was one of the weirdest ever. What made it so strange was that at one point in the extra innings, the Mets went ahead by a run, and it looked like they were going to win as the Braves batted in the bottom of the inning. Reason being is that Atlanta was out of pinch-hitters; the only people left to hit were pitchers.

So they send up reliever Rick Camp to pinch-hit. Camp (it was later revealed) had the lowest batting average of any active major leaguer as he stepped into the box. And what does he do? Of course--he hits a home run to tie it!

Well, the Mets ended up winning anyway, in 19 innings. As a fitting finale to this other-wordly game, the Braves went ahead with the planned post-game July 4th fireworks--at two in the morning!

Undoubtedly, the best regular season Mets game ever!! (Best Met game ever reserved for Game 6 1986 NLCS).

Who could ever forget Rick Camp hitting the homer in the 13th to keep it going for the Braves. I just couldn't believe my eyes. I stayed up for the entire game, right up until the fireworks display put on by Fulton County Stadium at 3:55 a.m. the morning of the 5th.

Just reading this boxscore is great entertainment.

I second that emotion, Jon. How often do you see 10's in the AB column?!?!

Try as he might, Doug Sisk couldn't blow this one for the Mets.

my god I remember going to my aunts house and being pissed off I was missing the game on ch9 well got home at 11pm and what??? Mets in 4th inning??? I love late night baseball so I stayed up AS long as my 16 year old body could 2am I saw sisk almost blow it but orosco got out of it after dale murphy triple with bases loaded of sisk then Mets tie it up off bruce sutter ho jo again then I went to bed the ny post said it the next day when I bought it I couldnt believe it that they got the game on the paper

I watched the whole game on TBS. Skip Caray said something like "If Camp homers here this will be the wildest game of all time" just before Camp did homer. Walk into any bar tonight and 90% of the guys there will be better athletes than Camp was. The game lasted forever, and I still wanted more.

It's all been said already, but I'll add my vote to the masses. This is in the top 5 Met games of all time. I remember actually going to bed (not sure why) and listening to HoJo's homer on the radio. I got back up just in time for Harper to tie it. Hernandez hitting for the cycle was almost an afterthought. I had actually forgotten that Doc started this one - who remembers the first 9 innings. I will always remember the name Rick Camp, that's for sure.

I was 16 years old and a big Braves fan at the time of this game. My brother and his fiance ask me to go along with my brother's buddy. I remember that we sat in the nosebleed seats at Fulton-County Stadium to watch Doc Gooden pitch. Then game the rain, and more rain. By the 9th inning, the majority of the fans left due to the rain. We moved our seats all the way up behind home plate. What a roller coaster of a game. One cannot imagine the emotions of that game unless you were there. Of course all looked gloomy for the Braves until Rick Camp hit that homer in the bottom of the 17th? Then blew it in the 18th to lose 16 to 13. I wish I had that ball! I remember the headeline in the paper next day, "Forget Game, Camp hits Homer!". We stayed till the fireworks at 4am. I found a foul ball after the game and still have it signed by my brother with the score and date on it.

This is really the first baseball game I remember going to, and everyone hears about it. I was 10. My dad has always been a HUGE Braves fan, and he took my brother and I to Atlanta to see a game. We even got there early to watch batting practice. The rain poured down and the little guys scurried across the field to cover it with the morton salt cover. It was cool the first couple of times... The waves in the crowd were awesome... we kept it up because we were afraid they would call off the game.

To be honest I slept through several innings, I was 10; I think I passed out around midnight. I woke up around 3 when people were cheering hysterically. Dad had asked if we wanted to go back to the hotel but the fireworks were worth the wait. It was a memory never to be forgotten.

Minus to this is I dread commiting to watching a full game, never know how long it will be. However, games do seem much shorter to me as well when they only go 9 innings.

Oh how this game brings back memories. I remember watching the game waiting for my friends to pick me up for July 4th party. When we returned at 3:30 AM I thought Sportschannel was rebroadcasting the game! What a shock.

What wasn't weird about this game? Dwight had I think his only bad outing of the year, Hernandez hitting for the cycle, and the game being tied in the 9th, the 13th, and at 3:00AM, the 18th by Rick Camp! I remember Camp being up in the bottom of the 19th with the Mets having 3-run lead and the Brave having two men on. If Camp would have homered again, they might still be playing.

Most entertaining night of watching Mets baseball. Went out at 9 or so after first rain delay, came home after 12 and to my amazement Met game was still on. Stayed up for whole game, could not believe what I was witnessing. At 12:30 though switched to Friday Night Videos to watch Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A video. Very happy to see my two joys in life at the time.

I was 12 years old and keeping score of this game in my bedroom. I think I ended up going to bed at 4AM, which is very late for a 12 year old. Each 4th of July I look up this game to re-hash the memories. Today I am a die hard Phillies fan, but I still have a place in my heart for the Mets of the mid 80s. Who could forget Rick Camp hitting a HR to tie the game? I wish I still had the score book for this game, but that's long gone. This game though still lives on as the longest game I watched and kept score of.

Games like this are what makes being a Mets fan special.

I remember this game. I was living in Boston and came home from a daylong party (it was the 4th) and fell asleep watching this game. I woke up around 3:00 AM, saw the Mets playing the Braves and thought I was watching Sports Center coverage of the game. I suddenly realized that I was watching the actual game! I thought to myself "what the hell did I miss?!?!"

While I was not alive for this game, upon listening to the Mets broadcast tonight of their rain-delayed game in Atlanta, Gary Keith and Ron started talking about this game. I had never heard that much about it, so I did some research, and realized how crazy this game was! It really must have been a thrill to see live!

Too many memories of this one to condense here, but as I recall Hernandez was not having a good season and this game propelled him to a great second half. Also, when the Mets went down a run in the 8th, you just knew they were going to score in the 9th. The Camp HR was incredible as was Heep's exasperated reaction. I was actually rooting for Camp to hit another one when he ended the game, just not wanting the game to end; who knew what might be coming around the next corner?

Finally, looking at the box score I forgot about the 2-run 13th inning -- I wonder what the record is for most different extra innings scored in, in one game? This one has to be close with three, or six, depending how you look at it.

I was born in 1973. My Grandmother, who lived in Tucker, GA, took me and my cousin Tim to this game. Tim and I were a month apart and this was my first MLB game.

We stayed all the way through the fireworks. We sat through every rain delay and after the last delay, we moved down to left center because I was a HUGE Dale Murphy fan.

I remember the intense waves going on during the game and how the upper deck went one direction and the lower deck went another direction. My poor Grandmother had to drive us back after the fireworks, walking to our car at 4:30 AM and then the drive home. My cousin and I passed out immediately.

To extend this luck even further, my Grandmother went to the 7-6-86 game where Bob Horner hit 4 jacks in one game at Fulton County.

Even though my first MLB game was 19 innings, my next game I attended was a White Sox game at the Old Comiskey and it went extra and then the next game I went was back in Atlanta and it went to extra innings. I also witnessed a 16-14 game between the Braves and Expos and got to see The Murph finally take one yard.

Keep in mind, I grew up in Oklahoma so attending a MLB game was a treat for this young baseball fan. My grandmother passed away 9 years ago and I will always have the memories of this game and many others to put a smile on my face every time I think about how much I miss her.

Rick Camp's home run in the 18th inning off Tom Gorman prolonged this marathon and gave Rusty Staub a rare opportunity to run the bases. Pinch-hitting for Gorman in the top of the 19th, Staub was walked intentionally and stayed in the game since there was nobody left on the Mets bench to serve as a pinch-runner. Rusty moved around from first to third base on Ray Knight's double and later came home on a single by Danny Heep. This was the 1,189th and final run scored by Staub in his career.

I can't imagine what it was like for the 41-year-old Rusty to be baserunning at four o'clock in the morning when he just wasn't doing it anymore.

What a memory... Went to the Meadowlands track with Dad and Tom on this night when I was 17... I was a little bummed that I would miss the game but I knew there would be TVs there showing the game. I watched the first 2 innings on the TV and game was delayed with rain. Listened on the way home and so excited that the game was still on when I got home. My brother Dean, 13 at the time, had the convertible couch opened up to the big tv at the time, watching the game when I got home. Got onto the couch and watched the game with him, amazed at every pitch and at bat. RICK CAMP!!! NO!!!! He fell asleep around 2:45AM and I had to wake him up and give him the happy recap at 4:05AM... It was a childhood memory I will never forget.

This was the latter half of a doubleheader in Atlanta that the people back in New York couldn't watch on television. The game was a makeup of a rainout from the previous day, which neither WWOR nor SportsChannel was supposed to carry since it was scheduled to be shown nationally by NBC. The stubborn attitudes of the two local stations, both of whom refused to take the responsibility of covering the game when it needed to be done, deprived the fans at home of seeing the Mets complete a sweep of the Braves.

This broke the previous Met record for runs scored at Shea in a game which had been 14 on more than one occasion.

This was one fun game to watch, which I did from the field level seats near the Mets' dugout. Darryl Strawberry's first inning grand slam off Steve Bedrosian on a 2-2 pitch from Steve Bedrosian set the tone for a 16-4 win. Darryl also hit a 3-run homer to center field. I remember Dale Murphy's glove falling off his hand as he reached for the ball!

Howard Johnson, Danny Heep and Clint Hurdle contributed four-baggers, too. Five home runs in one game, all by left-handed hitters!

Because of the lopsided score, Dave Johnson put Doug Sisk in to replace Dwight Gooden in the seventh inning. He pitched the final three innings, which was nice to see after the problems he had been experiencing. For about a year, his pitching declined, he lost his job as the righty closer and he was booed by fans. Even though he allowed three runs, it was good to see him finish a game again.

Mets also won the next day 15-10 which was the first time they had scored over 30 runs in two consecutive games.

This game was the first in Mets history in which the team hit all four kinds of home runs. Darryl Strawberry led the way with both a grand slam and a three-run blast, Hojo provided a two-run shot and Danny Heep contributed a solo clout. This cycle of homers was already completed in the fourth inning! Clint Hurdle (who entered later) added another solo homer in the seventh. Also, each member of the Mets’ starting lineup had at least one hit for a game total of eighteen. One of the most productive games the team has ever had.

Funny. The Mets never scored more than 14 runs in a home game through the first 23 years of their existence - and then exceed that in two consecutive home dates. Amazin'.

First time the Mets ever scored over 30 runs in two consecutive games.

I was at this game along with my cousin and late brother. We were pumped because my cousin kept blasting the music of "QUEEN" on his car stereo while going to the game. (Live Aid had happened the previous weekend.) It was the highest scoring Mets game I've ever witnessed in person under blue skies and a rocking crowd.

I took my eight year-old son to the game. We were lucky enough to get Dale Murphy's autograph before the game. In appreciation, my son gave Murphy his own little league baseball card. Murphy was so nice, he said he would keep it in his back pocket during the game and HE DID! We wished him luck and said we hoped he'd hit a homer off Leach...after the Mets were up big. Sure enough in the top of the sixth, he hits one over the center field fence. A real "Babe" moment.

The Mets 10th win in a row. In the 6th inning of this game, Strawberry hit a homer to dead center field (well over 400 feet), and if you look at the replay, he hit it off of one leg. Even McCarver said it was one of the most incredible homers that he's ever seen.

I was in the Army at the time, I was excited over the Mets potential after their 98-64 record in 1985. Traveled from Fort Gordon, which is at Augusta Georgia. Wanted to see Gooden pitch, he won to go to 4-0. Strawberry & Carter homered, and the Mets won their 11th in a row which I'm sure is one of their longest winning streaks. I had a feeling the Mets could win the World Series in 1986. It was the only road Mets game I ever attended, and it seemed like I was the only Mets fan in the stadium, so had to stifle my cheering. The highlight for the Braves is Dale Murphy, who was out for several games with a thumb injury, after jamming it against an outfield fence in a previous game, hit a homer for the Braves only run, I think as a pinch hitter although he may have started the game. Final score was 8-1 Mets.

I attended a night game at Shea in my early teens which was one of the best games I had ever seen played. After reviewing this database, I believe this game occured on the night of May 12th, two days before my 14th birthday. I was brought to Shea by my father, who I rarely got to spend time with. The game was a very well- pitched affair which saw no scoring until the late innings. If I remember correctly, Dale Murphy of the Braves hit a very dangerous looking drive in the ninth, but was thrown out trying to stretch it. This gem energized the crowd who had been simmering all night in expectation of a big play and carried the Mets into their half of the ninth. This is when the game's only run was scored.

JC, thanks for sharing your memories of your first game! According to retrosheet.org, there is no indication of Murphy being thrown out attempting to stretch a hit during the game. In fact, the play-by-play log shows that no Brave was thrown out on the basepaths during the game. Dale Murphy did double in the sixth with one out but was left there after a groundout and a strikeout. Here is the top of the ninth:

BRAVES 9TH: WASHINGTON BATTED FOR HARPER; Washington struck out; Thomas struck out; Virgil walked; Hubbard made an out to right; 0 R, 0 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Braves 0, Mets 0.

The Mets won it in the bottom of the ninth when Ray Knight led off with a double off Paul Assenmacher and Tim Teufel singled him home.

The final brawl game of the year. On NBC, Gary Carter hits a 3 run HR in his 1st AB and a grand slam on his 2nd. Palmer decides to take it out on Straw who charges the mound and that wuss Palmer throws his glove at him! Pretty weak move

Jose Valentin's seven RBIs by the second inning in Mike Pelfrey's debut reminded me of this game. I was there. Not only did Carter and Straw have their moments, but Sid Fernandez did too. He pitched a two hit shutout and won 11-0. He had three hits of his own. It was one of the best Met games I'd ever been at. They were clicking on all cylinders and the stadium was rocking.

Living in PA, this was the first game my dad and I ever saw in Shea. Gary was my favorite player, and seeing that grand slam (second dinger of the day!) was one of the greatest moments of my childhood. I'll never forget how electric the crowd was, and how the upper deck shook like there was an earthquake!

Straw rushing the mound somehow added to the raucous excitement level, and it felt like the stands could burst at any moment.

This was truely one of the greatest days my father and I ever had.

The only Met game I attended where the weather was pretty bad, a lot of drizzle and wind. Yet they did not call the game.

It was Old Timer's Day, Mets alum vs Brooklyn Dodger alum, I was surprised they played three innings considering the weather.

As for the game, Mets just steam-rolled the Braves, without hitting any home runs. I remember Dykstra scoring a lot!

I need to find a video of this game, NBC game of the week. I caught two foul balls during the game. Vin and Joe were talking about me. If anyone out there knows how to obtain this please let me know. I am now 44 and would like to share this memory with my children. Backman hit both balls.

Dykstra hit a homer, a triple and threw out a runner at home plate in this game. Providing all of the offense and defense that Darling would need in his shutout. At this point in this season during June and especially July, Dykstra was playing better than anyone in the National League. He would go on to slump badly in August, but obviously rebound come October.

This was Rusty Staub Day. Several Mets gathered at home plate wearing red wigs to honor the man of the hour, Le Grand Orange.

Me a southern kid from N FLA went to this game. My uncle scalped tix and I was floored at how much they were. I remember Ron Darling pitching great but most of all Lenny Dykstra hitting that Homer in RCF and the blue derby going up! I was hooked and have been a Mets fan since especially after we won the WS. I think Dykstra hit another extra basehit in the game and threw someone out at the plate.

I drove down to this game from the Indianapolis area to see the Mets and visit a buddy and his wife living in the area and for some r&r.

My friends weren't baseball fans but were willing to join me in my celebration of this glorious season the Mets were having. These three games with Atlanta would be the only opportunities I had to see the Mets this entire World Championship season.

This was to have been a Friday night game, but it was rained out. So, I got to see a double header, my first ever.

My friends were going to act as Braves fans simply to give me a hard time. Instead they ended up consoling me. The Mets looked like the 1983 Mets or something! Keith Hernandez said after the double header it was the worse the Mets had played all season!

Just the luck of a Hoosier-born Mets fan, I guess.

The Mets salvaged my vacation by winning the third of the three-game series (after dropping both ends of a double header the night before).

They hit three consecutive homers to blow the game open, I think in the top of the 5th.

They didn't hit three consecutive homers again until 1988(?) in Cincinnati. It was the Sunday afternoon after the infamous Dave Pallone-Pete Rose night game. I was fortunate enough to be at those two games, too.

My first baseball game. I was a huge Met fan but grew up in the South. My favorite player was Gary Carter. Great memory: back to back to back!

Back to back home runs by Strawberry and McReynolds in the fourth. I found cigarettes in the soda I bought at an upper deck concession stand and had a terrible physical reaction to say the least.

The first NBC game of the season, and the Mets debut of David Cone, who pitched 3 innings and got the loss in his first game with the team. A tough 9th inning defeat to a poor Braves team, which would happen a few more times during the 1987 season, a forgotten reason why the Mets didn't repeat as division champs.

This was the game in which Dion James killed a pigeon with a fly ball. He hit it toward McReynolds in left, who lined up for the catch, but watched in disbelief as the ball struck the bird and, both bird and ball plopped in front of him. It was a bad sign for Ojeda and the Mets, who went on to get pounded with Sisk (who else) taking the brunt of it.

Rafael Santana carried the deceased bird off the field.

I watched this game on TV. There was a lot of doom and gloom in my family life at the time, and I remember this particular day was gloomy grey day. I usually like overcast days, but on this day, we had to go to some party, so I couldn't watch the game at home; I had to watch it in some strange house (at least they had the game on).

I still remember the mortally wounded bird clearly, and thinking it was really awful, especially to me because I liked all animals. And they showed it on TV, the bird dangling from Rafael Santana's hand! All these years I thought Mookie carried off the fallen bird until I read the previous post.

Now get this: This game was their 5th game of the 1987 season, which means it was Kevin McReynolds first few games as the Mets' left-fielder. On that play, McReynolds, a big duck hunter, lines up to catch a baseball but the ball hits and kills a dove instead. McReynolds must have been loving that moment! I'm surprised he didn't take a knife out gut it right there on the field. He could have asked Rafael for it later in the clubhouse, who knows?

So on top of my personal family issues and the gloomy weather, the Mets lost 12-4 and as Kevin Walsh mentioned in 2002, the bird strike was truly a bad sign for the Mets. I chalk it up to Kevin McReynolds' karma with birds. I always remember this game was another gloomy wake up call that things could (and would) go the other way than they had in 1986.

This game was posted on YouTube 11 days ago, and it's the TBS broadcast. The picture quality is more 1977 than 1987, but it's worth a watch, just for Skip Caray's line:

"I don't know if Dion James plays golf or not, but he already has a birdie on the day."

After his classic joke, Skip Caray mentioned that they had a Vegas bookie generate the odds of a bird getting hit by a batted ball, and it was one in six million. There were other bird-related jokes as well.

The Mets were 3-1 at the beginning of this game. I WAS going to say this game was the beginning of the downfall of the dynasty, but the Mets were still in first place at the end of this game and they stayed in first place until Jesse Orosco's meltdown against the Cardinals. Tom Herr. No need to say more. I know I watched that game on TV, but I have blocked out all memories of that game. I always hated watching Mets games at Busch Stadium because I hated every one of the Cardinals players. Especially Tom Herr.

On the other hand, my young mind thought the 1987 Braves would be a pushover just like the 1986 Braves, but not so. Thanks to a pigeon (it was not a dove of peace as I had thought all these years, just a plain New York City pigeon) and Dion James, this game is one of the few Mets games that I remember from the 1987 season.

First Dion James. Then Tom Herr. Then Tim Raines. And the cherry on top, Terry Pendleton. 1987 was a doozy for a kid who thought the Mets would win the World Series every year.

A nationally televised NBC game of the week. Bobby Ojeda left the game with an elbow injury and would miss 4 full months. One of the true signs that 1987 would not be like the year before it.

The Braves complete the -game sweep of the Mets, winning each game by a single run. One of those series that you look back on at year's end with frustration since the season was decided by just a couple of games. Especially since the Mets of that era handled the lowly Braves with relative ease most of the time.

This was my first Mets game at Shea...I was 6.5 years old, Doc Gooden was on the mound, and Strawberry homered. At least that's what my brothers told me. I was too pre-occupied with the sno-cone and ice cream my father bought for me to notice.

This is the first game I ever watched at Shea, in fact the first baseball game ever. I was a big Gary Carter fan but he didn't play that day.

It was a day game and I was 12 years old sitting in the upper deck. I'm talkin cheaper than cheap seats. It was a summer camp field trip.

Ended up moving to California a few years later and didn't go back to Shea until 2004.

Keith Hernandez had his first two homers of the 1988 season in this game. The first came off Tom Glavine in the fifth inning, and the second was a grand slam off Charlie Puleo in the eighth. Keith had seven RBIs in the game, including the 1,000th of his career.

Gary Carter also homered in this game off Glavine. That gave Gary seven homers on the young season and 298 for his career. He would hit number 299 three weeks later but then would go homerless for 225 at bats (almost three months) before hitting number 300. After hitting seven homers in the team's first eighteen games, Gary finished the season with just 11 home runs.

Dwight Gooden struggled early, giving up four runs and six hits through the first four innings. but he settled down and wound up with a complete game ten-hitter, and improved his record to 5-0.

Cone's first start of the season, filling in for a injured Rick Aguliera. He pitched a shutout and never looked back. The start of the best season of his career.

The Mets went into first place on this night and would never lose their grip.

A McReynolds bloop double in the 8th gave Edwin Nunez the only win of his very brief Mets career in this game.

I went to this game with my family, I was 17 years old. Mookie Wilson collected his 1000th hit that night.

Dwight Gooden also got his 1000 strikeout that night.

Before he would actually hit his 300th homer a few weeks later in Chicago, Gary Carter would hit a bomb on this day that went just a few inches foul. Everyone thought it was the moment they waited for since April.

The Mets completed a pretty easy double header sweep of the lowly Braves later that night.

One of the last games I ever attended at Shea. The Mets were good, and were up against the awful Atlanta Braves, who were throwing out somebody who was making his MLB debut.

Thing is, this somebody was GOOD. Very good. His name was John Smoltz, and he totally shut down the Mets. One run on 4 hits, and the Braves won 6-1. Many fans around me had no idea what they were watching. One yahoo kept shouting, "this guy's got NOTHING!!! Why can't we hit him?" Too bad he didn't appreciate what he saw.

Was at this game sitting in Field Box on 1B side as it was Old Timers day and Tom Seaver weekend. Saw all the retired players play a pick up game against each other as everyone was excited of Seaver getting his #41 retired the next day.

We all knew Seaver was on his way to Cooperstown but little did anyone know this day we would see the debut of someone else now headed to Cooperstown-John Smoltz. Before this game me and no one else I knew ever heard of Smoltz. Well we all knew him by the end of the game. Just shut the Mets down completely and struck out Strawberry for his 1st of 3000+ career strikeouts. This was a statement from Smoltz that he has arrived on the MLB level in a big way and will be known and he now is and will now be joining Seaver in Cooperstown someday. This certainly was the beginning of the big turnaround for the Braves as they were the joke of the NL for many years at the time. I can say I saw some history on this day.

This was Tom Seaver Day at Shea. It was also the major league debut of John Smoltz.

Smoltz actually made his debut the day before, July 23, and (as so many rookies have done over the years) pitched a masterpiece against the Mets!

This day was certainly very special. I still have it on video and I remember Seaver in his suit and tie, making his speech and then jogging to the mound and bowing to all corners of the crowd at Shea. It brought tears to my eyes. I was 15 when the Mets won in 1969 and Seaver and Joe Namath were--and still are--my all time sports heroes!

I was at this game and it was the only time I ever saw a player get his number retired in person. The weather was not the greatest (cloudy with a hint of rain) but the ceremony was picture perfect and I remember at the time there was a big stink that the ceremony and the game was NOT on Channel 9 but on Sportschannel and that NOT everybody would be able to see it. Two great home run hitters belted round-trippers that day (Straw and Dale Murphy). The Mets lost that day, 4-2.

I got tickets for this game before the season began because it was the day the Mets retired Seaver's number.

It was by far the worst seats I ever had for a Met game and practically the worst seat you can possibly have:

Upper Deck Section 47, second to last row on the far aisle.

Basically, there were about two people in the ballpark who had worse seats for that game.

Plus the Mets lost 4-2.

Was Seaver day at Shea. What a great memory, one that I'll never forget.

I remember getting a poster of Tom Terrific that was given to fans as they entered the ball park which I still have.

I was there. Seaver was my sports hero. Great time.

I was there as well.

Yesterday would have been Tom’s 80th birthday, and I watched on YouTube the ceremony with Suzyn Waldman’s beautiful musical tribute sung to the tune of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” plus Tom’s speech and wonderful bowing on the mound.

It was striking to see his old teammates, many of whom have died, still so vibrant and youthful. It brought me to tears all over again.

This was a big night for Bob Ojeda. He pitched seven and two-thirds scoreless innings before the Braves got a run in the eighth. Ojeda even hit a pair of singles and scored a run in the game. The win for Bob was his first one after that freak accident with a hedge clipper the previous year.

The game was also a milestone for the Mets. It was the 2,000th regular season win in team history.

Sid Fernandez struck out 16 in this game, and maybe more amazingly, did not walk anyone. But his record fell to 7-3 when Lonnie Smith led off the bottom of the ninth with a home run.

Sid struck out everyone in the Atlanta lineup at least once. In fact, Smith had struck out in all three of his previous at bats in this game. Oddibe McDowell also was a K victim three times.

Mets fans (or Braves for that matter) may find this funny or bizarre. I needed to make a "party tape" of music for a Summer get together I was having.

Well, instead of recording tunes to a cassette tape, I decided to record a 3 hour continuous mix of music to a Betamax (remember those VCR days!) tape.

However, even though I was only going to play the audio, I needed a video control track to stabilize the recording.

Well, the Mets at the Braves on July 14th 1989 was a good video source as any. I recorded that game on SuperStation TBS as the video source.

It is funny to watch because it is essentially a 3 hour music video baseball game. The big, round eye glasses of the day are a real hoot to watch in 2007!

Lonnie Smith's top-of-the-ninth solo shot to win it for the Braves 3-2 was even set to music.

Looking back, it is a visual study in baseball anthropology.

The biggest crowd of the season of 49,122 attended this Saturday night game. It was such a big crowd partly because the Mets had won four in a row and were only three games out of first, but mostly because it was RC Cola Sports bag night. I had one of those in the late '80s and early '90s, which is the only reason I know I was there that night. The Mets also had an RC Cola Sports Bag night in 1988, but I checked the box scores, and I'm sure that this was the game where I got the RC Cola Mets sports bag.

There is no recording of this one on YouTube, but I found a few highlights which jogged my memory, mainly the fact that Gregg Jefferies had his breakout night for 1989, going 3-4 with a home run, falling only a single short of the cycle. Gregg was one of my favorite players in 1989 so I'm sure I felt like his good luck charm while I was cheering his second-inning home run.

In 1989, Gregg finished third in the Rookie of the Year balloting, and most Mets fans consider his season a disappointment, but what I didn't realize until now is that in the first half, he had 1 HR, 27 RBI, a .230 BA, and .602 OPS. Then in the second half he had 11 HR, 29 RBI, a .287 BA, and .815 OPS (including 8 HR in September). If he had put two of those second halves together, he would have trounced Jerome Walton for the ROY and more importantly, the Mets would have won the division.

Back to this one. In the top of the 8th inning, Rick Aguilera relieved Don Aase to hold a 5-2 lead with two men on base. Five pitches into his outing, he gave up a blast to Dale Murphy. There is no highlight of this, but I'm sure that when he got his only out to end the inning, the crowd (including me) heartily booed the bearded Aguilera off the mound. I was a great booer in my youth and Aguilera was never one of my favorites.

In the bottom of the 8th, Gregg Jefferies lined out in his bid for a cycle, but hits by Phil Lombardi, Kevin Elster, and a pinch hit by Lee Mazzilli rallied the Mets to retake the lead, then a fielder's choice off the bat of Juan Samuel gave the Mets a 7-5 lead.

In the ninth inning, Randy Myers (my favorite Mets pitcher) sealed the win for his 15th save, bringing his ERA to 1.44 and the Mets within three games behind first place Montreal.

Therefore, Rick Aguilera had another one of his patented 'Rick Aguilera wins', which means he gives up a bomb that blows the game, but then a Mets rally gives him the win.

Fittingly, this was Aguilera's last win as a Met. For the rest of July he went 0-3 with a 6.43 ERA (with the Mets losing seven in a row for good measure) before they shipped him off to Minnesota.  

Mike Marshall drove in the winning run in the bottom of the 9th with a single up the middle. It was the only positive thing he did during his six months in New York.

Further to an earlier post on this game, Mike Marshall did indeed drive in the game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth, but it came on an infield out. With the bases loaded and one out, Marshall grounded one up the middle that was snagged by Braves SS Jeff Blauser, who threw to 2B Jeff Treadway for the force play, but there was no time to double Marshall at first, and Mark Carreon scored the winning run.

I dont remember the specifics. But I know this was the game where Cone got into an arguement with the 1st base umpire and let 2 runs score because he wouldnt stop arguing.

Braves LHP Derek Lilliquist picked up his first win of the season in this game and also became the first pitcher in five seasons to hit two home runs in one game.

Both of Lilliquist's homers came off Ron Darling. He homered leading off the third and the fifth innings.

Darren Reed made his ML debut in this game and struck out as a pinch-hitter.

The big blow in this game was Darryl Strawberry's 3-run homer in the top of the 7th, which put the Mets ahead 8-7. John Franco gave up a homer to Ron Gant in the bottom of the 9th to make it 9- 8. This was a really exciting win.

The all-star break could not have come at a worse time after this game. With this win...I believe the Mets completed a stretch of 27-5 baseball, quite possibly the best any Mets team has played for a period of about a month in team history.

You're pretty close, Michael. Since losing three in a row and then winning vs. Montreal on June 5, the Mets went 26-5 between that win and this win. That took them from 4th place in the NL East and 8.5 games out of first to 2nd place and just a half game back. Despite getting so close to first, they actually wouldn't overtake the Pirates until July 27. Unfortunately, they pretty much played .500 ball after the All-Star break and saw this hot stretch go to waste.

Outdueling an unusually effective Marty Clary, Viola picked up win #13 here, tying him with Oakland's Bob Welch for most during the first half of 1990. Only Tom Seaver tallied more first-half wins in a season than Viola in Mets history, notching 14 twice. Of note, Viola needed just 3 pitches to retire the Braves in the fifth inning of this game. And despite starting the Mets' last game before the break, Viola still pitched in the All-Star Game, though he didn't start it (that honor went to Cincinnati's Jack Armstrong). Viola, as well as John Franco, each tossed a scoreless inning, though the NL still lost 2-0, getting 2-hit.

Speaking of Franco, he did something here he only did 15 times as a member of the Mets -- get an at-bat. He bounced out to short in the 9th, then tightroped his way around a pair of walks to record his 17th save. In 14 seasons with the Mets, Franco went 0-for-15 at the plate with 9 strikeouts.

As a final note, it was absolutely awesome to hear Bob Murphy on the WWOR telecast. He had such a great delivery and cadence calling a ball game, I forgot how enjoyable it was to listen to him. Too bad there weren't any home runs in the game, I would have loved to hear one of his signature "there it goes" calls.

El Sid stikes out seven in a row to claim the Met record by a lefty, and second to Tom Seaver's ten-in-a-row for all Met pitchers.

The Braves scored three runs in this game, one on a passed ball, one on a wild pitch, and one on a sac fly.

The 3-2 victory gave Atlanta one win in this four game series at Shea, and the Braves dropped their fourth series in a row. The next time the Atlanta Braves lost four straight series was in May of 2004!!

A game played in and out of rain all afternoon and the Mets offense could do little to nothing off Glavine and the Braves all day. A minor blip at the time as the Mets were playing fantastic baseball.

This was the Mets only win at home against the NL champion Braves in all of 1991. They lost 2 out of 3 in this series and got swept in a 3-game series in September. They barely got enough to win here, a McReynolds 2-run homer their only offense. It was his first home run at Shea since September 11 of the previous year. The Mets managed just two base runners outside of their 2-run fourth inning, as the offense continued their struggles.

Luckily Viola was up to the task. He took a perfect game all the way into the 6th inning when Rafael Belliard reached on a wild pitch after swinging at strike three with one out. He scored two batters later when Ron Gant singled to end the no-hitter. Viola put two runners on in both the 7th and 8th but got out of danger both times, then started the 9th but exited after the game was delayed almost an hour by rain. Franco got the last two outs to seal the win. Not counting the rain delay, this was the quickest Mets game of the 1991 season, clocking in at 1 hour and 53 minutes.

I also noticed for the first time that Rick Cerone didn't wear a batting helmet with ear flaps. I don't know how that thing stayed on his head.

Atlanta LHP Steve Avery shuts down the Mets at Shea, and to top it off, he goes 4-for-4 with three singles and a triple.

Avery was not a bad hitting pitcher through his career. He finished with 14 doubles, 4 triples, 4 homers, and 32 RBIs in 437 at bats.

A stunning thing happened in the top of the fourth inning of this game. With one out, Mark Lemke laid down a perfect bunt on which Sid Bream raced from third base for the plate. Ron Darling moved quickly off the mound and got the ball to catcher Rick Cerone for an out on Bream. The Braves had executed a squeeze play the right way, but were still denied a run thanks to Darling's and Cerone's fast reactions. It was the only time I can remember a runner being thrown out at home in that fashion.

The Mets take a fast 2-0 lead in the first but only muster two hits the rest of the game, squandering a solid performance from Whitehurst. His only mistakes are a two-out RBI seeing-eye single to Otis Nixon in the third, and a two-run homer to Sid Bream in the fourth.

You could tell the Mets' frustrations were reaching a boiling point with this loss. I looked up some quotes in the archived New York Times game story. Coleman was quite upset that, when he lead off the 8th with a walk, he was then flashed the hit-and-run sign instead of the straight steal sign on the first pitch with Magadan at the plate. He was gunned out, and said, "Why put a hit-and-run on with me on base? The best base-stealer in the world. I don't need no hit-and-run. If I'm straight stealing in that situation, you can't throw me out." Third base coach Mike Cubbage took the blame for getting the signs mixed up. But Harrelson then took umbrage with the lack of offense, saying, "Pete Smith hadn't pitched a whole lot, and he looked like Cy Young against us." Indeed, Smith was coming off shoulder surgery and got his first win in five starts in 1991 here, as well as his first major league win since June 5, 1990.

Swinging for the fences in the 9th, McReynolds flew out to left, HoJo popped out behind the plate, and Brooks popped out to third, although Jeff Blauser caught the ball falling down behind the mound as the wind had really picked up by the later stages of the game. This was also Julio Valera's penultimate appearance with the Mets; it also being his first appearance with the Mets in 1991 and his first relief appearance since pitching for Class A Columbia in 1988. You got the feeling the Mets were holding it together with duct tape and silly string and things were on the brink of unraveling in an ugly way.

Mets were so pathetic at this point in the season that fans at this game were more interested in rooting for Jimmy Connors, who was playing a US Open match across the street at the same time as the game. Unfortunately, Connors suffered the same fate as the Mets this day.

After the Braves tied up this game in the bottom of the 7th, Daryl Boston hit the game-winning HR in the top of the 8th off Juan Berenguer. What seemed like a blowout turned out to be a nail- biter.

Eddie Murray hits his second homer as a Met, and it is the 400th of his career.

David Cone pitches a five-hit shutout, striking out eight, and drives in two runs with a bases-loaded single as the Mets improve to 15-10.

I remember being 12 years old moving to Hinesville, GA from upstate NY with my uncle and we took a tour bus to this game. First time I ever went to a professional sporting event. All I remember is first pitch of the game and Dion smacked a home run!!! Literally first pitch!!! I’ve been a Dion fan ever since!

First game of a twi-night doubleheader that went 14 innings. Looking back on the game, I could've sworn that the Mets won on a Bonilla single.

The Mets lost this game in fourteen innings when Otis Nixon hit a two-out, two-run double off Lee Guetterman.

Bobby Bonilla did have an RBI single in the eighth inning. It drove in the first of four runs that inning as the Mets tied the score 6-6. The Mets had just nine hits in fourteen innings and four of their hits came in the top of the eighth.

This was the game that featured the infamous shoving match between Vince Coleman and Jeff Torborg. Coleman was called out on strikes after failing to check his swing. After much arguing, the ump ran him. Vince kept it up, so Torborg came out of the dugout. Player and manager exchanged shoves, much to the delight of the crowd that was numbed by the otherwise dreary 1992 season. The subsequent NL pennant-winning Braves went on to win the game, 4-1. Another all- too-typical outcome for the era.

Howard, wow-I had forgotten all about the shoving match between two of my least favorite Mets of all time!

After Coleman got booted, he was replaced by Ryan Thompson, who made his major league debut in this game and struck out in his first at bat.

I just watched the highlights from this game. Or, depending on your perspective, lowlights. Coleman was such a clown. He was ejected for the exact same thing 2 days prior vs. Cincinnati in the first inning, and took another very early exit here. Almost like he had no interest in playing and was picking fights just so he could watch the rest of the game from the clubhouse. Making matters worse, he also decided to mix it up with his manager on the field. He was suspended by the Mets for 2 games for his outburst, and then started only 7 more times over the course of the remainder of the season. I know the Mets would trade him the following offseason, but it looked as though his time in New York had already run its course by this point.

After the game when talking to the press, Coleman said something along the lines of "at least I don't have to sleep with him," referring to Torborg's decision to suspend him. Like I said, absolute clown, and an easy pick for anybody's Top 3 list of most hated Mets in history.

I went to this game when I was 9 and a Braves fan. It was my first season as a fan, although I would become a Mets fan before 1994. At this game, my favorite player, Braves catcher Greg Olson, came over to me and gave me one of the balls that he used for batting practice, complete with autograph! He also signed my baseball cap! What a nice person!

The Mets lose to Atlanta in Dallas Green's first game as manager. The Mets were 13-25 (.342) under Jeff Torborg this season and they compiled an 85- 115 record under Torborg in 200 games.

The Mets went 46-78 (.371) under Green for the rest of 1993 and finished the year with 103 losses.

I was invited to this game last minute by two friends of mine. We sat in the upper deck. It was only memorable because of Dwight Gooden's good pitching and GREAT hitting that day. He went 3-3 with a home run to left field. A good shot, too!

Despite all the games I've been to, it remains to this day the only game I've attended live and seen a pitcher hit a home run.

As Anthony stated in his entry on this game, Dwight Gooden excelled both on the mound and at the plate. He pitched eight solid innings with the only Braves run coming on a homer by David Justice. Meanwhile, Dwight had three RBIs with a solo homer and a two-run single. Vince Coleman and Jeff Kent also went deep for the Mets as well.

Gooden's home run was the sixth of his career, tying him with Tom Seaver for the most ever by a Mets pitcher. Dwight would slug his seventh homer forty days later to set a new club mark.

Good well-pitched game. Dave Magadan almost tied the game in the 9th inning but Atlanta's center fielder slid and made a game-saving catch for the Braves. Miss going to Shea, hope to go to Citi Field soon.

Tom Glavine threw a complete game six-hitter to win this game for the Braves. He did not walk or strike out anyone, and threw just 79 pitches in nine innings.

The one Met run came on Darrin Jackson's only home run as a Met.

This was such a typical Tom Glavine mid-1990s performance. He was completely hittable but he had line drives hit right at people, somehow maneuvering through a 79-pitch complete game with no walks or strikeouts by taking advantage of a team that put the first pitch of an at-bat into play 13 times (10 if you don't count sacrifice bunts). No Met had an at-bat lasting over 5 pitches the whole game. According to my research on baseball reference, it's the fewest pitches in a 9-inning complete game ever against the Mets...though accurate pitch counts weren't consistently kept track of until the 1990s, so who really knows. But, only three pitchers have managed to pull off a no-walk, no-strikeout, 9-inning complete game since Glavine: Pedro Astacio in 1994, Joel Pineiro in 2006, and Rick Porcello in 2014. So yeah, it's pretty rare.

As Bob wrote, Darrin Jackson was the only batter to hang a run on Glavine with his lone Met home run. Meanwhile, Saberhagen had a dandy of a game himself, as he only allowed a Sid Bream homer during his 8 innings. The Mets just missed handing him the lead in the top of the 8th, too. Saberhagen himself led off with a single and moved to 2nd on a sac bunt by Coleman. Doug Saunders, playing in just his third career major league game, seemed to give himself up rather than going for the go-ahead hit, as he tapped out weakly to 2B in order to move Saberhagen to third. Murray, up next, worked the count to 2-0 before jumping all over a pitch that landed just a couple feet foul down the left field line. So close! A few pitches later, he flew out to left and that was that.

In the bottom of the 9th, Saberhagen had reached 100 pitches and came out in favor of Eric Hillman, making his second-to-last relief appearance of the season. Jeff Blauser greeted him with a lead-off infield single and was sacrificed to 2nd by Pendleton. Justice then pounded a grounder to first which Murray knocked down but the ball bounced too far away from him to get the out. Even if he fielded it cleanly, I don't think he or Hillman were going to beat Justice to the bag anyway. Here's when I start to question Dallas Green's strategy. Right-hand hitting Ron Gant up next and a double play away from getting out of the inning, he could have intentionally walked Gant to load the bases and face Sid Bream lefty-on-lefty, which the Braves would have countered by going with a righty off the bench. At which point, the Mets could have turned to a righty out of the pen, like Innis or Maddux, and gotten the better matchup. Perhaps the Braves would have pinch hit again and gone with Otis Nixon or some other lefty, but I'd at least force the Braves to have to react to my moves. Or perhaps just bring in a righty to face Gant and take your chances. Instead, Green brings in Franco to intentionally walk Gant (I never like bringing in a pitcher who is then asked to intentionally walk his first batter -- let the pitcher being taken out do that!), and the Braves do what you expect and pinch hit with Hunter for Bream, getting the righty-vs.-lefty matchup. Working the count full, Hunter hits a flyball to center that scores the winning run. Maybe Jackson had a chance to get him out at home, but we'll never know because for some unknown reason Murray cut the ball off near the mound. Who knows why, but it probably didn't matter anyway.

I looked at Franco's numbers in June. He had no saves, two blown saves, and the Mets lost 6 of the 8 games he appeared in. Simply awful.

The Mets last ever appearance on the CBS game of the week (they'd lose baseball for good after 1993) and they beat the Braves in extras during the middle of a heated pennant race between Atlanta and San Francisco. Tito Navarro, who only played a month for the Mets in his career, got his only hit for the team in the 10th inning, a go ahead single to put the Mets ahead for the 3-2 win.

I imagine if the Braves had ended up behind the Giants at season's end, they would have looked at this game as one of those that cost them the most. Losing to the worst team in the league and a player that only his family could pick out of a lineup. But they finished a game ahead of San Fran, and Tito is merely a forgettable footnote in a forgettable season.

Looking back at how this game transpired, it truly might be the most unlikely win in modern Mets history (atleast since 1980). The Braves were up 2-0 with 2 outs and no basesrunners on, in the 9th inning, with Greg Maddux on the mound....against the 1993 Mets, by far the worst team in the league, At Atlanta, with the Braves needing the game to help their playoff hopes. Considering all of those factors, the Mets still made a 9th inning comeback to tie the game, and then Tito Navarro gets his first major league hit to put the Mets ahead in the 10th. A forgotten game by all, but I cannot think of a more unlikely win by any Mets team considering the circumstances

I concur with Michael. Certainly this was an unbelievable, against-all-odds type of win. Even baseball-reference's win probability chart for this game had the Braves at a 99% likelihood of winning when there were 2 outs in the 9th inning. Watching a bunch of the 1993 games back, the only game I can recall that rivals this one was when the Mets scored 4 in the 9th to beat the Phillies at the Vet on May 26, but at least that comeback win featured Bonilla, Tony Fernandez and Vince Coleman. The heroes in this game were Jeff McKnight, Ced Landrum and Tito Navarro. It doesn't get much more unlikely than that.

Nothing was going the Mets way early on, however, as they stranded the bases loaded without scoring in the 1st, then put the first two on base in the 3rd but stranded them too. Murray was called out on a check swing during the inning and was ejected by the home plate umpire from his position at first base in between innings as he continued chirping at the ump, I think upset that he didn't receive help on the call from the third base ump. In the bottom of the inning, after Bobby Jones got the first two batters out, Blauser socked a home run and Gant followed with a single. With McGriff at the plate, Gant tried to steal second and was initially called out even though the ball was knocked loose from McKnight's glove. As everyone was headed off the field, the third base ump overruled the call and, of course, McGriff then blooped a single into left to score Gant. That accounted for all the scoring until the 9th.

Maddux gave up 10 hits, but all but one were singles and he looked like he had a shutout in the bag after striking out Kent and Burnitz to start the 9th. But then McKnight and Landrum singled and Thompson walked, prompting Bobby Cox to take out Maddux and bring in Greg McMichael, who had just blown a save against the Mets the previous night. He quickly got ahead 0-2 on Hundley but Todd battled back and hit a grounder up the middle. Braves 2B Mark Lemke made a nice play getting to the ball and looked like all he had to do was shovel the ball to the SS covering the bag to get the force out and end the game, but he booted the ball and everyone was safe (and the friendly home-field game scorers decided not to charge him with an error). That gave Hundley his 4th hit of the game, and he reached base safely in all five of his plate appearances. Dave Gallagher, playing in place of the ejected Murray, then grounded one to SS that Blauser dove for and kept in the infield, but his throw to second was late, allowing the Mets to tie it up. Orsulak then hit a liner right back at McMichael that he knocked down and threw to first for the last out.

Innis made short work of the Braves in the bottom of the 9th, and Mike Stanton got 2 easy outs to start the 10th. But it was rally time again, as Darrin Jackson got a single pinch-hitting for Burnitz, McKnight also singled, and then Tito Navarro played the hero by greeting new pitcher Steve Bedrosian with a first-pitch single, scoring Jackson with the go-ahead run -- Navarro's only hit and RBI of his ML career. After Thompson struck out, Dallas Green turned to Mauro Gozzo for the save, as Franco was used in the 8th inning and Mike Maddux had pitched 2.1 innings in a losing effort the previous night. Gozzo proceeded to get the Braves out 1-2-3 for his only career save, and was helped out by a spectacular defensive play by Kent, who caught a Ron Gant popup in short RF while diving towards the outfield wall for the first out. Tim McCarver called it the best play he's seen Kent make to this point in his career, and he probably wasn't wrong.

It's almost like the NL West Champion Braves were beat by the Mets AAA team on this day, considering the players. Like Michael alluded to, the Giants were hot on the Braves' heels for the NL West pennant and, though the Braves won it by a game, it's a shame both teams couldn't make the playoffs, as they both won over 100 games. That was all about to change with realignment in 1994, however, which would move the Braves into the NL East with the Mets and start a rivalry that still burns hot today.

This game is imortalized in the 5/23/1994 cover of Sports Illustrated. John Cangelosi gets hit by John Smoltz twice and obviously charged the mound.

Cangelosi "backs" into the cover shot to attack an unseen Smoltz with ex-Met Charlie O'Brien pouncing upon him and Terry Pendelton joining the fray.

I was at this game. Anytime anyone brings up what a nice, sweet guy John Smoltz is, I bring up this game. Great brawl. I had field level seats along left field and was shouting at Steve Bedrosian as he was "running" from the bullpen, then gasping back. He pointed back at me...I was praying that he'd come towards me.

That's the only brawlgame I've ever been to.

I was at this game. I believe Cangelosi was hit right after the grand slam by Ryan Thompson. I was waiting on line at the concession stand behind home plate so I got a nice birds eye view.

If ever there was a player the Mets could have called a "sparkplug," it would be John Cangelosi. Hit on the foot by a curveball in an obvious accident his previous at-bat, Cangelosi is then plunked by just as obvious of a purpose pitch following Ryan Thompson's grand slam in the 5th inning. But little Johnny wasn't about to just take one between the numbers and claim his base, as he instead charged the mound and sparked a brawl that was mainly just shirt clutching and shouting after Smoltz and O'Brien got their licks in on Cangelosi. The pitcher and batter were the only 2 players ejected, and no one else was even close to getting plunked the rest of the game. You really have to figure, down 7-0 at the time, that Smoltz, who was set to lead off in the top of the 6th, knew he was going to be pinch-hit for and decided to let some frustration out before he hit the showers. If there's one thing I can say on his behalf, at least he didn't go head-hunting, instead hitting Cangelosi square in the back. As Met fans, it wouldn't be fair to get on Smoltz for doing the exact same thing Gooden did plenty of times during his career as well.

Thompson's grand slam was the only one of his career, as well as the only one the Mets would ever hit against Smoltz. It was quite unexpected considering Ryan had struck out on 3 pitches in each of his first 2 at-bats, and got down 0-2 in his grand slam at-bat. He somehow stayed alive by nicking a foul tip on pitch 3 and took a ball up and in on pitch 4 before socking a curveball to the back of the LF bullpen. Oddly enough, Thompson finished his career 2-for-11 vs. Smoltz, with both hits being home runs.

Speaking of odd, Ryan Klesko had quite the adventurous day. With two outs and a runner on 3rd in the 3rd inning, Todd Hundley lifted a weak fly to LF that should have ended the inning. Instead, for some reason Klesko decided to flip his sunglasses from down to up, then proceeded to lose the ball in the sun and drop it for a run-scoring error. On the very next pitch, Joe Orsulak hit a single to left that Klesko then airmailed to the backstop even though he had no chance of getting Hundley at the plate for his second error of the inning. Then Bonilla lifted another flyball to LF that Klesko again lost in the sun, then slipped and fell as the ball landed in the grass for an RBI double. I wonder if Smoltz would have rather thrown at Klesko instead of Cangelosi if he had the chance. Klesko somewhat made up for his miscues by slugging a no-doubter of a home run (his first of 16 career HRs vs. the Mets) in the 8th off the very ineffective Doug Linton. That made the score 8-4, and Fred McGriff and David Justice each reached base after that as the Braves looked poised for a rally. But Roger Mason came on and did yeoman's work, getting Mark Lemke to flyout to the warning track, O'Brien to strikeout and pinch-hitter Javy Lopez to groundout to end the threat. For O'Brien, it was his first ever game facing his former team. The Braves also featured fellow former Mets Bill Pecota and Dave Gallagher ... why they wanted so many players from the lowly 1992-93 Mets era is beyond me.

This was also my first extended look at Mauro Gozzo, and I liked what I saw. He worked fast, threw strikes and seemed to have good stuff. Unfortunately, the good times didn't last, as he'd hold a 6.20 ERA over his next 5 starts (the Mets losing each of those games) and he'd be permanently moved to the bullpen after that.

1:42 start got to Shea at 10:50 A.m. 11:20 bp 12:45 bp ends at 1:20 1:42 action! 2:51 homer 4:33 end of game And so its Alanta 5:33 home we lost next game few weeks

One of the Mets more exciting victories of the year, in the season's final homestand as it turned out. Jose Vizcaino won this game with a pinch hit single into right center field, as the Mets scored 2 in the 9th. They beat up future Met Greg McMichael badly.

Chipper Jones' HR in the top of the 9th won the game an inning after Jeff Kent's HR tied the score at 2.

Larry's HR off of Manzanillo in the 9th was not only the game winner, but it was his first Major League HR. And, of course, only the beginning of the lifetime of misery he would bring to all Mets fans, and the reason he named his daughter Shea.

Shea is Larry's son, not daughter. But yes, this was indeed the day Larry hit his first major league homer.

I was not aware prior to watching this game that Chipper's first career home run came against the Mets at Shea, but I should have guessed it. His first of 468 longballs during his Hall of Fame career was a no-doubt line drive to right field. As soon as he hit it, I just hung my head and knew -- as Mets2Moon so eloquently put it -- the misery was just beginning.

His home run was extra clutch too, considering Kent had tied the game with his own dinger just minutes earlier. His homer was the first Braves reliever Greg McMichael gave up to a right-hand hitter in 2 years. The Mets even had a chance to tie things up again in the 9th when Todd Hundley was grazed by a pitch on the leg to lead off and pinch-runner Tim Bogar was sacrificed to 2nd by Carl Everett. But, in what I thought was an odd decision, Dallas Green let light-hitting rookie Ricky Otero bat instead of turning to David Segui or Joe Orsulak as a pinch-hitter. Otero flew out weakly to left, and then Segui pinch-hit for Manzanillo and flew out to center to end the game. Rookie Brad Clontz worked the 9th for Atlanta to already earn his 4th save of the season ... and oddly enough, it ended up being his last save of the season.

Speaking of misery, the Braves scored their other 2 runs on a 2nd-inning 2-run shot by former Met catcher Charlie O'Brien, which was the only homer he'd ever hit against the Mets. Though it was his only hit of the game, he actually hit the ball hard in each of his 3 at-bats, seemingly playing with a little extra intensity due to facing his former mates.

The replay of the game I watched was from the TBS broadcast, and Skip Caray and Don Sutton were in peak form. Skip evidently did not enjoy visiting Shea Stadium, and wondered if the Mets were thinking about building a new stadium anytime soon -- and would even chip in $50 to get the ball rolling. Unfortunately, CitiField wouldn't open until 2009 -- one year after Caray passed away. Caray and Don also saw a guy in the stands sporting a very unflattering hairdo, prompting Skip to ask, "Now, what do you call that?" To which Sutton replied, "Hopefully, free." I definitely laughed out loud to that exchange.

It was a cold and wet night at this game. I went with my mom, dad, and grandma. Then rookie Chipper Jones helped stake the Braves to a 2-0 lead with a solo home run. The Mets went into the eighth down 2-1 and rallied to go on to win 5-2. However, the highlight of the rally was when the field sprinklers suddenly started up and delayed the game.

Greg Maddux showed why he was well on his way to his 4th straight Cy Young Award, blanking the Mets over 8 innings to improve to 18-2. Though he may have gotten a beneficial call or two from home plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck, Maddux was still incredibly dominant, allowing just 1 runner to reach third base over his eight innings and going to a 3-ball count to just 4 of the 29 batters he faced. He was even struck by a batted ball twice but remained in the game. As if that wasn't enough, he also went 2-for-3 with 2 doubles and a run scored on offense, with those 2 doubles being the only extra-base hits he'd have all season. He had only one other game in his career in which he'd collect 2 extra-base hits -- which also came against the Mets back when he was with the Cubs in 1992. To lock up the Cy Young Award -- which amazingly would be the last he'd win in his career -- Maddux ended the season allowing just 1 run in 31 innings in September. He was simply incredible.

The same unfortunately couldn't be said for Dave Telgheder, who was making his last ever appearance as a Met. He lasted just 4 innings and was undone by an error by -- of all people -- Rico Brogna, who led the NL in fielding percentage in 1995 and committed just 3 errors all season. In the 3rd, with runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out, Mark Lemke hit a grounder right to Brogna, but Rico wasn't sure if he wanted to try to turn two or just take the out at first, and in his indecisiveness lost concentration and bobbled the ball attempting to transfer it from his glove to his throwing hand. That loaded the bases for Chipper Jones, and we all know Larry never missed an opportunity to make the Mets pay. On this first pitch, Chipper roped a double down the RF line to score 2, and Fred McGriff followed with an RBI groundout. That was all the runs that would be scored this evening, but it was more than enough for Maddux. The game lasted just an hour and 57 minutes, which was the shortest 9-inning game played by the Mets in 1995. A few days later they'd beat the Reds in an hour and 56 minutes, but that game was called after 6 innings.

Mets pulled this season finale out in Shea in 11 innings. The win pulled the Mets into a second place tie in the NL East. Of course, they were 21 games behind the Braves and 6 games under .500. But considering that they were more than 20 games under .500 in early August and that Izzy pitched 8 great innings in this game to finish his half season in the rotation with a 9-2 record, and Met fans had some hope for the future. Sadly, they did not continue their improvement in 1996 and Izzy never panned out with the Mets. It wasn't until 1997 with Bobby V at the helm that things finally turned around.

Terrific game on a beautiful afternoon. We went without tickets planning to buy them at the park, but a man saw me on line with my two year old son and handed me tickets (field level box seats!) and wouldn't take any money. The only problem for us that day was that there was no food being sold because it was the last game of a long season and even the vendors had given up.

I remember this one well. A beautiful afternoon to end the season. Izzy continued his great pitching and the Mets put a nice touch on the end of their season. It's forgotten now but the 95 Mets were actually a decent team, especially in the second half.

I'm shocked that vendors didn't sell any food & drink. That's truly unprofessional in my opinion. If I was there, I would make a big stink about it.

The Mets offense finally breaks out of its slump in doubling up the defending champion Braves, 12-6. The Mets had averaged just 2.5 runs per game over their last 15 (going 6-9 over that span), so this was a long time coming. They took advantage of a young Jason Schmidt, who was making his first start with Atlanta since being sent to the minors back in April. Though he apparently threw a 1-hitter in his last start in the minors, he still looked like a lost cause during his return, giving up a long 3-run homer to Todd Hundley in the 1st and ultimately allowing 7 runs over just 3.2 innings.

On the other side, Paul Wilson wasn't great but was good enough to get the win. It looked like he was in line for a quick hook, too, as after the Mets took a 6-2 lead in the top of the 3rd, Wilson promptly walked the first two batters he faced in the bottom half of the inning, with Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff and Ryan Klesko up next. That normally spelled disaster, but Wilson buckled down and struck out Chipper, Klesko and Javy Lopez, with a McGriff RBI single sandwiched in. Still, he only gave up 1 run before escaping the jam, which was quite the accomplishment. For some reason, even after Wilson had reached 98 pitches over 6 innings and the Mets up comfortably, 12-4, Dallas Green still let his pitcher hit to lead off the 7th, and then let him go another 6 batters before finally taking him out. Maybe that didn't seem like a big deal at the time, but in retrospect this would be Wilson's last start for over a month as he'd land on the DL with shoulder tendinitis, so the extra unnecessary workload certainly couldn't have helped.

The 12 runs the Mets scored were the most they had vs. Atlanta since a 13-4 win back in April of 1988. These types of lopsided wins over the Braves were quite uncommon during this era, for sure.

My first Mets game ever. Sat in a sky box.

At one point (I forget which inning), Steve Avery on the mound, hits Jose Vizcaino on the leg, his bad leg, on which he had a very well-publicized injury. The Mets cried foul. Nothing happens.

Bottom of the same inning, Steve Avery leads off, and Bobby Jones throws two pitches right at his head. Home plate ump comes out to warn the pitcher, and then Dallas Green comes out to argue a bit with the umpire. As Green starts to walk back to the dugout, Avery makes a smart-ass comment about Green in front of Todd Hundley. Hundley then gets in Avery's face and chest-bumps him. BENCHES CLEAR. BULLPENS CLEAR. Everyone is pushing and shoving...no punches thrown, just a big scuffle....

Mets win 8-3

I have to think Matt's view from the sky box wasn't too good, as things didn't play out exactly as he described.

Everything stemmed from Hundley's 3-run homer in the 3rd inning. Vizcaino was on 2nd base and celebrated like Hundley just won the game, drawing the ire of Avery. So next time up, Vizcaino gets plunked right behind the knee, and has to come out of the game and misses the next 2 contests. Avery leads off the top of the 5th and the umpire gave Jones two chances for retaliation, but he fails to get the job done on a couple of inside pitches -- which certainly weren't anywhere close to Avery's head, like Matt wrote. At this point the umpire has to issue warnings, bringing Green out to argue. After he's done he says something to Avery, Avery says something back, and then Hundley gets involved, shoving Avery before the umpire and on-deck-batter Marquis Grissom come in to pry Hundley away. After that, mostly just jawing and waist holding until the game gets back underway.

The cherry on top was that Avery then bangs one to dead center that Lance Johnson can't reel in at the wall, but Avery lollygagged around the bases and only settled for a double in what could have been a possible inside-the-park home run. Avery then winds up being one of 13 runners the Braves leave on base, as Jones danced in and out of trouble all night. In fact, he set the Mets record in this game by allowing the most hits without giving up a run. His final line was 7.1 innings pitched, 12 hits, no runs. No other pitcher in team history has allowed more hits while allowing no runs.

Though Hundley didn't get to punch out Avery, he sure socked it to him at the plate. He went 4-for-4 with 2 dingers, with the one he hit in the 3rd a 440-foot tape-measure shot over the visitors bullpen. Probably one of the longest he ever hit right-handed. Incredibly, though this was Avery's 18th career start vs. the Mets, that was only the 2nd home run he ever allowed against them. The only other one was hit by Howard Johnson in 1991. This was Avery's first loss against the Mets since 1991 as well.

This was a back-and-forth game that also featured the spinklers coming on during the middle of an inning, which brought laughs from players and the crowd. Rey Ordonez made a beautiful game saving catch in extras, diving for a pop fly with the bases loaded, down the left field line. Unfortunately, it ended up a small footnote as the Braves eventually pushed a run across in the 13th to go ahead and win it. But a fun game to watch, regardless.

I covered this game for a local newspaper, and at his locker following the game, starting/winning pitcher Mark Clark said, "People back home said (Braves pitcher Greg) Maddux is hard to beat, but hey, look at me, I did it!"

Nice quote, Stu. Clark sure deserved to feel jubilant, considering he set a career high with 9 Ks (though his eventual career high would be 11) and won for the 5th time in 6 starts. This performance legitimized his claim as the Mets ace, as he not only tamed a stacked Braves lineup but also bested Maddux head to head. Maddux was really struggling at the time, too, as he dropped to 5-5 with a 3.35 ERA with this loss -- figures that were unheard of when it came to the Professor.

The Mets really had Tony Graffanino, filling in for the injured Mark Lemke at 2B, to thank for the win. After all, he booted a tailor-made double play grounder off the bat of Edgardo Alfonzo in the 5th that put runners on the corners with no one out instead of bases empty and 2 out. Though the Mets only scored once in the inning, that run proved to be the difference in the end.

Clark was cruising, up 3-1 in the 8th, but had eclipsed 100 pitches and allowed the Braves to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out and Dwight Smith coming up. With Chipper Jones on deck, there was no way the Mets were intentionally walking Smith, and since the teams played 13 innings the previous night (with John Franco tossing a pair), they were sticking with Clark instead of turning to the tired bullpen. Clark got Smith to ground out to first, but a run scored to make it 3-2. Chipper was then given an unintentional intentional walk, as Clark threw 4 straight out of the zone and clearly preferred facing Fred McGriff. Clark was right to think so, as he got the Crime Dog to fly out weakly to left on 1 pitch to end the threat. Franco then worked a scoreless 9th to ensure the Mets won their 4th straight series against the Braves at home.

Derek Wallace struck out four batters in the ninth inning for a save in this game. A passed ball on a third strike allowed Terry Pendleton to reach base at the start of the inning. Wallace followed up with three more strikeouts to bring the game to an end. It was the first four-strikeout inning ever for a Mets pitcher.

A true piece of Mets history: Todd Hundley's 41st HR of the season, putting him in the record books for most HRs in a season by a catcher. The previous record was held by Roy Campanella and the record would once again be broken by Javy Lopes in the 2000's.

Hundley should have been a franchise player with NY. Too bad the Piazza-at-first experiment wasn't tried then.

I have very fond memories of this game. I took my then 9 year old nephew to see his first baseball game. Todd Hundley had been stuck on 40 home runs for about a week and seemed to be getting frustrated. He came up in the 7th with 2 men on and the Mets down 5-2. Bam! Batting lefty, he drilled an opposite field shot over the wall in the left field corner (off of future Met Greg McMichael) to tie the game. I think they played a video on Diamond Vision right after he circled the bases, showing each of his 41 home runs.

The Mets eventually won in the 12th on a Lance Johnson single and we raced back to Staten Island to celebrate my sister's 30th birthday. All in all, a great day.

My nephew became a big New York baseball fan that season, though even the excitement at Shea on that sunny September afternoon couldn't save him from being pulled over to the "Dark Side." Oh well, I still love him.

One of the first "classics" from the Bobby Valentine era. The hapless Mets beat the World Series-bound Braves in 12 innings, with Hundley setting the home run record by a catcher. Like HH mentioned, it would by Javy Lopez -- who was Hundley's counterpart in this very game -- who would eventually break his record with 42 HRs in 2003. Todd's 41 homers also stood as the Mets record until Pete Alonso had 53 in 2019.

It looked like this was shaping up to be another disheartening loss, too, as the Mets trailed 5-0 entering the 7th inning, and had only mustered 3 hits to that point. Steve Avery, making his first start in 2 months and his last against the Mets as a member of the Braves, was very sharp ... but he had hit his pitch-count limit and had come out of the game. In the 7th, with 2 outs and the bases loaded, Bernard Gilkey hit a 2-run double when LF Jermaine Dye had the ball bounce off his glove when he tried to make a diving catch, and then Hundley followed with his clutch home run.

The Mets bullpen, featuring such household names as Mike Fyhrie (making his ML debut), Rick Trlicek and Derek Wallace, held the Braves scoreless over the last 8 innings of the game, helping pick up Mark Clark, who only lasted 3 innings -- his shortest outing of the season. After the Mets loaded the bases with nobody out but failed to score in the 11th, they finally broke through in the 12th. Matt Franco led off with a walk and moved to second on a groundout by Chris Jones. Tim Bogar was then hit by a pitch, and Johnson followed with his game-winning single, which would be his only walk-off hit as a member of the Mets.

I don't agree, though, with HH's statement about moving Piazza to first when Hundley was on the team. If you remember, Hundley had a career-threatening elbow injury in 1998 and was never the same player after that, so making him a franchise player may have been the nice thing to do, but it would not have been prudent at all. Not to mention, John Olerud was the 1B at the time... where are you moving him to put Piazza at 1B? And Mike D., I'm sorry to hear about your nephew. It took a very loyal and devoted Met fan not to be lured to join the Dark Side during this era.

An otherwise meaningless game for both teams, but this day was the occasion of my second Mets game, over six years from the date of my first.

I sat in the mezzanine behind home plate on an overcast, damp afternoon and watched Tom Glavine shut down a lineup littered with guys like Roberto Petagine and Chris Jones. We also got to witness the major-league debut of Mets catcher Charlie Greene.

Nothing all too special about this one, but I'd be back for '97. And '98. And '99. And...

At the end of this generally depressing, of its era contest, my friend and I sat quietly for a moment, giving it a "what a long season it's been" pause.

An usher came by.

"All right, get moving."

I've always wished I'd said, "What do you need the place for? A Bar Mitzvah?"

Well, my story of this game may well top the others...at least from a sad standpoint.

First of all, I originally had tickets for the previous afternoon's game, the Hundley 41st HR/great 12-inning win game. However, it was also Rosh Hashana, and therefore I would not be attending that game. I traded my tickets for that game with a friend who had tickets for this game. Not quite the same, although I ended up with better seats.

But the kicker was, in the days when Chipper Jones was simply the Braves up-and-comer, and not the hated LARRY!, I happened to be seated in the loge, just underneath a box full of female teenage Braves fans. This was what I was subjected to the entire game:

"WOOOO! CHIPPER RULES!"

"I LOVE YOU CHIPPER!!"

"LARRY! YOU'RE THE BEST!"

"CHIPPER IS SOOOOOOO HOT!"

Of course, Chips is enjoying a 3 hit game. However, all the Mets fans in my section have wised up by his 4th AB, and boo long and lustily as he approaches the plate, drawing the ire of the girls, and we cheer even louder after he struck out. At least the girls shut up for a few minutes.

This game was a lot of fun. The Mets for the first time in years looked as if they might have a say in the division race, and rallied to beat the Braves in their final at-bat on a single by Carlos Baerga. It was their second straight win over the Braves and fans showing early symptoms of pennant fever left Shea chanting "sweep! sweep!" I was on a first-date with a Braves fan and was slightly embarrassed to be rubbing it in her face, but I did anyway. Too bad we got killed the next night.

Sat in the field level in left-field, saw Baerga's game-tying homer sail past me... then he had the game-winning single! His best game as a Met. I remember being elated, I had gone to the game the night before as well. My dreams of a sweep were dashed the next day when Bobby Jones was rocked. Luckily I wasn't there for that one.

What a nightmare! Not only was it 95 degrees that day with a heat index of 105 degrees, but Chipper Jones ripped a grand slam and the Mets lost by a touchdown to the Braves. For this we risked heat stroke???

ESPN.com's Jayson Stark reports that Chipper Jones hit two home runs off Bobby Jones in this game. That marked just the second time since 1916 that a player hit more than one homer in a game off a pitcher with the same last name!

Chipper had a solo shot with two outs in the fourth inning to make it 6-3 Atlanta, then hit a grand slam with two outs in the fifth. He finished the day 3-for-3 with two walks, five RBIs, and four runs scored. The Mets scored four in the bottom of the ninth to make the game look closer than it really was.

This game was the first Met game I ever took my nephew to see. He was about 4 years old at the time and I just remember it being the hottest game I ever attended.

I remember there was a buzz in the air because the Mets had just won a bunch of games and they were on the verge of sweeping the Braves for the first time in years. Unfortunately, Chipper Jones had a monster game and the Mets never caught the Braves.

If anyone remembers, this is the game where Todd Pratt lost his bat into the stands 3 different times, once injuring someone. By the 3rd time, in the 8th inning, Atlanta fans were booing Todd very loudly and security had to almost get involved by the Mets dugout and put a stop to a potentially bad situation.

This was Huskey v. Neagle game I referred to. Butch hit 2 homers as the Mets erased a 6-0 deficit. In the 10th, Ochoa pinch-hit a home run so far the outfielders didn't bother looking back. That turned out to be the game-winner and probably, Alex Ochoa's greatest accomplishment as a Met.

This was a great win for a young scrappy team. 97 Mets were a fun bunch. remember this game vividly. Bobby jJones battled his butt off after the 6-run first.

The Mets were certainly earning a reputation for being comeback kids in 1997. After going down 6-0 in the first inning, and with this being the getaway game of a 4-game series, the Mets easily could have packed it in. But Jones went on to throw 6 shutout innings after the 1st, and Ochoa's blast in the 10th gave them their 5th come-from-behind win over the Braves already during the season, and the third of this series alone.

This was a great game to watch and had something of a playoff feel. Granted, the Braves were down several key players due to injury (Javy Lopez, Kenny Lofton, Jeff Blauser) but they still strung 6 hits in a row off Jones in the 1st, including opposing pitcher Denny Neagle's only double of the season that drove in two. But the Mets battled right back. In the 2nd inning, Bernard Gilkey was robbed of a 2-run homer by Andruw Jones, but Huskey followed a batter later by hitting a 2-run shot down the LF line. In the 4th, Huskey went deep again, this time a 3-run dinger that was an absolute moonshot. The Mets tied it an inning later when a John Olerud grounder ate up 2B Mark Lemke, allowing Manny Alexander (making his only start as a Met at 3B) to score from second. That was the last batter Neagle would face, as he wound up with his shortest outing of the season.

Chad Fox and Mike Cather were the next Atlanta pitchers, both making their ML debuts. They combined for 4 shutout innings. Closer Mark Wohlers entered in the 9th and, with 1 out, got Carl Everett to ground one to 1B but Fred McGriff let it get by him, and then Michael Tucker threw the ball back in to nobody, allowing Everett to go all the way to third base. Matt Franco pinch hit for Alexander needing just a sac fly to put the Mets ahead, but he instead hit another grounder to McGriff, who this time fielded cleanly and threw home to get Everett trying to score. Olerud struck out for the third time in the game (his only game with 3 Ks in all of 1997) to end the inning.

Greg McMichael was awesome out of the bullpen for New York, striking out 4 while pitching a scoreless 8th and 9th, setting the stage for Ochoa's heroics. His pinch-hit homer was also a bomb like Huskey's and was his second to last as a member of the Mets. John Franco then danced around a leadoff single by Ryan Klesko, a wild pitch and a walk to get the save. The win gave the Mets their first series victory in Atlanta since 1992, and their first in a 4-game series since 1990.

Credit goes to Bobby Jones for sticking this one out, but I'm sure he was sick of seeing Atlanta in 1997, as he held a 12.34 ERA in 3 starts against them. The unsung hero in this game could be Rey Ordonez, who made three fantastic defensive plays that saved several runs from scoring. In the 4th, with a runner on 2nd, he dove on a Chipper Jones grounder headed for CF and threw him out to end the inning. In the 7th, with runners on 1st and 2nd and 2 down, he leapt and caught an Andruw Jones liner that would have given the Braves the lead. He also made the final out of the game, snaring Tony Graffanino's grounder to his right and wisely throwing out the lead runner at 3B. It all makes up for his 0-for-5 at the plate, and another boneheaded head-first slide into first trying to beat out a groundball.

The prototype for Turner Field heartbreak to come. The Mets (and me) were clinging to that Wild Card fantasy--and really now, with the Marlins as the competition, it could've happened. But all-star pitcher Bobby Jones retired not a single batter--said he couldn't grip the ball in the heat--and like Roto-Rooter, away went playoff hopes down the drain. When the disasters that have undone the Mets in Atlanta are tallied, I'm always curious as to why this two-game set that buried the Mets' first underfunded Wild Card quest is overlooked. It was, in its time, just as bad as the misdeeds of Angel Hernandez, Chipper Jones, Kenny Rogers, John Burkett...heck, you name it, it's been awful.

This was the major league debut of John LeRoy, whom I played with as a teammate, growing up in Bellevue, WA. He got the win in relief for the Braves, never again pitched in the majors, and died of an aneurysm in 2001 at the age of 26.

Nobody has noted that in this game, Rafael Belliard hit a 2-run HR in the 7th inning off of Brian Bohanon. This is quite a notable feat. The last time Rafael Belliard had hit a Home Run previous to this was on May 5, 1987. That is 1987. 10 years and 1,869 at-bats in between HRs. And, of course, it beat the Mets. Simply remarkable.

I just watched this game back (well, most of it, as the video I watched cut off after the 8th inning), but I, too, made notes to write about both John LeRoy and Rafael Belliard. I know it's 20 years after your post, Mario, but I'm sorry for your loss. And to Mets2Moon, Belliard's home run was indeed a notable feat. His dingers against Show and Bohanon were the only two of his Major League career! Although he did hit 4 in the minors and one in the Indys in 1999. A slight correction, however: his HR didn't actually beat the Mets, but instead tied the score at 6-6. But geez, if this doesn't tell you everything about the Braves' fortune during the 1990s. This dude only hits 1 HR for the Braves over 8 years, and it just happens to tie a game during the latter innings of what would be an eventual Atlanta win. It's so infuriating.

There was one other rarity from this game: In the top of the 3rd, with the Braves starters just looking to get their swings in and get the rest of the night off, Brian Bohanon threw a 3-pitch inning, retiring Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff and Andruw Jones in order.

The teams treated this a lot like a spring training game, as the Braves replaced their entire starting lineup (save for Andruw Jones and Tony Graffanino) by the 4th inning, and then saw LeRoy get his first, and only, career win in his only ML appearance, and Kerry Ligtenberg his first ML save. The Mets also went with largely a B team lineup. New manager Carlos Mendoza received his last of 2 starts as a Met, and Roberto Petagine saw his only action in the outfield as a Met, playing the final 5 innings in LF.

Prior to Belliard's heroics, unlikely catalyst Alberto Castillo delivered a big 2-out, 2-run single with the bases loaded in the 6th. Atlanta led off the 8th with a single and a double to put runners on 2nd and 3rd and nobody out, but Greg McMichael came in for Bohanon and was spectacular, striking out the next 3 batters to hold serve. Later on, the Mets had another chance with the bases loaded and 2 outs, this time in the 10th with Luis Lopez at the plate, but he flew out to end the threat. The Braves then rallied off Mel Rojas in the 11th to take the lead, and the Mets went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the frame to call it a night.

Earlier in the day, Todd Hundley underwent elbow surgery that kept him out of the lineup until the following July. But this was essentially the end of the line for Todd in New York. By the time he came back, Mike Piazza was already on the team, and an experiment in LF didn't go well at all, leading to him getting traded to the Dodgers after the 1998 season. But despite looking washed up, Steve Phillips still managed to turn him into Roger Cedeno and Armando Benitez. Kudos to you, sir.

And hey, what would a 1990s game on UPN 9 be without some classic Kinerisms? The telecast had Steve Phillips in the booth for a couple innings and Kiner introduced him as "Steve Peters." After Kiner corrected himself a short time later, Phillips jokingly said "Nice to meet you Ralph," to which Kiner replied, "I guess I should go look for another job." He also later called Greg McMichael "Greg McAndrew" and Andruw Jones "Anthony Jones."

It was the Mets home (and season) finale and the sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds all afternoon but they got this one in. John Olerud got to the 100 RBI mark as the Mets defeated the playoff bound Braves 8-2 in front of 27,176. After the game, Bobby V and company came out for a curtain call and we cheered like crazy! It was a sure sign of good things to come as then-Dodger Mike Piazza hit his 40th home run in Colorado on the same day. Who knew at the time that several months later that Piazza would be a New York Met?

One of the most "feel good" games in Mets history in my opinion. The 1997 Mets finished off an 88 win season with a big win over the Braves. This team really came out of nowhere to put together a season that few expected after years of mediocre play, especially with starting the season off going 3-9. Once this game was over, Diamond Vision played a video of season highlights and even some of the players had tears in their eyes (notably Carlos Baerga and John Franco). Fun game to watch and really set the stage for a nice run of seasons for the team.

Michael Tucker was out - he never touched the plate. I was at the game sitting in the outfield on a 90 degree high humdity day and left after 9 with the score 2-2 and got home to watch the replay.

Probably the most angry that I've ever seen Mike Piazza and John Franco. As a blown call in the 11th loses the game for the Mets. Michael Tucker was clearly out on the play. Not shockingly, the home plate ump was Angel Hernandez.

One of many times Angel Hernandez screwed the Mets, and one of a million times he's blown a call over his career. Quite easily the worst umpire the game has ever seen.

The Mets limp into the All-Star break having been swept by the division-leading Braves, scoring just 5 runs in 3 games. They've also lost 5 of their last 6 and are a dreadful 13-19 since June 1 -- which coincidentally ended a 9-game winning streak. Will they use the ending of this game as fodder to play with some anger and passion once the 2nd half begins, or will they continue to slump and fall farther out of the playoff race?

After the offense started to show signs of life in the previous series vs. Montreal, the Mets fall right back into a coma against the Braves in losing their 4th out of 4 games vs. Atlanta so far in 1998.

Todd Hundley, in just his 3rd game back from elbow surgery, knocked in his first 2 RBI of the season with a 2-run single in the 3rd, and that would be all the Mets would muster against John Smoltz. Actually, Andruw Jones had caught Hundley's shallow flyball on a diving attempt, but when he landed the ball came out of his glove. If he held on to the ball, the Mets get shutout.

The Mets did, like always, have additional chances to score but came up short. In the 7th, Rey Ordonez led off with a single and Lenny Harris walked as a pinch-hitter for Bobby Jones. Bobby V then had Edgardo Alfonzo bunting to sacrifice the runners over, but Fonzie couldn't get the job done, ultimately striking out on a foul bunt attempt instead of swinging away with 2 strikes. He went back to the dugout visibly upset, something you rarely saw out of him, and even went down the tunnel with a bat to take out some frustrations off-camera. The Braves had John Rocker ready in the bullpen to face the lefty John Olerud next, but they opted to stick with Smoltz, and he got Olerud to fly out to LF. That left it up to Mike Piazza, who took a few mighty hacks but ultimately grounded out weakly to the pitcher to end the inning. The crowd booed as loud as I could remember thus far into the 1998 season, probably both in combination of Piazza's failed effort to come up clutch, and the team's group effort in coming up empty with 2 on and none out.

Ordonez's hit was the only one the two teams would get over the final 4 innings, with the Mets having their last 9 retired in order. Taking a peak at the next game's final score, it looks like things would get much worse from here. At this point in time, I'd be very tempted as the Mets GM to pull the plug on this season, trade away any impending free agents (including Piazza), and start over in 1999. Nothing over the course of the previous month and a half has convinced me this team has any chance at competing for a playoff spot.

When I was only 6 years old, I distinctly remember being at the game on Mike Piazza's birthday in which he hit a towering home run into the left field bleachers. As a small child, a home run was an amazing thing to see. I will remember this day for my entire life. Thanks for the memories, Mike.

I remember watching this game but only the last few innings because we had just come back from the 2nd night of my mother's wake (She was buried the next day). It was Piazza's 30th birthday and after the booing he had to put up with, it was sweet validation that he would be a Met in 1999. Looking at the boxscore just now is a treat in itself with the Braves having Ozzie Guillen (Current WS champion manager) lead off and play SS and a then unknown "inbred" named John Rocker pitching a scoreless 8th on the mound in his "favorite" ballpark. It was a classic Glavine vs Leiter matchup. One more thing, if the new SNY channel shows Mets classic games, lets hope they put this one on down the road.

A beautiful late summer day. Tony Phillip's high point as a Met. He hit a late inning homer to lead the Mets to victory. If Tony Phillips can hit a homer off a tough lefty (O. Perez?) to win a game, then justice can prevail.

To correct John, Phillips' home run was actually hit off a tough righty in Rudy Seanez, but I do agree that justice prevailed on this day. Seanez only allowed 2 HRs over 34 appearances for the Braves in 1998 (the other by future Met Shawn Green), so it was really quite the surprise that Phillips hit one out against him.

In that 8th inning, Seanez needed just 3 pitches to get the first 2 outs, but then he walked Matt Franco, which seemed innocent until Phillips smoked one over the wall in right-center field. The Mets came pouring out of the dugout to congratulate Tony in what must have been his biggest hit during his short tenure on the team. His longball also gave Seanez his only loss of the season.

That clutch homer was particularly nice to see after the Mets loaded the bases in both the 4th and 6th innings but failed to score both times. Though Mike Piazza only went 1-for-4 with a harmless single in the game, he deserves huge credit for breaking up a double play that would have ended the 7th inning. Instead, John Olerud was able to score on the play, which put the Mets within distance to take the lead on Phillips' eventual home run. It's those little things that it seemed like the Braves always did to win games during this era, so it was nice to see the Mets give them some of their own medicine.

On a final note, I watched this game back on a FOX telecast, and I was so annoyed they decided to completely leave the game and go to the Cardinals/Reds game every time Mark McGwire had an at-bat. That did allow the audience to see Big Mac hit his 60th home run, but I would have much preferred them split screen the at-bats so we can still see what's going on in the Mets game. As it was, they wound up completely missing a Willie Mays-esque catch by Brian McRae that saved a run in the 5th inning, all to see McGwire strike out on 3 pitches.

Andruw Jones homered in the seventh inning off Rick Reed, giving him 27 for the season and 50 for his career. Jones became the third-youngest player to reach 50 career homers. Only Mel Ott and Tony Conigliaro were younger when they hit their 50th career home run.

John Smoltz pitched a complete game three-hitter, striking out twelve.

I remember this was the day Mark McGuire tied Maris's record and the game was delayed by a wicked blowing rainstorm that brought Bobby Valentine out to hold down the tarp. Also it was a day game and the sky turned jet black during the delay.

Labor Day 1998. I remember watching this one on TV as in the middle innings, a huge storm came and at 3PM it basically looked like midnight. Truly a weird feeling. Also a great game, as Alfonzo hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 8th to put the Mets ahead 8-7. Franco saved it and the Mets had an important win in the wild card race.

The crazy part about this win is that the Mets beat the Braves the exact same way just 2 days prior -- with a 2-run homer with 2 outs in the 8th inning. Whereas Tony Phillips played the hero in that game, it was Alfonzo in this one -- helping to make up for going 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts earlier in the game.

Future Met Bruce Chen made his Major League debut, starting in place of the ailing Denny Neagle. He struck out the first two batters he faced but the wheels quickly came off thereafter, as he gave up a 2-run homer to Luis Lopez and a solo shot to Phillips in the 2nd, and then an RBI single to Brian McRae in the 3rd before the storm hit and delayed the game for almost 2 hours.

In between the top and bottom half of the 3rd inning, it was pretty neat to see the entire stadium -- players included -- give a standing ovation when they saw the news that McGwire had hit #61. I wonder if the news received the same reception at each park that day.

With the Mets leading 6-2 in the 6th, Rigo Beltran retired the first two batters of the inning, but then 6 straight reached base for the Braves. That included Andruw Jones homering in a third consecutive game, and RBI hits by Greg Colbrunn, Gerald Williams and Tony Graffanino (all coming off Turk Wendell), giving Atlanta a 7-6 lead. The inning only came to an end after Lopez booted a grounder by Chipper Jones but tracked down the ball and threw home to nail Graffanino trying to score.

The Mets put 2 on in their half of the 6th but couldn't score, then went down quietly in the 7th. Atlanta brought in the dreaded John Rocker for the 8th, and he too looked firmly in control, getting the first two outs before losing Phillips on a 6-pitch walk. Alfonzo then came up clutch with his 2-run homer, which was one of only 2 Rocker allowed in his career against the Mets (Robin Ventura had the other one). Franco retired the side in order in the 9th, giving Rocker his only loss in 19 career appearances vs. the Mets.

This was the game where Jay Payton got a case of mistaken identity: he thought his name was "WALTER" Payton and -- while representing the tying run -- was gunned down trying to go 1st to 3rd on a shallow base hit.

A very bittersweet game for the Amazin's, not only they lost; it was also the last Mets game to be telecast on WWOR-TV (Channel 9) after 37 wonderful seasons. After the '98 season all local over-the-air (aka non-cable) games have wound up on WPIX (Channel 11). As the legendary rocker Chrissy Hynde once sang "Part of my childhood was gone". Speaking of rocker; the then-quiet John Rocker got the save for Atlanta but that Macon redneck would NOT be quiet for long.

I'll never forget that image of Jay Payton, running to 3rd base, out by 20 feet... while Mike Piazza stood in the on deck circle. A mistake of epic proportions.

Also, a note about the comment above mine. This was not the last WWOR telecast in Mets history. It was supposed to be, as it was originally scheduled as a WWOR game, but a late season schedule change negated it from being so. The true last WWOR game ever was the previous Sunday against the Marlins.

Like the 1998 season in a nutshell, the Mets displayed plenty of heart in this game but ultimately came up just short.

Rick Reed started the contest recording 2 quick outs, but then an uncharacteristic bout of wildness struck as he walked Chipper and hit Galarraga with a pitch. Ryan Klesko then dunked one into RF that Butch Huskey couldn't handle cleanly, allowing both runners to score. Not a good way to start the most important series of the year.

But the offense chipped away, getting a run in the 3rd and another in the 4th to tie it up, though it would have been nice to get more in the 4th after they loaded the bases with nobody out but squandered it after three straight batters popped out to the infield.

But the Braves struck right back with a 2-run homer by Andruw Jones in the 4th. The Mets put up another run in the 5th, only for the Braves to answer right back in their half of the inning. The Mets scored again in the 8th, and again so did the Braves.

In the 9th, Piazza and McRae led off with back-to-back walks, and Lenny Harris sacrificed them both into scoring position. Needing a hit from any of the next two batters to tie the score, instead Carlos Baerga grounded out to first (bringing in Piazza), and then Todd Pratt (pinch-hitting for Todd Hundley, who was pinch-hitting for Rey Ordonez) struck out in an epic 9-pitch battle vs. John Rocker to end the game.

The Mets had their chances, but were doomed by bad mistakes that you just couldn't make against the Braves. Huskey's error and Payton's mishap on the bases were huge, as well as Piazza striking out looking to end the top of the 6th with the bases loaded. In 6 pitches, he never took his bat off his shoulders. Be aggressive, my dude!

It also so happened that both Baerga and Huskey recorded their final hits in a Mets uniform in this game. They also divulged on the TBS broadcast that the 2 homers allowed by Reed in the game brought his season total to 30, which at the time made him only the 3rd in MLB history to allow 30 HRs while walking fewer than 30 in a season. The other two: Ken Dixon, while mainly serving as a crappy relief pitcher for Baltimore in 1987 (He allowed 31 HRs in 105 innings that season -- 1 HR every 3 and a third innings! Yuck!), and Brian Anderson, who also did it in 1998 as a member of the Diamondbacks.

What I remember most is just sitting in front of the TV and bawling like a baby after this one was over. Although there was still hope, it was highly unlikely that Armando Reynoso was going to be able to outpitch Greg Maddux the next day. It looked like those playoff tickets we had received were going to be refunded. In light of the chokes each of the previous two years, why does it seem like this mini-choke is never referenced?

This game just might be the most heartbreaking since I have really started rooting for the Mets back late in the 1992 season when I was ten. We have a share in season tickets, and the playoff tickets had arrived right before this awful Braves series started. I really thought they had the wild card won, especially after taking three out of four from the first place Astros in a wild series in Houston. The fact that we already had recieved the playoff tickets made it all the more painful. How could they go from beating the Astros three out of four on the road to losing two to the last place Expos at home? Then, of course they were doomed to go to Atlanta for three. As I remember, the major mistake Bobby V. made was starting Armando Reynoso instead of Hideo Nomo.

Armando Reynoso had like an 0-6 record with like an ERA of 6.00 career against the Braves. It cost them majorly.

I was in tenth grade, and had the stupid walk-a-thon at my stupid high school the next day. I wore my Mets shirt under a fleece. This girl I am aquantances with who is a big Yankee fan, made a comment at me about the Mets, and opened her coat to show me a 1996 World Champion Yankees shirt she had on. Ohhh, did I want to whack her even though she is coool.

There are three games in sports that have always got to me and it feels just as bad everytime I watch the highlights. One is the game where Adam Vinatieri kicks the game-winning field goal in the last super bowl against the Panthers to end the dream, even though they had come so close. The second was the game when the Red Sox almost made the World Series last year but somehow those Yankees managed to come back and then Aaron Boone hit the home run, you know the story. The other one, however (probably the most heartbreaking one) was this game because I had so much faith in the Mets and the Mets needed to win this final game against the Braves while the Giants and Cubs both lost to force a three-way tie for the wild card lead for the first time in history. The Giants and Cubs both did lose their games and all the Mets needed to do was defeat the Braves but Armando Reynoso ruined any hope they had and Andruw Jones caught the fly ball that ended the Mets dreams.

What I remember about the game was Hideo Nomo who practically owned the Braves in his career, not starting the game after Bobby V had asked him to.

Watching Matt Franco strike out Andruw Jones in a blowout Mets loss! It doesn't get any better than that. Gotta love it!

When the Mets get blown out 11-3, I'm upset. But when the Mets get blown out 16-0, I just laugh it up. That was the case in this game, where the Braves killed the Mets 16-0 and the highlight of the game was when Matt Franco came in and Gerald Williams, future-Met, would hit a homer off him before HE STRUCK OUT ANDRUW JONES! Just that was like the Mets winning to me.

I remember this game well...

I convinced my future Father-In-Law to come to the game with me, and the main draw was that it was fireworks night.

Having to sit through that debacle just to see some fireworks was excrutiating.

The lone brightspot was that Maddux was throwing a no-no going into the 5th.

I couldn't leave because it was firework night. The Mets got their butts kicked bad and Matt Franco pitched the ninth and not John Franco so you know what kind of night that was. I snuck down to field level and the guy asked to see my tickets. I said have you seen the scoreboard? He said go ahead.

A Franco pitched the ninth inning! Just not the one you expected.

Ugh, at least Matty was a better mop-up arm than Derek Bell.

I went to this game hoping the Mets could rebound from a 16-0 loss to the Braves the night before but they couldn't, as the Braves, the Mets most hated rival at this time, scored 3 runs and Millwood was incredible, yielding 2 hits over 8 innings and the Braves won 3-0 and had scored 19 runs in the last two games while the Mets had scored none.

My cousin from Nebraska was visiting the NY-NJ area and wanted to attend a Mets game with me. I obtained box seats and watched one of the most boring games I've ever attended. The Mets had only 3 hits off Millwood. My guest was not impressed with the Mets on that day!

I was at this game. It was an ungodly hot day. Before the game it was photo day and fans could walk on the field and take pictures of the players. I had waited my entire life to get on the field. I was dehydrated and probably was borderline heat stroke...I got sick on the line (I was able to get away from the crowd, much to their delight). I got back in the line and stepped onto the field. I got to take 1 picture and nearly got sick in centerfield.

The game was really great. It was a night game, but it was still so hot, 1st aid staff was passing out ice packs to fans. The Mets were losing to the Braves but came back against John Smoltz (I hate this man since the brawl w/ John Cangelosi in '94). Mets won. Ha Ha. I had horrible sunburn for weeks and couldn't eat for 3 days. But it was worth it.

With the Mets down 6-4 in the 7th, Edgardo Alfonzo hit a homer to dead center over the wall. A 3 run shot to give them the lead, which held up for the win. At the time, I felt it was the biggest hit of the season thus far. A much needed win after a lackluster weekend the previous 2 games.

This win broke a streak of three straight shutout losses versus the Braves. There were also plenty of fireworks during the game, as the teams combined for 5 home runs -- 4 by Atlanta, all off Orel Hershiser. That tied the most he ever allowed in a game. Crazy thing is, over his first 15 starts in 1999, he only allowed a total of 2 home runs.

But as Michael mentioned, Alfonzo hit the biggest blast of the game, as his clutch 3-run shot in the 7th put the Mets up to stay. Smoltz was pitching with a sore elbow but was still allowed to eclipse 100 pitches by the time Alfonzo made his way to the plate in the 7th. Instead of going to the bullpen, Bobby Cox stuck with his starter and it bit him right in the butt. Adding injury to insult, Smoltz missed almost 3 weeks on the DL after this start.

This was the first time the Mets won a game in which they allowed at least 4 HRs since 1996, and 1999 marks the only year in which the Mets won 3 times while giving up at least 4 HRs in a game.

Some other things to note: Rickey Henderson recorded his only sacrifice bunt as a Met in this game, dropping one down right before Alfonzo went deep. Also, this was the official christening of Armando Benitez as the team's new closer. John Franco had just landed on the DL with a finger injury, and Benitez inherited the job and ran with it. He closed out this victory, striking out the side in the 9th in dominating fashion.

Classic game between the Mets and Braves came down to the 8th inning and Bobby Valentine tried to out chest Bobby Cox and came up short.

I caught my only foul ball in 36 years of Mets games. It was hit by Melvin Mora I believe and want to confirm through a scorecard of the game if I can see one?

This was a fantastic night at Shea! The Mets took their collective frustration out on Greg Maddux, of all pitchers. After being handled by the Braves the previous week, they batted around in the 4th and put a 7-spot on the scoreboard. Johnny O. laced a grand-slam to chase Maddux. The stands were ROCKING!!! If nothing else, we exacted a small measure of payback this night.

Everybody remembers that Al Leiter won Game 163 against the Reds five days later but his win in his previous start on this night was probably as significant. Mets had lost 7 in a row and if they had not ended the tailspin in this game the season would have been lost.

I was at this game after a emotional win the night before and the Daily News back page read something like the Mets live on. It was drizzling rainy damp night the game was back and forth. Alfonzo comes through in the 8th with a homer and unfortunately in the 11th Shawon Dunston boots a ball and the next batter singles home the run. I remember getting on the 7 train; it was like a ghost town. No one looked at each other. It was like our season was over but thank God we had one more push to pull out the wild card.

25 years later and no comments on this game, and it's easy to see why. The Mets laid an egg in game 1 of the NLCS, tamed by Greg Maddux and beaten mostly by scrubs Eddie Perez and Walt Weiss, who combined to go 5-for-7 hitting out of the 7th and 8th spot in the Atlanta lineup.

Masato Yoshii, who hadn't lost since mid-August and pitched well vs. the Braves in his last start of the regular season, unfortunately picked a bad time to regress back to the mean, failing to make it out of the 5th inning. He had an inauspicious start, giving up a run after facing just 2 batters. He did manage to limit the damage and retire 9 in a row at one point, but he got beat up in the 5th, allowing a leadoff double to Weiss, and then appeared to roll his ankle when fielding Maddux's sac bunt. Gerald Williams followed with an RBI single and took 2nd on a Rickey Henderson error, and then Roger Cedeno made a sparkling defensive play, catching a Bret Boone liner on a full-extension dive to save a run. The Mets then elected to intentionally walk Chipper and go to the bullpen, and Pat Mahomes retired Brian Jordan to escape the inning.

After Piazza drove in a run with a groundout in the 4th, the Mets offense did little else. Alfonzo was stranded on 2nd after a 1-out double in the 6th, and Maddux made a miraculous behind-the-back catch on an Ordonez line drive in the 7th to end the inning with a runner on. A leadoff walk by Mora in the 8th went for nothing, and a 2-out rally in the 9th brought the tying run to the plate but Ordonez grounded out to end the game.

The Mets also had a great chance for a big inning in the 3rd when Cedeno led off with a double and took 3rd on an error, but then Ordonez hit a swinging bunt that barely stayed fair and was thrown out when he failed to run to 1st. Then Yoshii was asked to lay down a bunt on a suicide squeeze attempt, but he flat out missed the ball and Cedeno was a dead duck running down the line. Yoshii then grounded out and that, folks, is how you lose postseason games to the Braves. Failed execution and bad luck.

I can't believe how stupid I was. If I routinely tape games to watch later (I live on the West Coast) then how could I not have taped this one??? I was STUPID enough to do three things: 1) actually go to work, knowing this game was on at 1 pm our time; 2) actually go into yet another agonizingly boring staff meeting led by an even more agonzingly boring manager - a guy whose milquetoast personality makes even Art Howe look like The Rock - while the game was going on. I was more pissed at myself than Kenny Rogers - who Bobby V should've saved for a Game 3 home start - for allowing Eddie Perez to take him deep.

Despite putting at least one batter on each inning and struggling with his control, Rogers somehow found himself on the good side of a 2-0 lead through 5 innings. Luck appeared to be on the Mets side, as Rogers had picked off a pair of baserunners and benefited from a pair of double plays, one that he deflected right to Ordonez on a ball that otherwise was headed to CF for a single.

The Mets scored once in the 2nd, despite starting the inning with a walk and 2 singles. Ordonez tried to put down a bunt to move the runners to 2nd and 3rd but instead bunted too hard and lined out to the firstbaseman. Rogers followed with his own sacrifice, but now with 2 outs it left it up to the under-the-weather Henderson, who did hit one in the hole between 1st and 2nd but Bret Boone flagged down the grounder and threw in time to Millwood covering for the 3rd out. If Henderson is feeling better, that should go as an infield hit.

Rickey then gets removed in the bottom of the 2nd for Mora, who, in his first AB of the game, takes Millwood deep for his first ML home run!

In between all that, Cedeno almost hit his own home run but hooked it foul by inches down the RF line. And that would loom very large, as the Braves finally broke through against Rogers in the 6th, hitting a pair of 2-run homers to take a 4-2 lead. Brian Jordan clubbed the first that hit into the netting on the RF foul pole, and then when Andruw Jones lined a single into LF, I thought the day was done for Rogers. But Bobby V left him out there for one more batter, and Eddie Perez drilled the first pitch he saw into the LF seats for his 2nd HR in as many games. Valentine was caught throwing and kicking his hat afterwards, as he knew he made the wrong decision.

The Mets did get one back in the 8th, with Mora reaching on a 1-out error and Alfonzo driving him in with a double. But then the Braves summoned John Rocker, and he struck out both Olerud and Ventura (bookending a Piazza intentional pass) to end the inning. His ownership of the Mets' two middle-of-the-order lefties has arguably been the key to the Braves holding a 2-0 series lead thus far.

I thought Bobby Cox might have been overmanaging when he then turned to John Smoltz to lock down the save in the 9th, considering it was Smoltz's first ever big league relief appearance and gave the Mets a better chance at tying the game with a HR with Cedeno and Bonilla than with Agbayani and Ordonez. But alas, Smoltz set the Mets down in order, with Bonilla taking a pitch 5 inches outside for strike 3 to end the game.

It sucks being down 2-0, but it's not like the Mets are getting blown out, despite getting seriously outpitched thus far. With Leiter going in Game 3 and the series shifting to Shea, I remember feeling dejected but hopeful that the Mets weren't about to go down without a fight.

this was a rough one. the Mets made like no errors the whole year, and their best offensive player's error cost the Mets a biggie. Leiter was superb, but had nothing to show for it.

The first playoff game at Shea stadium in many, many years. Friend of mine got tickets and four of us made the drive down from Albany. Met other friends at Shea, but the friend with the tickets hadn't shown yet. Jimmy Cadillac talked with a cop, expalined the situation and the cop let us into a pre-game party going on in the left field bullpen. Incredible. Ice sculptures, live music, open bars, sushi, BBQ. Wilpon was working the crowd, as was former Senator Al D'Amato, who was stuffing his face with the free food. Great seats and an incredible game with several plays at the plate. Braves scored only once -- in the first inning, but the Mets couldn't put a run across and lost. Tough ride home. Ventura's grand-slam single two games later would lift our spirits, but Kenny Rogers walking in the game and series winner was a killer.

I was at this game. A tight one to nothing loss with Leiter pitching his guts out but the highlight was me yelling to John Rocker "RUN, FORREST, RUN" as he entered the game in the 9th and that was 2 months before he almost ruined Christmas and Y2K with his ignorant comments about New Yorkers and the 7 train.

What a gross loss. Out-hit the Braves 7-3 but can't score against Tom Glavine, who looks like he's throwing batting practice but no one can ever get a good swing against him.

First inning really took the wind out of the sails, too. Leadoff walk, error by Leiter just trying to throw a meatball over to 1st base, then Piazza airmails one into CF on a Braves double steal, allowing them to score the only run of the game. Only get out of the inning when Brian Jordan hits what should be an RBI sac fly, but Melvin Mora, in his first playoff start and only 2nd start for the Mets in CF, guns down Bret Boone at the plate for his second OF assist of the postseason. Piazza got pulverized by Boone, somehow holding on to the ball, but got diagnosed with a slight concussion in between innings. Add that to his balky knee, bad back and sore thumb. And yet he stayed in the game, which is something I bet would never happen in today's game.

Rickey Henderson of all people also threw out a pair of Braves trying to stretch singles into doubles, despite not having an OF assist during the entire regular season! After he nailed Eddie Perez to lead off the 5th, the Braves actually didn't get another hit the rest of the game. But alas, despite putting at least 1 runner on base in every inning but the 8th, the Mets just couldn't score. Valentine tried to counter the Braves' deployment of John Rocker by reordering his lineup to further separate Olerud and Ventura, putting Olerud 2nd, Alfonzo 3rd and Ventura 6th. Neither Olerud or Alfonzo hit in those positions all season. Though Olerud reached base twice, Alfonzo and Ventura combined to go 0-for-7 with 4 strikeouts. Thanks guys.

But of course, the Mets had to tease us in the 9th when Agbayani reached base on an error to lead off. I thought, with Ventura up next, they could have asked Robin to bunt Agbayani into scoring position, as he was hopeless swinging the bat against Rocker. But instead Valentine pinch-hit with Pratt, who struck out on 3 pitches. Mora then flew out to CF and Ordonez bounced out to short and that was that. Glavine tied his career playoff high with 8 Ks and the Mets were shutout for the first time in the postseason since losing Game 7 of the 1988 NLCS to the Dodgers, 6-0.

And since no team at this point had ever come back from a 3-0 series hole, I remember losing all hope. Smoltz would probably throw a no-hitter in Game 4, and the Yankees would never lose a game again. It was nothing but bad feelings following this one.

It was crazy. I went to this game certain the Mets were going to lose. I mean, the braves had 3 games and the Mets none. I went in with a negative attitude, and came out of the stadium with a feeling of triumph! I felt like the entire crowd, young and old, came together that night. The entire stadium echoed "ASSHOLE" periodically through the night and occational "LARRY"'s. everyone, old men and little girls were all screaming it at the top of their lungs. thats what I love about being a Mets fan. such a diverse crowd that comes together regardless of any diffrences. I had so much fun and the Mets rocked, but it was overshadowed by the fact that after the game, I had the luck of meeting Gary CArter in the parking lot. he was my alltime favorite met and my childhood idol. the whole night was one to remember, even though I dont remember the specific detail of the game.

This was the first Met playoff game I had ever been to, although I have been a fan for nearly 25 years. I was sitting right next to the Braves bullpen in the picnic area. I remember all the police who had been there to protect John Rocker, and you should have heard the abuse he took from all the Met fans. In the bottom of the eighth inning, he came in to pitch and John Olerud hit a 2-run single off Rocker to score the tying and eventual winning runs. Benitez got the save in the 9th, and the Mets were still alive. I will never forget how crazy the subway ride home from Shea was that night.

This was my second playoff game I ever attended (and second of 1999 for that matter) and it was awesome. It was my cousin Dan, my uncle Dave, my sister Julie and myself. My cousin and I took the upper deck tickets and my sister and uncle took the field level tickets. The upper deck was awesome though. The game was quiet for the first six innings.

I remember when John Olerud came up, I pulled my Rosary out of my pocket and all of a sudden, BANG! Olerud hit a solo shot. It looked like Rick Reed was in control, then suddenly, Brian Jordan (this guy always seems to get big hits against them) and Ryan Klesko hit back-to-back homers to give the Braves a 2-1 lead. Rick Reed looked sooo down was he was pulled out. He still pitched an awesome game.

Then, Mets have runners on second and third (Roger Cedeno and Melvin Mora did a double steal) with Olerud coming up. In came John Rocker and along with him, the roaring "a**hole* chants. It was sooo intense, Olerud had two strikes and then lo and behold, he gets what I believe was his first hit off Rocker and at the perfect time. My cousin and I screamed at each other in excitment. Then, Armando Benitez came in and closed out an awesome game.

I was really upset because the Braves were up in the NLCS 3-0 and were one game away from making the World Series and I knew I had tickets to Game 5 so if the Mets could just win this game I could get to see them play one more time this year. In the eighth inning, it was 2-1 Braves and things didn't look good and John Rocker was on the mound and everyone was booing him but the Mets got Mevlin Mora and Roger Cedeno on second and third for John Olerud and John Olerud hit a bouncing ball up the middle that went off Ozzie Guillen's glove and both runs scored and the Mets took the lead! Then Armando Benitez came in to save it and I was going to see them tomorrow.

What an unbelievable comeback. Rick Reed was absolutely brilliant, just as good as when he shut out the Pirates a couple weeks earlier to keep the Mets playoff hopes alive. For those not in attendance watching the game on TV, we went into the top of the 8th inning with a 1-0 lead feeling pretty good, Reed in complete control. Then NBC comes back from the commercial break late, the game already back in progress, and we're greeted with Darryl Hamilton on a dead sprint going back to the wall and Bob Costas yelling, "Jordan hits one deep and it's off the wall, and the umpires are calling it a home run!"

Whoa, WTF just happened?!?! Is this real? And before any of it could sink in, there's Ryan Klesko bashing another one over the RF wall. It all happened so fast, and it seemed like you could hear a pin drop at Shea, aside from the Braves dugout hooting and hollering. Reed goes from hero to zero in the matter of 3 pitches, and it seems like, with how the Mets offense has been this series, the sweep is inevitable.

But then the miraculous happened in the bottom of the 8th. Cedeno, clearly the Mets hottest hitter at the time, lines a leadoff single to center. However, hope was dashed a little when Ordonez, for the second time in the series, popped up a sac bunt attempt and was out. Matt Franco comes up to pinch hit, and the Braves counter by bringing in Remlinger for Smoltz. Smoltz was every bit as good as Reed, even after it looked like he suffered an arm injury in the middle innings when he yelped and had to shake out his arm following a pitch. The Mets brought Franco back and had Agbayani take the pinch-hitting AB, but he struck out. Not looking good.

Mora, who had come into the game for defense when the Mets had the lead, then worked out a walk, continuing to impress with his clutch ability. That's when Rocker came in to face Olerud, who he's already struck out twice in the series. Mora and Cedeno pull off a double steal without a throw, and then Olerud taps one to SS, where Ozzie Guillen had just come in to play as part of a double switch. He took a weird angle to get to the ball, and hence had it ricochet off his glove and into short right-center field, allowing both runners to score and put the Mets in front! Mora and Cedeno jump into each others arms at the plate, and Shea goes bananas.

Benitez got a scare from Guillen in the 9th, as he missed a HR down the RF line by about 10 feet, before flying out. But he then got Gerald Williams and Keith Lockhart without incident and the Mets survive to see another day.

How much longer the Mets can last with the middle of the order -- Alfonzo, Piazza and Ventura -- unable to buy a hit, and now with Henderson sulking because he's upset Valentine is taking him out for defense, is anybody's guess. With the pitching matchup for Game 5 Maddux vs. Yoshii, the Braves are undoubtedly heavy favorites.

I have been a Mets fan since I was 6, but I have never been to or even seen a game as exciting as this one. It was game 5 of the NLCS and it was the 15th inning. I remember the roar of the fans screaming down at John Rocker and then it came: the forever to be remembered Grand slam single by Robin Ventura! The crowd went wild, we were all hugging each other and jumping around and kissing stangers and going crazy. there was no feeling at all like that one, and I will always remember how loud that crowd was when Ventura got that hit, and how we all came together with one common goal; to get to the World Series. It didnt matter that the next day the braves went on to clinch the pennet, it didnt matter that I lost my voice the day before a big presentation , and it didn't matter that I had broke my toe jumping up an down like crazy, the only thing that mattered was that we won! and that rocker sucked! I am so privledged to have been part of this game, this history in the making.

Sat in the upper boxes in right field with my 8 year old son. We got pretty wet. When it went extra innings, I told the people around us that to be a true Met miracle they would have to be losing before they won. My son wanted to move down, because people were leaving. We went down to the loge by first base. It was getting cold and late and I told my son, against my better Met fan judgement, that we would leave if noone scored in the next inning. The rest is history. I'll always remember the Dunston atbat. And the Ventura blast. When it was in the air, the game was over. When it cleared the fence, all hell broke loose. I was at Game 7 in 86, the divisional clincher in 88, and the pennant winner in 2000. This was the most fun. people in the parking lot were telling my son that he would never forget that night. LA Woman, cold rain, my son, and alive for another day. It doesnt get better than that.

I remember I had to go to a very, very important family "get together" on this evening, unfortunately at a restaurant with no tv. Being die hard Mets fans, me and my brother had to finish it. The game kept on going, and dammit, I was going to sit till the end of it. I listened to the play-by-play on 660. Got to the point that my uncle came out in the parking lot twice to tell us to come in -- I wasn't budging. It was raining pretty hard that evening.

Then, bases loaded. Ventura comes to the plate. And you know what happened then.

Seeing it on television that night when I got home was awesome too. Robin didn't even make it to second! Remember: Grand Slam Single!! What bs. Me and my brother almost lost our voices that night.

I started watching this game at home. It was getting late in the game and I had an hour and a half ride back to school in the rain. I thought I was gonna miss the end of the game. I continued listening to the game in my car on 660 WFAN. I sped through the rain so I could watch the Mets beat those damn Braves. I parked my car and ran back to my dorm with my bags and threw the game on the TV. I watched the game for about another hour or so and then POW!! Ventura hit the "grand slam single." When the ball left the bat I jumped up and yelled "GET THE #&*@ OUTTA HERE" and then watched it land on the other side of the fence and giving high fives to other Met fans in the room. One of my favorite sports moments.

The matchup for tonight was Greg Maddux vs. Masato Yoshii. In the first inning, Olerud connected off Maddux for a two-run homer to pick up where he left off from the night before and, after that, the game was a low scoring game that featured Chipper Jones getting hits and no one else did and everyone was going "Laaaaaarry!!" and it was also John Rocker's birthday and everyone wanted to see him but I don't think he ever pitched.

Another factor in the game was the weather. It was raining all game and there were a couple of rain delays and the game went a long time into the night. It then went into extras in a 2-2 game and then in the 13th the Braves threatned again when Keith Lockhart, their little used second baseman, got a base hit and then Chipper Jones hit another shot into the right field corner and Lockhart came around third but Melvin Mora saved the game by making an incredible throw to the cutoff, Edgardo Alfonzo, and Fonzie threw it home to Piazza, who blocked the plate incredibly and Lockhart ran over him but Piazza held on to the ball but he was injured.

Then, in the fifteenth, Lockhart tripled and scored and it was 3-2 Braves. Then, the Mets rallied and loaded up the bases for Todd Pratt and he walked to tie it up and Ventura step up, Mr. Grand Slam himself, and, as I knew he would, he hit it out but before he could reach second base he was mobbed by his teammates and he never made it to second so he was only given one RBI and it will be forever known as the "grand single" It was the greatest game I ever went to.

I was never more proud of the Mets than when I watched this game. 25 men pulling together as a team. Every player doing his part.

Shawon Dunston refusing to give up. Orel Hershiser acting on the phone acting like a pitching coach. Al Leiter and Rick Reed warming in the bullpen, ready to go.

This was one game that truly was a team effort.

The greatest and most thrilling Mets game I ever saw.

In the pouring rain, the Mets and Braves poured it on through 15 soggy innings. I never saw such intensity at Shea, such crowd involvement, or such drama. Or a 14th-inning-stretch. I have seen many sea serpents (my name for extra-inning games) at Shea Stadium, including a 17-inning disaster in 1979, but never this.

My wife Kathy was blowing her nose from sinuses and hiding under the stands in the late innings, when they ran out of food.

Everybody played. My scorecard was utterly bedraggled.

My biggest memory is that Bobby Valentine brought on a relief pitcher to throw an intentional walk, then yank him. That was overmanaging defined.

After the game, Kats was furious about having to sit through such horrid weather and was reluctant to join me at the World Series. But she did, for Game 3. Logically, that game went into the 10th inning.

"Well, I remember the last play because Robin Ventura played it out on one leg the whole game, and there was a point where I thought about taking him out, and he said 'No, leave me in,' and he comes up and gets the winning hit, it's gotta be poetic justice. Justice indeed. -Bobby Valentine

"Run around the bases? Nah. I'm too tired." -Robin Ventura

"I'll tell you, these Mets are Rasputin-like. You cannot put them away. They will not die." -Bob Costas

"They couldn't see beating the Braves 4-in a row, but they can see beating them 2-in a row. They've taken it one game at a time and now maybe they're seeing light at the end of the tunnel." -Joe Morgan

hey I been a Mets fan since I was 5 years, the night of October 17, 1999 was a night every Mets fan will cherish for the rest of their lives. I remember I was 17 at the time a junior in HS, I was suppose to go to a B-day party that night, I was getting ready for the party, while I took a shower I had the game on my small radio, after I showered I tuned in the TV again, I think it was the most nervous night I have ever witnessed. At the party they had the game on, in the living room there were some Yankees fans, and like 3 Mets fans including me, when the bot. 15th came all 3 of us Mets fans where doing the rally hat, and then came the Ventura's Grand SLam single, we screamed, we jumped, we cried, and hugged. "WE STILL BELIEVE GO METS!!!" I still believe YEEAAH!! What a game, it was amazin' playing under the rain, making sure that it was not our last game of 1999, we kept on fighting. Hey my fellow Mets fans let us the keep the faith and believe, we will have our town back real soon.

My friend and I moved down a couple times from the upper deck, eventually moving to the front row of the loge boxes right near the foul pole in left field (by the Atlanta pen). We would have moved again but after the Braves scored in the 15th, we decided to stay put and watch the Mets' at-bat. And what an at-bat! I remember it like it was yesterday:

Dunston fouled off like eight pitches before singling up the middle and then stole second with Franco pinch-hitting. Franco walks and then Fonzie bunts the runners up. Olerud is walked intentionally to load bases, and Pratt walks on a 3-1 pitch, flings his bat and runs down to first as Mets tie it.

At this point, the place is ROCKING. Literally, and there were like 20,000 empty seats. I remember vividly the fans in the box seats jumping up and down in the rain (and the rain was falling hard); it was tremendous support...

and then Ventura launches the bomb to right. Before it went out I hugged my friend. I didn't even see the ball go out, I knew we had won it with a sac fly at least.

I remember getting on the subway afterward. I asked about the Jets game and somebody said they lost again. I didn't care, not after that Met win...it culminated a whirlwind weekend at Shea, starting with the Friday 1-0 loss, but the back- to-back nail-biting wins. It was crazy at Shea, it was so nice the Mets were in the postseason again. Throw in the Pratt HR vs. Arizona and it was a great run.

I had drawn my company's tickets for Game 5 and watched Game 4 on Saturday night wondering if my tickets would be any good. But after the Mets won on Saturday night, my wife and I made the trek to Shea for an unforgettable game. Unfortunately, we may have been the only fans to leave the game before it ended. We had a babysitter on short notice watching our infant son for a fixed time and could not stay for extra innings. I did get home in time to see the Ventura walk-off on television. Almost the entire time that we were at the game, everyone was standing.

I was at a bar in Hoboken which no longer exists (I forgot the name) watching this classic game and when Ventura hit the "grand-slam single" a lot of people went crazy and then some and there was talk of a Subway Series but thanks to Kenny Rogers... (As you know, it did happen in 2000.)

I can watch this whole game every day and never get bored. THIS was the epoch of the Mets-Braves rivalry in the 90s, and watching Bobby Cox and Bobby V try and out-manage one another makes me nostalgic.

Grand slam single in the rain, Robin Ventura being held aloft by Todd Pratt with "L.A. Woman" playing in the background; that's how I remember the 1999 Mets.

Been to hundreds of Met games at Shea, and this one will sting me a little forever. A friend of a friend offered me a ticket, and we sat through the rain for a game that seemed like it would never end. Until the 15th inning...I don't remember how it came about, but the Marlins scored and we were both spent. For some inexplicable reason we decided to leave, and heard the rest of the game in the car on the way home. A decision that will haunt me forever.

One of my all-time favorite games as a Mets fan, not just because we won but because it truly was a complete team effort. Everyone played a role in the win.

A thrilling win that kept the Mets alive in the NLCS. Robin Ventura came through with a clutch RBI in the fifteenth inning to cut the Braves' Series lead to three games to two. Ventura's hit should have been a grand slam homer, but it got reduced to a run-scoring single thanks to other Met players not allowing him to circle the bases.

The happiness was understandable, but how could the Mets still be so absent-minded by doing what they did? On the television replay of the hit, Ventura was seen waving his left hand at his teammates and yelling to them "No! No!" while he was between first and second base. Instead of completing his home run trot, Robin was greeted by a black-shirted mob (led by baserunner Todd Pratt) that got in the way and prevented an actual slam. Although it was a key post-season victory for the Mets, their overexcitement turned it into one of the more embarrassing moments in team history.

Pratt's statistics show that he did not have a run scored during the Series. He blew his chance for one by not controlling his emotions soon enough.

I love reading all these comments. Even the ones I disagree with. "Glenrock," where my mom was a science teacher for 20 years, recently wrote how, when the Mets prevented Ventura from rounding the bases, it was "one of the more embarrassing moments in team history." I could not disagree more. The Mets were so overjoyed and overcome with emotion they couldn't help themselves from congratulating and celebrating with Ventura as he rounded the bases, and it created one of the most iconic scenes in Mets history. You may be the only fan that looks back at this moment with negativity.

A few of my takeaways from this game that have not yet been mentioned:

I was stunned when starting lineups were announced and Roger Cedeno's name wasn't featured. I thought he was the Mets hottest hitter at the time, as he just went 3-for-3 in Game 4. Turns out he was suffering from "back spasms," so Melvin Mora got the nod in RF instead. But Cedeno did come in as the last man off the bench to pinch run for Matt Franco in the 15th, and he would be the only "official" runner to score on Ventura's home run.

This was Yoshii's final appearance as a Met. He started out well enough, but second time through the lineup the Braves tattooed him. They started the 4th with a double, double, single and walk to score 2 and chase Yoshii from the game. He'd then be traded to Colorado during the offseason.

With 2 runners on and nobody out, Hershiser relieved him and retired the next three on 2 strikeouts and a groundout to get out of the inning without any further damage being done. Unbelievable clutch work right there. It was the first time he stranded inherited runners on base since the 1988 NLCS vs. the Mets. He wound up doing yeoman's work out of the pen, tossing 3.1 scoreless innings.

In the 6th, the Braves had the bases loaded with 1 out and Maddux at the plate. He just barely missed hitting a double down the RF line that would have blown the game open. Then, with 2 strikes, the Braves have him try to get down a suicide squeeze, but he misses to strike out, and the runner on 3rd is tagged out in a rundown. That was a huge bullet dodged, and some uncharacteristic poor execution by Atlanta.

Valentine then burned through 4 pitchers to get through the 7th inning, including Dennis Cook to throw two intentional balls and then yank him. I was very worried that type of overmanagement was going to come back and bite us.

The Braves left 19 runners on base in the game. They had to have felt like they missed a golden opportunity to end the series after this loss.

When Eddie Perez singled in the 10th, it was the first time a Brave had reached base vs. Armando Benitez all season. They were 0-for-26 against him prior to that hit.

Ventura was an incredibly unlikely hero. Aside from playing with a bum leg and sore shoulder, he was also 0-for-16 in the series before finally getting a single in the 11th. He then hit the ball well but flew out in the 14th before making history in the 15th.

Rey Ordonez was having a terrible series, at least offensively. He went 0-for-6 in this game, which included grounding into an inning-ending double play in the 6th when the Mets had the bases loaded. He also popped up a sacrifice bunt attempt for an out in the 12th, the third time in the series he did that. Through 5 games, he's 1-for-16.

After Mora recorded is 3rd OF assist of the playoffs in the 13th, the NBC broadcast caught him high-fiving with the fans as he made his way back to the dugout. It reminded me a lot of what Lastings Milledge would do a few years later.

Piazza's maladies continued, as he was removed after 14 innings with a "strained forearm." At that point, we had no clue if he'd be available in Game 6, if we even made it that far. Sadly, his many injuries left him virtually useless in this series.

The 12-pitch Dunston AB in the 15th is the key play of the game, outside of Ventura's game-winner. Valentine had Dotel up to bunt next, but at the last second pulled him back in favor of Matt Franco. Taking Dotel out meant either Al Leiter or Rick Reed would have to pitch next if the game were to continue on past the 15th, as they were the only pitchers the Mets had left. Thankfully, that was a problem the Mets were able to avoid.

The final line by the 8 relief pitchers the Mets used: a combined 12 innings, 9 hits, 1 run, 15 strikeouts. Stellar.

At the time, in terms of time elapsed, this stood as the longest postseason game in MLB history at 346 minutes (or 5 hours, 46 minutes). It was broken a few years later by a Yankees/Red Sox marathon that went 5 hours, 49 minutes in 2004.

I don't remember if I watched the ending live, but I sure remember listening to Gary Cohen's call of the grand slam single over and over again, to the point of memorization. "That ball is...OUTTA HERE!! OUTTA HERE! A GAME-WINNING, GRAND SLAM HOME RUN OFF THE BAT OF ROBIN VENTURA! THEY'RE MOBBING HIM BEFORE HE CAN GET TO SECOND BASE! THE METS HAVE WON THE BALL GAME!" Still gives me chills to this day.

I remember after the First Five batters have a sick feeling in my gut and turned the TV off, I kept the Radio on and after the 5th inning I smelled COMEBACK! Too Bad We had Rogers in there, btw who else was in the Bull Pen?

Dotel was the other pitcher in the bullpen. I can't remember the exact phrase but the announcer said something like "They can bring in Rogers" and about a minute later "Now Dotel's warming up, so it'll be Rogers, a flutterbll pitcher or Dotel who throws heaters." I can't really say I blame Kenny. I blame Leiter, Franco, Benitez, and Valentine all before him.

Despite being perhaps the second most ugly postseason Met loss I have ever seen (I am only 16), this is one of the most exciting playoff games in history. I remember watching Al, my favorite Met, and that sparkling Met defense give up those five early runs. But when they eventually got to the 7th and trailed 7 to 3, I just said to myself (in bed and listening to the radio), "Mojo risin'." Then what became what I call today as three weddings and a funeral happened for the Mets.

First I saw them just club good ol' Smoltzy for 4 runs including that classic Piazza shot deep the other way. Next came the improbable base hit by Melly Mora to give them a 1-run lead. After that was blown, I watched big Benny beat Andruw Jones' throw home in the 10th, only to have the not immortal Armando give it right back.

Then came the funeral. Once Gerald Williams led off with the double I knew it was almost over, but I still had hope. What I still don't understand though, is if they started Leiter on three days to skip Rogers' turn, why bring Rogers into a tied extra-inning game on the road when there is zero margin for error? All in all, from opening day in Florida, all the way to ball four to Andruw Jones, this still remains as the greatest season in Mets history. Even better than 1986, and 2000.

This is one of my most hated game in Mets playoff history. I still have nightmares about Kenny Rogers and his pitch selection to Andruw Jones. When the bases were juiced and u needed to throw a strike why throw anything else but a fastball. As any met fan saw he was looking for the walk so make hi take a strike. Worse thing that could of happened is that he crushes it or a sac fly type ball. LET HIM HIT IT. He might grounded into the doubleplay if u let him take a swing. As a met fan im glad Kenny is gone as well as this game and I pray it never happens again.

The game 6 few thought would happen started, for me, not in front of a TV, but in a meeting featuring me screaming at people because I wanted to get the hell out of there and back to my house to watch the game. And when I got back, it was 5- 0! A fine How do you do indeed. Then, it happened. 3 in the 6th, but the Braves countered with 2. Then the Mets started whipping some long hits off of Smoltz in the 7th, capped by Piazza, looking as if he'd just been hit by a truck, blasted one out of the ballpark, and I damn near jumped through the ceiling. The Mets would take subsequent leads in this game, and each time the Braves tied it. And finally they prevailed on Kenny #$%#$^ Rogers' fluttering curve. Just before the pitch, I turned to my roommate and said, "Well, if it ends here, it's been one hell of a run, and nothing to be ashamed of...But wouldn't it be sweet if they got out of it?" The pitch is thrown..."Oh dear." Not to be, and all I was left with was this haunting chant over NBC's feed of "Mets suck!" A postscript: The next night, I actually put on NBC at 8, expecting to see Game 7, and instead getting Friends. And thanks to the $@$&*^%# braves, I refused to watch any of the World Series.

I remember having to work that night. I popped a tape in the VCR, planning to watch the game when I got home. When I got home, I rewound the tape, watched all the pre-game stuff, then the game started. Bam!!!! 5-zip, Braves, my stomach felt queezy. I figured that I would just fast forward to the end of the game and watch the coffin being nailed shut. But a strange thing happened, as I was fast forwarding the tape (FF play), all of the sudden I saw the Mets running around the bases. I slowed the tape, oh my god! They were scoring some runs! Then when Bobby Boo Boo came off the bench and got a hit I thought for sure The Almighty was a Met fan. Then, top of the 8th, Piazza comes up (his hands were so messed up by this time, he could barely hold the bat), and jacks one in to the right field seats off of Smoltz to give the Mets the lead, I came out of my chair hollering. I probably woke my upstairs neighbor (remember, I had to work, so it was probably about 1:30 AM by this time). I can remember the camera panning the Braves dougout, they looked like a collective deer in the headlights, they were in shock! I'll say this till the day I die, and no one will convince me any different. If the Mets had held on and won that game, they would have won Game 7 too. And finally, I can remember watching ESPN the next day. They interviewed a few of the Yankees, they were disappointed, they really wanted to play the Mets.

The heartbreaker of a century. If the Mets won this, they would become the first team in playoff history to come back from a 3-0 series deficit to force a 7th game. But the Braves got 5 runs. But the Mets come back and then Piazza tied it in the 8th (and he wasn't just playing injured he was playing dead) with a home run and I was jumping up and down and the Mets, throughout the game, would score runs only to have it tied by the Braves and then, in the bottom of the 10th, the Mets had a one run lead and then they tied and, with the bases loaded, Andruw Jones stepped up against Kenny Rogers, and, the infamous pitch, where Kenny Rogers floats a horrible curve with brings Gerald Williams home from third to send the Braves to the World Series and send the Mets home. It totally killed me.

Never Say Die. I have always said that when Bobby Valnetine managed the Mets his teams never gave up. Most teams would have mailed it in after the first. But the Mets battled back, refusing to die. They may have lost the game but that team gained a lot of respect.

When thinking about this game one thing comes to mind. Mike Piazza! The home run he hit off of Smoltz in the 7th was one of the most remarkable home runs I've seen. you could see the faces of the Braves players just dropped. I try not to think about the bases loaded walk so I sit back and think of that homer.

Everything that needs to be said about this game has been said. I'll just add the 3 things that stick out the most in my memory.

Beginning of the game: 4-0 Braves before the Mets could record an out. When it hit 5-0 moments later, my good friend Jim--who had watched every playoff game with me in our respective seats--got up to leave. I yelled to him, "sit the f*** down! We're gonna come back and win this game!"

Middle of the game: Piazza bomb makes it 7-7. Good thing Jim didn't leave.

End of the game: Bases loaded. Me and Jim are so dazed and confused from the entire series that we were perfectly content with the situation, knowing we were about to record an inning-ending double play. Then Rogers throws ball one--and we both knew. Jim and I look at each other immediately and Jim says, "you're thinking what I'm thinking aren't you?" I just nodded silently, solemnly. We kept repeating, PLEADING, "over the plate, over the plate, over the plate..."

Ball four.

Jim wasted no time. He got up, shook my hand, said "it's been a great season," and stormed out. I just stared at the screen, catatonic.

Not much to add on this one except that it may have been the hardest loss in Mets history for me to accept. I still think the 99 Mets were supposed to be the first team to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series. We all know what the Red Sox did five years later, but this was hard to take. Piazza's blast is still an all-time highlight - right up there with Ventura's GS single the game before and all the big homers in '86.

As it was said earlier in this section, the blame for this loss should ride heavily on the 2 "closers" this team had and how each one failed to hold the lead. A starter coming in relief is tough especially when some starters needs to get some pitches in to get loose.

And thus ends perhaps one of the most beloved and unique Mets season of all time. Had they made the comeback against Atlanta, and then beaten the Yankees, this team would have won the heart of Mets fans probably over 1969 and 1986

I always found it fascinating how the vast majority to this day blame Kenny Rogers for this loss. Most of the blame should go to Franco and Benitez for not holding onto the lead late in the game in the bottom of the 8th and then again in the bottom of the 10th, that would have forced the game 7

I don’t blame Leiter that much, since Leiter was great in that game 163, and in game 4 against Arizona, and even in game 3 against Atlanta. And Leiter was pitching on 3-days-rest this game 6.

I really wanted the Mets to face the Yankees in 1999 since both teams were just so elite; I actually did not want to face the Yankees in 2000 since both teams just weren't as strong in 2000 like they were in 1999. I really wanted the Mets to face the Mariners in the World Series in 2000

For me, this is the most memorable, if also the most infamous, Met game of the 1990s. I remember watching this in my college dorm room, super excited and riding high after wins in Games 4 and 5. Leiter on the mound, momentum on our side, feeling good.

But my god did it fall apart fast. Leiter hits the first batter. Walks the next. Then double steal and Piazza throwing error, 1-0. Then another hit by pitch. Then RBI single, 2-0. Then a grounder back to him but he can't get anyone out. Then 2-run single by series nemesis Eddie Perez, 4-0. WTF. Leiter gets yanked and I turn off the TV, not able to bear watching the Mets get blown out in the most important game of the decade.

I go off and do something else for a couple hours, then decide to turn on the game again just to see how bad they're losing. To my absolute shock, it's the top of the 7th inning, and the game is tied at 7-7. Again, WTF. Of course, at this point I'm sucked right back in, only to see Franco and Benitez both blow leads, and then Rogers unable to find the plate against Andruw Jones to end the season. What a kick in the balls.

It was a fitting way to end a rollercoaster season with a rollercoaster of a game. And we're left wondering what could have been if only a few small things went our way. What if Alfonzo or Ventura had hit home runs instead of both flying out to the warning track in the 7th? What if Piazza holds on to the ball and doesn't commit the throwing error in the 8th that puts Otis Nixon on 3rd with 1 out? What if Valentine had brought in Benitez right then and there instead of sticking with Franco? What if instead of intentionally walking Brian Jordan in the 11th they had instead pitched to him, either with Rogers or Dotel, so as not to give the Braves a chance to win with a walk?

After Rogers threw ball four, the cameras caught Valentine slamming his fists against the dugout railing and shouting, "No! No!," joining the thousands of fans who probably did the exact same thing while watching at home. Rogers and Bonilla both made their final appearances with the Mets in this game, and neither would be missed, but the same couldn't be said for Olerud, Cedeno and Hershiser, who were also headed elsewhere in 2000.

Another gut punch then came a week later when the Yankees completed their sweep of the Braves to win their second straight World Series. Now we had to hear them gloat while still recovering from our own heartbreaking defeat. It was a rough time for us Met fans, but our team had earned a ton of respect for the way they fought until the bitter end. And I think we all knew we were only going to come back more determined than ever the following season.

Rocker got booed constantly when he pitched this game.

Police were rollin deep in this series because of comments made by Rocker. Mets fans got arrested for throwing golf balls at him while he was warming up in the bullpen. Prelude to one of the best games in our history. Thanks for the memories John. I still hate you!

What an amazing comeback !!! Now they better make it a memorable game that led to something big

I was at this game. The fans cheering after the Piazza homer was the loudest noise I've ever heard in my life. That was the best game I ever attended. I was also at Johnny's 400th save game, but this one passes that by a mile.

I watched the game for about 5 or 6 innings, and then I went on the Internet for a while, but then I just wanted to check the score on AOL, and I saw the were up 8-2, then I saw for each batter, walk, walk, walk, single, then I woke up my dad, and as I soon as I turned it on, there was Piazza drilling a three run homer right down the left field line off Terry Mullholland.

I went to this game with 10 friends of mine from a fantasy baseball league we all belonged to. We sat about 3/4 of the way down the left field line, back in the lodge reserve. With the Mets down by 7 in the ninth, one of my friends; (Austin Fiore), left the game and went back to our cars to serve up some grub for when we got back. Little did he or anyone else know what was going to happen next. Watching the Mets chisel away that lead was great. At first you think, oh well a little too late for a comeback, down by 7 in the bottom of the 8th. But as they got closer and closer Shea really began to rock, and when Piazza hit that home run the place went wild! It was awesome! Especially against the dreaded Braves! I lost my voice after that game! My friend Austin tried to get back in when he heard the hysteria but was not allowed back in. He never lived that night down!

This game was on my birthday. I remember this as quite possibly one of the best games I've ever seen. Even my brother (who's a Yankees fan) was in awe when Piazza smacked that three run HR.

The worst loss ever suffered by the Braves in a regular season game. But I tip my hats to the Mets, they did a fantastic job. And I'm a Braves fan, no less! I remember this game CLEARLY. I was at home, watching the game with my entire family. We cheered as Brian Jordan homered to make it 8-1 and we were thinking the Mets still hadn't figured us out. Not so. Our bullpen wasn't too great in 2000, and they took advantage of it. Don Wengert didn't do his job, so Kerry Ligtenberg tried to help. Man, I felt so sorry for him. I though he should've suffered the loss, not Terry Mulholland. Anyway, this game was so frustrating for me, but I can't help but feel good for the Mets because what they did was not easy. But I believe the Braves gave the game away rather than be overwhelmed by the Mets. After all, the Braves are always better!

The Mets were really a comeback team in 1999 and 2000. In this game, it was 8-1 in the bottom of the 8th but never count the Mets out. They started coming back with singles and walks because the Braves bullpen was horrible and then Terry Mulholland, who has had some great games in his life including a no-hitter, goes onto the mound and then the game is tied for Mike Piazza and he drills one down the line and starts hopping and then pumps his fist when it hits the wall where all the championship things are to complete the comeback and a ten run inning and the Mets held on and won 11-8.

Can't believe it's been nearly four years since this game. The six things I will always remember about this day:

• First game my son and I attended together alone.
• Piazza unable to hang on to several foul tips (strike 3) that will have certainly made it easier on Hampton that night.
• All those walks in the eighth.
• Alfonzo's 52 hopper, with 2 strikes, in the hole to tie the game.
• The upper deck shaking like it did after Piazza broke the tie.
• Watching the Braves' bus speed through the parking lot after the game. The 35 thousand or so of us let out a collective laugh, it was like a scene out of a silent movie.

The always clutch Fonzie ties it up. And Mike provides the big blow. Not the best game I've ever seen, but certainly the best inning! Man, this was awesome!

Ahh, Fireworks Night, without question the most thrilling game I've ever attended.

With the score 8-1 in Atlanta's favor, going to the bottom of the 8th with Kevin Millwood comfortably in control, my best friend Bobby boldly stated, "I'm not clapping for anything until this game is tied." Then came the most unbelievable 2-out rally we've ever seen in our lives. Piazza's line-drive home run off Terry Mulholland made the entire upper deck shake. A 10-run 8th, an 11-8 win, and a story that will last forever.

To top it off, my friends and I were sitting in the upper box in left field, the section closest to the Atlanta bullpen. There were NYPD officers at virtually every other row, to ensure no one did anything to John Rocker, since it was the Braves' 1st trip to Shea since Rocker's comments in Sports Illustrated about New York. A week later, I get my next issue of SI in the mail (David Wells on the cover, pitching for Toronto), and on the table of contents page, I can clearly see myself and the two friends I attended the game with, and the cops totally engulfing our section. Not a bad night.

I remember watching this game with my mom in the living room. For whatever reason, in the middle of the 8th, I switched from the sofa to the floor, with my knees uncomfortably jammed up against the coffee table. Suffice it to say, I didn't budge an INCH (nor say a word) until Mike jacked the home run to put them in the lead, at which point I jumped up and screamed like a maniac.

My dad was in Israel at the time, and I called him to tell him what had happened. (Must have been about 5 a.m. there.) Extra special because it was against the Braves.

I will never forget this game. I had idolized Piazza at the time, and seeing that home run was awesome. By far one of the most exciting games I have ever seen.

Still my all time favorite game. I was visiting my family in Southern Cal, staying at a hotel. My niece (3) and nephew (1) were playing in the hotel pool, I was in the room watching the game by myself. The entire family came into the hotel room as Fonzie came up in the 8th. I was freaking out. When Mikey hit the HR, the kids got so scared they scampered into the hotel closet. (My brother took a picture.) Ever since that day my niece has called me "Aunt Kathryn Mets". Love it :)

I flew in from California about an hour before game time at JFK. This game was sold out but I got lucky when all the good folks from Chase Manhattan Bank came in off the 7 late. Got a ticket from a sloshed Puerto Rican lady, grabbed a beer, and by the time I sat down Brian Jordan just hit a 3-run homer to put the braves up 8-1. Then the greatest thing in my life happened. When Mikey hit that ball... was a laser. Never saw a ball get out that fast before and I've been to a lot of ballgames. Was the greatest night of my life. Then the fireworks... I was the last one to leave Shea that night. They had to kick me out. It was my first experience at Shea and it couldn't have been better. I didn't even have a chance to book a hotel from the time I left JFK until game time. So a whole other adventure was in the midst. I didn't care. I love this team. Been die hard since the summer of 83 when I was just 7 years old. Mikey was clutch that night. Like he always was. I still remember the look on Cox's face. We didn't have many good games against the Braves back then, and against any other team it wouldn't have mattered that much. Thank you Mets for that night. Jumping in the air with a complete stranger (who actually looked just like my Uncle Doug, from Lindenhurst) clutching him with a friendly headlock, screaming at the top of my lungs, with that feeling of falling on to the field from that steep third deck and not caring. Still remember that song playing from the late "Aliya": If you dont succeed...dust yourself off and try again. To you young fans that song was a big thing then. I can write a book about this night so I'll shut up now. LEEEEEETTTTTTSSSSS GGGGGGOOOOOO MMMMMMEEEEEETTTTTTSSSSSS!!!!!!

One of the greatest comebacks in Mets history.

This was the second Maddux-Leiter game I had ever been to and the same thing happened as the first. Leiter outpitched Maddux and struck out 12 and the Mets won.

I got engaged right after watching this game on the TV at a bar near the Holiday Inn in Memphis.

This was my first "Serious Mets Fan" game. John Rocker home made dummies were paraded through the stands. Benny Agbayani gotta love him. Maddux was so respected and the Mets just couldn't get past the Braves the year before. It was heaven, dream-like where the success on the field mingled with the mania in the stands, I was elated.

This was one of those games that made me so frustrated to be a Mets fan. I don't even remember how Atlanta scored their run, either on a HR leading off the 7th, or on a couple of scratch hits, but I remember very well being disgusted and storming around my house afterwards.

In this game, the Mets tied a club record by using 25 players. They previously did it on 9-14-98 in an extra-inning game in Houston that they won.

This was the game that with the victory we clinched the wild card. The one play that stands out in my memory is the home run Derek Bell jumped over the wall and robbed. He got injured on the play but the game was all Mets after that play. I can remember that was the loudest Mets game I've been to. None of the fans wanted to leave their seats once the game was over, but once we did start to leave, we were still chanting "Let's Go Mets" as we walked down the ramps.

A shot by Alfonzo. A near-homer that Derek Bell caught over the wall. I was at this game and that's what I remember and then the last pitch was fired, a swing and a miss, and the Mets were the wild card champs. Everyone jumping up and down, we walked out of the stadium and everyone was chanting "Let's Go Mets!" and I was so happy!

i went to this game certain the Mets were gonna lose. I mean, we had our worst pitcher against the braves best, greg maddux, who coincidently is one of the best in the major leauge. I didnt expect the game to be exciting because the braves already cllinched the Western divison, so there was nothing to play for excpet to try and break maddux's streak. And they did! it ended up being a lot more exciting than I though, and it just goes to show that no game can be predetermined. thats why im sure the Mets have just as good a chance at the World Series.

My brother and I went to this game, I had bought the tickets that summer thinking that NY-Atl in late September would be a meaningful game. So what happened? The Mutts clinched the Wild Card the night before and rested Piazza, Ventura and most of their other regulars.

Still an entertaining game, the Mets pounded Greg Maddux and kept him from winning his 20th game of the season. Also someone on the Braves dropped an easy pop-up and Kurt Abbott hit a HR so we got to see the Apple.

Me, my dad and sister went to this game we sat in my sister's boss's seats above the scoreboard on the 3rd base line. When I saw the Mets starting lineup and they were sitting their regulars and knew Greg Maddux was pitching I was certain the Braves were going to walk away with the win. But it turned out the Mets walked over the Braves. I remember when Bonilla was playing in left field the fans were yelling to him, "Hey, Bobby! Let's play some cards!"

Me, my dad and sister went to this game. We sat in my sister's boss's seats above the scoreboard on the 3rd base line. When I saw the Mets starting lineup and they were sitting their regulars with Greg Maddux pitching I was certain the Braves were going to walk away with the win. But it turned out the Mets walked over the Braves. I remember when Bonilla was playing in left field the fans were yelling to him, "Hey Bobby, let's play some cards."

Fun fact about this game: it was the first game in 3 years that the Mets played that was completely meaningless to them. This is because the Braves clinched the east in the first game of this series, and the Mets clinching the wild card the night before this....and both 1998 and 1999 came down to the final day).

Robin Ventura gives an early indication that his 2000 struggles are behind him, with two homers to help beat the Braves in Atlanta on Opening Day!

I was in Logan Airport, getting ready for a four month trip to Europe, and kept checking the crawl on Headline News to see how the Metties were doing. I didn't find out they won the game until late April, but still thought it was some sort of an omen for the year to come. Wrong.

I remember it was almost 90 degrees and sunny. I left Shea with a sunburn. I was and wasn't excited for the game because the Mets sweep by Montreal. The crowd yelling nasty things when John Rocker was introduced and as it would turn out to be one, if not the final appearance with Braves even though he didn't pitch during the series. Anyway, Piazza homered twice, Shinjo got his first MLB home run and his first curtain call. Bentiez gave up a 9th inning home run (what else is new). The Mets raised the 2000 NL Championship banner in centerfield with the rest of the pennants. They wore the 20/60 patch for the first and only time of year. One of the games that WASN'T a indication of the topsy tirvy that would come.

Has Ordonez ever had a game-winning RBI before this game? I don't remember.

You go to a Mets-Braves game and you think of seeing Leiter vs Maddux. So I draw Rusch vs Burkett, oh boy. Turns out to be a pitchers duel with Ordonez getting the walk off hit in the drizzling rain. What a weird game. However it did change my usual bad luck at Met games.

Can't say I remember much about this game except I found the ticket stub so I obviously went. Reading the box score I vaguely remember Rick White giving up 6 runs in the 11th and all of us being disgusted.

Alex Escobar hit a home run and I remember thinking it was the first of many for a future Mets superstar...

Desi Relaford tied the game late off Mike Remlinger in a memorable shot (John Rocker got traded this season. Possibly even the night before, I remember the reaction at Shea. It was definitely while the Mets were playing the Braves.)

But the lasting memory I have is Rick White giving up a boatload of runs in extras, one of which was a catchable ball Darryl Hamilton pulled up in front of in the outfield. As he walked off the mound, some guy from the Mezzanine screamed "RICK WHITE!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!" Pretty much summed up the afternoon.

The first game I ever attended. School had just finished for the start of summer and my Dad and Uncle surprised my cousin and I with tickets. I was only 5 years old and sat in the Mezzanine along the right field side.

A still remember that second home run by Jordan going over the wall and knowing we were cooked. It honestly was a fitting introduction to a trend that still continues to this day: the Atlanta Braves breaking my heart. Game lasted (per BBR) 3 hours and 15 minutes (thank you Human Rain Delay Steve Trachsel) and I was hooked for life.

In the morning, my wife gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, then in the evening Steve Trachsel beats the Braves at Turner Field. That's two miracles in one day!

Also, Mike Piazza broke his toe. That wasn't a miracle. The way this season has been going for the Mets, and injury to Piazza seemed inevitable.

This was my first Mets game at Turner Field. I seen one at Fulton County in 89. I had a seat in the outfield on 1st base side a few rows back and parallel with the right fielder. Before the game I was yelling at Shinjo who was running by himself and had bad hamstring at the time but he wouldn't turn around. Joe McEwing walked over and gave a few autographs but I just watched. Trachsel almost hit a home run as well as pitch good. I seem to recall a close play at home that resulted in ruuning out on squeeze play...I think.

This was no ordinary ballgame. As the first major sporting event in New York City after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, it also served as a tribute to those who risked or lost their lives in the attack. It served as a patriotic tribute to America, and freedom. And it served as one small step towards a return to normalcy.

I wasn't at this game, although I wish I was. I watched on TV, and my eyes watered as Diana Ross sang a rousing version of "God Bless America." A few minutes later, there was a moment of silence. Shea Stadium had over 41,000 fans in attendance, and the park was absolutely, extraordinarily, silent. During the seventh inning stretch, Liza Minnelli sang "New York, New York" and reminded us once again of the enduring power and character of the world's greatest city. (And after her number she gave Jay Payton a big hug and kiss, which left a lipstick mark that was visible to the TV camera.)

Oh, and one more thing... with the Mets trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth, Mike Piazza hit a monstrous home run to center field, and the crowd went wild. And the Mets went wild. And that was the best part of the evening, seeing thousands of New Yorkers cheering in unison, as if baseball really mattered. It showed that the healing has begun, and that despite the evil plans of insane terrorists, New York, America, and yes, baseball, will endure.

All in all, it was one heckuva night.

I have been to many games in my history as a Mets fan. I have seen many memorable games, as well. From the 6-0 comeback on Opening day in 96, the Todd Pratt HR game, and Bobby Jones' one-hitter last season. But none were quite as moving or important as this one. In the wake of one of the darkest events in our nation's history, the Mets returned home and brought with them quite a show. I will remember this game not for the ceremonies, the stars or Liza Minelli kissing Jay Payton, but for the reaction that resulted from Mike Piazza's 8th inning HR. From a crowd that seemed lethargic all evening came the loudest and exhilirating cheers I have ever experienced. People I didn't know were hugging everyone in sight, slapping fives, and for that moment in time, the horror of the past weeks was forgotten. Thank you, Mike Piazza, for bringing smiles to the faces of us all. Perhaps you aren't a hero in the larger scheme of things, but you brought smiles to the faces of every Mets fan in attendance that night.

In my opinion, this is the most important game in the history of the Mets. I work at a small theatre in downtown Manhattan, not too far from the WTC and the previous ten days had been hell. I would burst into tears for no readily apparent reason. I was looking for any solace and my Mets coming home brought me just a ray of sunshine.

I was working during the game so I listened to it on the FAN. Knowing that the baseball fates aren't much for cosmic justice I was feeling pretty low in the bottom of the eighth. Then, the one man who has continued to lift this team up on his beefy shoulders for the past three and a half seasons, hit his magical home run and before I could stop my myself, I realized I had burst into tears again. They weren't tears of joy really (I wasn't ready to feel joy) but it was perhaps the most cathartic cry I've ever had in my life.

It's just baseball. A game that, in the face of over 3,000 deaths, doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. But I knew, as I listened to the Shea faithful give the largest cheer I have ever heard, that in some collective way, it did matter. And that's why I love the game.

I was there and I remember the chants of USA and how it took an hour to get into the stadium

No Met game ever brought tears to my eyes. This one did.

I have been to many great games in my life, but this is one I cherish more then any. Piazza is OUR hero, he did for us what we needed, he picked us up and willed us to win this game. He did it for NY and for US the Met fans who put aside ours fears for 3 hours of baseball. He would not, could not and did not let us down. I will tell this story to my kids and grandkids. Thank you Mike.

With all that happened I wanted baseball back so bad just to escape reality. Everyone in NYC needed a baseball game to feel normal again.

I knew that Piazza was going to deliver. I still remember jumping up and down, screaming at the top of my lungs when Piazza's shot struck the camera tower in center---releasing all that emotion that had been trapped inside for 10 days.

Probably the biggest HR in NY history besides Bobby Thomson in 1951.

First game back at Shea after 9/11. I was 15 years old and I remember watching this game on TV. After 9/11 it seemed like everyone forgot we were still in a race with our arch rival Atlanta Braves for first place. It just didn't seem important anymore. We just wanted a reason to celebrate and be happy after all we had been through. I remember one of the fans held up a sign that said "New York Mets and Atlanta Braves, two rivalries now stand united." I would have never thought I'd ever see a sign like that in my life.

We were trailing 2-1 nearly the whole game until the bottom of the 8th. I think Edgardo Alfonzo took a walk, then with one out Mike Piazza launched a huge home run to dead center. The fans just went berserk. I screamed my lungs out. It was like layers of anxiety and sadness built up for weeks that we couldn't realize. Then when big Mike hit that home run we just let it go.

One of my most favorite Met games in my lifetime. I will never forget it.

I was a few months out of college, with a job assisting a Japanese sportswriter. However, I wanted to be a play-by-play announcer. Because of this job, I had a Mets press credential (since my boss regularly covered Tsuyoshi Shinjo) and I would use it to get into Shea before sneaking into the upper deck to call games into my tape recorder.

This game was one of the ones I called. I remember my call of Piazza's homer like it was yesterday: "Karsay sets at the belt...the pitch...hit DEEEEEP to centerfield...Andruw Jones is baaaaack...FORRRR-GET IT!...Mike Piazza with a two-run homer to give the Mets a 3-2 lead!"

That winter, that call was the first one on my demo tape that I made looking for a broadcasting job in the minor leagues. That tape landed me a minor league job for the 2002 season and I've covered baseball in the minors and majors every year since.

1) This is one "Mets Classics" I DON'T mind being a constant rerun at all. 2) SNY should start a program called "METS TOP 10 MOMENTS" since the 50th anniversary of the team is coming up next year and in the category of "TOP 10 HOMERUNS IN METS HISTORY", Piazza's emotional dinger in the 8th would be #1; END OF STORY!

I still get chills and a lump in my throat when I see Piazza's home run on Mets Classics (A replay that will never get boring). Without a doubt the greatest Mets home run in their 50+ years.

Damn you, Armando! We we're so close. Why can't you just blow your saves in less significant looking situations?

This just may have been the most agonizing game I have ever watched. At least starting from the top of the ninth inning. We had to get a new portable phone because the volume adjuster came off from me throwing it in anger. I felt sort of bad my folks bought a new one. The phone was fine except for the volume adjuster. I told them they should have sent the bill to Armando Bumnitez. Whoops, I mean Benitez. Note my sarcasm in the previous sentence. I think Bobby V. should have brought John Franco or someone else in right after Brian Jordan hit the home run to make it 4-3. But, as he has done a lot, he stayed with a pitcher too long.

Worse then the Pendleton game in 1987. I was sitting in the upper deck. I never heard Shea get so quiet since I've started watching baseball again in 1998. Worse feeling ever leaving a ballpark.

This was when the Mets needed a win, they had a lead, and Benitez blew it by giving up a homer to Brian Jordan and then giving up more runs.

I remember this game clearly. It was the first, and only time I caught a foul ball. It was hit off B.J. Surhoff's bat in the 10th or 11th inning. Even though the Mets lost (horribly!), I'll never forget this game.

I caught the foul ball with my 11 month old baby in my arms. I am looking for the video of this game to share with her. I hope someone can help

The Mets are on a 22-5 tear heading into this game, to cut what was a 13.5 game deficit as late as August 18th to 3.5.

Yes, this is part of the Braves run of division titles but they were reeling heading into this game. Lost 3 of 4 to the second place Phillies right before this series, and were on the cusp of getting swept here. I really thought this was the year that streak was coming to an end; if the Mets win they are 2.5 games back of the first-place... Phillies. Yes, 2001 was a weird year.

Al Leiter throws his best game of the season (in addition to how big the game felt his game score backs this up) and the Braves are down by 3 down to their last out. Armando Benitez has just froze Chipper Jones for a called strike and a sweep is all but inevitable.

Now let's pause for a second. A runner on first, down 3 with two outs in the ninth means the Mets win probability is at 99%. You can give up a home run and still be in the driver's seat, which Benitez promptly does to Brian Jordan to cut the lead to 4-3. Not ideal but the win probability is still at 96%. Dave Martinez walks on a 3-2 pitch , 92%. Andrew Jones pokes a 1-2 single into left field, still 86%.

BJ Surhoff then ties the game on a 0-2 liner to centerfield and in a matter of 15 pitches and despite the Braves being down to their last strike on three consecutive hitters this game is tied. John Franco miraculously keeps it that way after striking out Eddie Perez but that half inning was when the Mets resuscitated 2001 season began to die.

You know how this one ends; John Smoltz throws three dominant innings, Jordan hits another home run in the 11th to give the Braves a lead they wouldn't lost and after all the emotion and momentum from the first two games of this series, it ends on the bitterest of notes.

You know, this 2001 team really liked to tease. After the worst loss of the season the previous Sunday, the Mets go to Montreal for 3 against the listless Expos. Everything reeks of this being the series where all hope is ended, playing a terrible team in front less than 7,000 people each game.

Yet they sweep the stinkin' Expos. And somehow are only 3 games back with 9 to go heading into this series. It makes no sense; the Mets have been outscored by 56 runs thus far.

This does make sense though, Steve Trachsel gives up three bombs as the Mets blow an early lead and fall to the Braves 5-3 in the opener.

One of the worst losses in Mets history. As a met fan, you had to be thinking there is no way for a replay of the previous Sunday at Shea. I was at a wedding, checking the radio in the parking lot between beers, and Leiter was absolutely cruising. And then the ultimate Armando meltdown. He permanently lost the faith of the fan base that day.

What a disgrace. Were there any words for this game? The Mets, running high and playing very well for the better part of the month, get themselves into position to finally dispose of the Braves. After losing the big first game in Atlanta, where they've just been horid, the Mets take a 5-1 lead into the ninth, only to watch Benitez choke and filthy Franco serve a pitch my grandmother could have it out of the yard. That was basically the Mets season right there. They eventually won the next day but that 2 game swing really threw them off...I believe it would have cut distance between them and first place Atlanta to 2 games...anyway, the Mets lost, and losing just continued the following season, into the next and into present day...miserable.

Just when we thought we put the final nail on the Braves coffin. It didn't happend. I felt bad for John Franco because it really wasn't his fault. Bentiez should had been the "closer" he was meant to be and end the game. Another Pennant hope dashed in 2001.

This was it. Do or die. And Benitez made them die for the most part and Franco put the nail in the coffin.

One of the worst losses in Met history. Benitez and Franco, as always, choked under pressure. What could have been...

This is the worst regular season loss in my memory. I don't think I uttered another word the rest of the day. It felt like someone kicked me in the stomach after Brian Jordan's grand slam. I thought that throwing darts at my dartboard with the Greg Maddux card attached would help me feel better, but it didn't work.

I could just cut and paste my comments from the previous Sunday's game with a couple of changes: Leiter throws one of his best games of the season, Armando Benitez has the Braves down to their last strike with a 3 run lead and a 98% win probability, and Brian Jordan caps an improbable comeback with a home run.

5 back with 7 to go. Just let me go peacefully.

My first and still only visit to Turner Field. Pedro Astacio made a strong Mets debut, Burnitz hit a 3-run homer, and we briefly had the Braves on the run that year. It was all over soon enough.

This was the most recent Mets game I've seen in person. After two years, what I remember most was guaranteeing a Mets win since Leiter was starting against some rookie from Australia (a guy who was today reseaded from AAA Durham), making fun of Mackay Christiansen for some reason when he entered the game, and knowing instantly that Giles' hit in extra innings was a definite homer immediately got up and was heading down from nose-bleed land before it cleared the fence. Oh yeah, I remember the sunburn all over my arms as well.

This is one of my favorite games.

Estes stunk early. I mean, that's not saying much since he stunk most of his time with the Mets, but he was particularly bad here. He turned a 1 run inning into a 5-run bloodbath in the second by giving up a 2 run single to Furcal and a bomb of a HR to Andro Jones. His line was nothing short of ugly and it looked like a long night.

Except that the Mets came back in the 7th. Down 6-1, Piazza led off with his second HR of the game, followed by doubles from Alfonzo and Burnitz. Ordonez singled home Burnitz to make it 6-4. John Valentin followed by walloping the first pitch from Mike Remlinger off the Retired Numbers to tie the game. The crowd went nuts. It was like the 10-run inning in 2000 on a smaller scale.

The bullpens basically took over after that. Atlanta had one hit after the 6th inning. The Mets left the bases loaded in the 10th (This was Spooneybarger who held them down, I believe. If it wasn't, I just wanted to mention Spooneybarger.).

Finally, in the 12th, Payton led off with a walk, Piazza walked two batters later, and Alfonzo nailed a single to left to bring home Payton with the game winner.

This was a great early season win for the Mets, although a moment that was not repeated very often over the course of the forgettable 2002 season.

I was at this game too. The Met bullpen (Roberts, Kane Davis (!), Weathers, Benitez and Strickland) combined for 9 scoreless innings. The rally in the 7th was keyed by Ordonez' squeeze bunt that went for a single, scoring Burnitz.

95 degrees F. at game time! Whew! I don't think I have ever been to a game at Shea in hotter weather and I've been around a while and seen many a Met game. I think the 95 degrees was a record for this day -- and in April no less! Anyway, Maddux was good but left the game early because of a blister on his finger so Cox brought in Millwood who was even better. Interesting incident during the game: Met pitcher Jeff D'Amico singled cleanly to right in the 4th inning but for some reason didn't hustle down to 1st base and as a result was thrown out by Julio Franco from RIGHT FIELD! Embarrassing!

What a weird game. 95 degrees in the middle of April, and you could say that they lost because of D'Amico's play in the fourth. There were two out and a runner on third, and Jeff just punched it into right. Everyone was cheering and high- fiving, and suddenly Franco just whirls the ball to first and the umpire, just as surprised as everyone else, throws his arm in the air. Everyone is shocked, and people start yelling at D'Amico. We got a break when Maddux had to leave the game, and we couldn't even capitalize off great pitching and score a couple of runs.

Fifth consecutive loss in a row, it would have been six if the game two days prior hadn't been rained out. 5 IN A ROW!, 7 losses in last 9 games! I remember this game. the game Valentine finally decided to bench Vaughn and Burnitz, and they actually ALMOST won the game. I think Burnitz and Vaughn should be worried about their starting jobs.

This was a lovely game. Versus Albie Lopez, The Mets came all out. Trachsel also hit his first career triple off of Lopez. Then Trachsel developed the blister and the Braves began to come back but were stopped short.

Another of the disappointing games from 2002 when the Mets simply couldn't pull it out when it mattered. In June, the Mets simply couldn't put wins together -- Burnitz completly fell apart offensively.

As a fan, I never leave Mets games early -- I never want to miss anything, nor do I feel it's fair to the players to be denied the support of the fans, even in a bad loss (although if Ordonez is going to call me "stupid"...)

That being said, I got up and left when Strickland gave up the grand slam to Sheffield in the top of the 8th. The homer was basically inevitable -- you just knew something bad was coming.

What was missed, of course, was one of the biggest (in terms of distance) home runs in Mets history. I heard Gary Cohen call the Mo Vaughn homer while driving on the Whitestone Expressway. Vaughn hit a monster shot off the Budweiser advertisement in the middle of the scoreboard, at the level of the top of the teams' lineups that are on either side of the advertisement.

This was Mo's first big offensive game for the Mets -- 2 HR and a double. That his numbers for 2002 actually appear (somewhat) decent is largely due to a late-season offensive surge, which really started with this game.

I was at this one too (Glenn's comments about the inevitability of a collapse that night are dead- on) but I'm glad I stuck around.

My initial reaction to Mo's home run wasn't an exclamation like "Yeah!" but rather a question like: "WHAT THE F---?!?"

There was no one on base and most of the fans had left. It was a humid night and very still. You could have heard a pin drop. Then, a crack on the bat and a ball that seemed to be traveling way too high in the air for a line drive. People saw where it landed and turned to one another and said, "Did I just see that?"

My scorecard says Vaughn's HR went 505 feet, and I believe it.

Went to this game with my dad, older sister, and roommate. Second straight time I got to see Al Leiter pitch and second straight time he got shelled. Is it me or were the 2002-2004 Mets a lot like the 1991-1993 Mets? Anyway, only highlight of the game was when I let this guy's son have the tee-shirt that I caught during when they shot them in the stands and the guy preceded to buy me a beer.

Great win for the Mets. Burnitz hit a grand slam in his first game back.

UUGGHHH!! What kind of moron are you Art? Jae Seo was pitching a fine ball game and again you lift him in favor of Weathers who is obviously not on his game this year. There's nothing wrong with leaving a starter in that is pitching just fine. The Braves made the mistake of lifting Maddux and the Mets started to creep back into the ball game so you decide it looked like a great idea? Why don't you learn from your mistakes already? Your middle relief core sucks! If the starters are doing fine leave them in already! Jeez- this is baseball not brain surgery.

A wet, soggy day at Shea and the first Mets game for our two kids. The hated Braves were in town and a young Jae Seo on the hill. Despite a constant rain from the first inning on, they got the game in (fact that Fox was airing it as their Game of the Week probably kept them from calling it). Shinjo was the hitting star for the Mets with a two-run double and Armando did his best to blow the game at the end, but escaped by striking out former Met Matt Franco with the bases loaded to end the game. Wet, wild and wonderful for the newest Met fans in the family!

Best baseball game ever. Burnitz home run + beer + free tee shirt = almost falling over mezzanine if not for the help of a good friend.

Jose Reyes became the youngest player in modern baseball history to hit home runs from both sides of the plate in a single game, against the hated Braves no less. I can't wait to watch Reyes play baseball for years to come.

You've got to be ecstatic after the opener. All spring the Mets couldn't hit, and kicked the ball around (45 errors in 35 games). Matsui who looked like Rey Ordonez all spring came out with guns blazing first pitch homer, two doubles, and two walks and looked great on the field too. Piazza hit a bomb which was great to see. Glavine started out struggling in the first, but pitched a nice game after that. Looper and Weathers looked great out of the bullpen. Guitterez has no range at all hopefully Reyes will be back soon. Wiggy layed off some bad pitches and Garcia made some nice plays, but Matsui was the star.

I remember, after his homer on the first major league pitch he saw, that I thought Kaz Matsui was some sort of an answer.

Trax didn't have it, and the bullpen was absolutely awful. Pretty much every pitcher was pulled way too late in the 4th. The bullpen lost thirty games last year and isn't any better this year. Stanton's done. He makes Franco look like he has a lot left. This game was painful to watch. Take a 6-run lead, and give up something like 14 unanswered runs. Piazza does look great though. The offense was great but the pitching really makes you worry.

Ten runs against the Braves without Reyes, Piazza, and Floyd is very impressive. Mets just pummeled Hampton again who lasted two innings. Trax was terrific as he bounced back as usual. Zeile was a terrific pickup. Zeile had a couple big hits along with a great slide. Spencer looks really good a nice catch, and two hits. You gotta love Cameron couple big hits great catch in center. He's fun to watch. Matsui continues to impress. Two more hits, and a walk. Moreno looked good out of the pen, but Roberts whose velocity is way down got hammered. Wheeler imploded in the ninth giving up a run, and loaded the bases. Thankfully Looper saved the team by getting a much needed double play.

I was home for Easter Break from college when I went to see this game. I knew everyone was returning to the dorms that day, but I didn't have class the next day anyways, so I made sure I got tickets for the season opener at Shea. My short stay in NY definitely paid off at the end of it with the Atlanta Braves getting beaten silly in the first few innings of the game. To make it even more memorable, the "I need more money to play in NY, otherwise I'm outta here" Mike Hampton was on the mound getting slaughtered. The memories of chanting "HAMP-TON" and doing the Braves's tomahawk won't leave my mind for quite a while. Now I'm back at school with a Mets banner hung in the window with pride.

Leiter pitched a gem, but as he always does he threw a lot of pitches. The bullpen was tremendous as Weathers got a big double play in the 6th and the 7th. Moreno was dominant in the 8th. The Mets who all game had troubles getting guys in from scoring position finally got big hits from Garcia and Duncan. Looper was dominant in the ninth blowing away Chipper Jones and Julio Franco.

So I take my wife to this game. It is a beautiful late summer Saturday evening and we have decent seats in the mezzanine section behind home plate. I'm telling my wife that the last time I sat here was back in 1977 and Steve Garvey hit a foul ball that I just missed off the tip of my glove and watched someone else get. Annoyed me for years. I tell her that maybe we'll get another chance tonight as this is good foul ball territory. We have aisle seats as that is her preference. Couple of innings into the game Andruw Jones fouls one off and in an instant, I know it is on a direct trajectory for us! I've got two options, 1. push her out into the aisle so I can reach the ball or 2. stretch for it and hope I can snag it away from the guy sitting in front of us. I glance at her, she glares back, option 2. I try to straddle her and reach for it but the guy sitting in front of me wearing a Mets jersey with WEINSTEIN emblazoned on the back simply remains sitting in his chair and makes a lazy basket catch into his mitt. The fans cheer and several off duty NYC Fireman even begin chanting his name! I don't know what happened the rest of the night. Didn't care either.

Black Friday. The day the Mets traded away three of the gems in their farm system (Huber,Peterson and the big one, Kazmir). They entered the day six games out, destined to end the weekend nine out and the season over. This is the day hope died for not just 2004, but the foreseeable future. If perception is everything, then these moves underlined a permanency of an era. For most of the 60's they were laughable. Then they were Amazin' and contenders. They fell into cheapness and mismanagement, but after three bad years began a gradual resurrection. They were glorious and yet underachieving in the late 80's. But since? Doomed.

I attended this double-dip only hoping for 1 thing out of it: to see Heliman give up 3 or less runs (win or lose). Well, I saw him pitch pretty good, except for the inning when he gave up 4 runs. He did receive credit for the win when the Mets rallied for some runs after he was pinch-hit for. So I guess it was a positive trip for me in the end. The night-cap was as dreary as most of the season has been. {Is anyone else out there happy that Kazmir out-pitched Pedro Martinez at Fenway? This should prove once again to the Mets to stop listening to 'The Commitee', & start doing what should be done. "He will not be major league ready until 2005 or 2006"- The LawGiver, Rick Peterson}

Attended this game by virtue of some freebies given out unceremoniously by Freddie and the gang for sitting through a miserable, soggy night at Shea in August. Little do I realize the treat I was in for.

Wright smoked a HR off Ortiz to lead off the 2nd. A beauty off the Loge seats in LF. Valent and Floyd added HRs later on in the game. Wright added a double and single, but fell short of the cycle in his last AB. I don't think triples are his forte.

Our old pal Mr. Chips was booed lustily throughout, as per usual.

But this night belonged to Kris Benson, who tossed his 2nd ML Shutout in this one. His one previous was also against Atlanta, in June, 2000. Benson had his stuff from the first inning on, was perfect into the 5th, didn't walk anyone, 7Ks, didn't allow a runner past 2nd and, thankfully, was able to talk Uncle Art into letting him finish.

Fortunately, Benson has been locked up for a few seasons, so let's hope he can deliver some more games like this one. He simply dominated in this game.

This was the first Mets game I'd been to in over 2 years - had great seats down the left field line 7 rows from the field.

What stands out is in the 2nd inning the Mets had runners on 1st and 3rd with no outs, and 8th place hitter Victor Diaz struck out against Horacio Ramirez, who had not really fooled anyone to that point. Heilman couldn't get a bunt down, and when Reyes flied out I thought "oh bleep!"

Of course, bottom of the inning, Braves have bases loaded with none out, and 8th place hitter Brian Jordan hits a grand slam. To anyone who thinks 8-hole hitters don't matter, well, they do. (Oh, and when the people in the seats next to me finally showed up in the 6th inning, it turns out they work for Brian Jordan in some capacity, and were crushed they missed his slam).

I also rememebr Heilman calming down after the slam and retiring 9 in a row (and 11 out of 12) before Larry Jones homered in the 5th. Not that I ever thought Heilman would throw a 1-hitter in his next start, but I wasn't as down on him as many other Met fans as I left the stadium that night.

Take that Atlanta! Last night I go on MLB.com and, even though Aaron Heilmans throwing a one-hitter at this point, the Braves are up 1-0 so they show a picture of Horacio Ramirez and talk about how well he's pitching when he's given up 5 hits. But Cliff Floyd's back and that 3-run bomb sealed it. We're getting first place.

Attended this game with my sister's boyfriend. We sat in a box that his employer owns. We were expecting a slugfest since Aaron Heilman was pitching. Braves had a 1-0 lead going into the sixth when Mike Piazza tied it on an RBI double, Cliff Floyd hit a three-run homer, and David Wright hit a two-run homer to help give the Mets a 5-1 lead. That still did not quiet the loud Braves' fan behind us. Him and the girl with him left early though.

Heilman pitched seven innings of two-hit, one-run ball. Braves would make a game out of it in the eighth and ninth off Roberto Hernandez and Braden Looper. It was a nailbiter until Looper finally got Julio Franco to ground out with the tying and go ahead runs on base to close out a 5-4 Mets' win. An awesome night.

Now that's the Mets I've known and learned to live with for the past four years: It was 4-1 Braves, bottom of the ninth two outs when, suddenly, the Mets start getting hit after hit, scoring run after run and suddenly, still with two outs, it was 4-3, with Piazza on third representing the tying run and someone else on first that I don't remember and the Mets hottest hitter Cliff Floyd is up and, of course, as the Mets always do, he pops it up to end the two-out rally and win the game for the Braves. Man, I hate the Braves.

I don't care if Tom Glavine was one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He sucks now. Most people have overestimated players and now that they're a little worse they let those players have it and sure, that's wrong. An example of that is Mike Piazza- he's not as good as he once was but he's still one of the best catchers in baseball. But that doesn't apply to Tom Glavine, who has surpassed bad and gone to awful. He just can't pitch and in this game against the Braves he showed that. The Braves won 8 -4. And Mike Hampton's a bum. Hall of famer vs. bum and the bum wins. Terrible.

I saw this game from the upper deck of Turner Field - great seats. Glavine pitched well, but the offense just wasn't there. Piazza in particular had a horrible game whereas Estrada for the Braves had a couple of key hits - the catchers decided this game, though Glavine was very unlucky when Raul Mondesi, of all people, beat out a couple of infield hits to start the two innings the Braves scored. One thing I did notice was that every time Glavine was within a batter of lowering his season ERA below 5 the Braves scored. Anyway, if the Mets had to lose, at least the game took less than 2.5 hours so I got home at a decent hour.

I always enjoy attending the first game back after the All-Star Break. It feels like a Mini-Opening Day. Especially when the All-Star Break feels a year long. So I was in attendance this night for one of the better games I've seen this season.

Walking into the Stadium, there was a certain buzz in the air. Maybe it was because the Braves were in, or maybe everyone was thinking like me and just wanted to go to the "Second Opening Day." Or maybe they just wanted a Mets Mousepad. Who knows.

Benson and Horacio Ramirez basically duked it out for the early part of the game. David Wright led off the second with an absolute bomb of a HR over Andro Jones' head, and over the 410 mark in CF.

Benson had retired the first 10 batters before allowing a single to Pete Orr, who then stole second and scored on an Andro Jones single (Andro Jones, it seems, has become the new most hated Brave at Shea, especially with LARRY out of the lineup). But the Mets forged back in front on Wright's second HR, a rocket into the bleachers in Left.

Benson cruised into the 7th, when he finally ran out of gas, and Adam LaRoche launched a 2 run HR to give Atlanta their first lead. Things looked dim, especially when, with Wright on 3rd and 2 outs in the last of the 7th, Willie sent up Jose Offerman to Pinch Hit. Perched in the Upper Deck, my friend and I couldn't quite see him come out of the dugout. My friend turned to me and said, "Who's number 35?" I scoff and say "Jose Offerman! Good God, it's Jose Awfulman!"

Of course Jose shut me up by pounding a single through the left side to score Wright and re-tie the game.

Then in the 8th, it was that familiar sight from so many games and great moments of years past that would turn the game in favor of the Mets. After Beltran lined a 2B off the wall (his 4th hit of the game, no less), and Floyd walked on 4 pitches, who else but the Greatest Hero in Mets History, Mike Piazza, comes up and blasts a towering, majestic, Vintage Mike Piazza Home Run off the side of the Loge section in Right. And, of course, the crowd goes nuts, and Mike gets the Curtain Call.

Looper came in for the 9th and got the side in order. And, YES! A great victory in front of a large crowd. A great way to start off what will hopefully be a successful second half of the season.

Would have been one of the best games of the 2005 season had the Mets won. It featured a great and sexy pitching matchup of Tom Glavine versus former long time teammate John Smoltz for the first time. Both pitched terrifically, however one bad fielding play cost the Mets the game. Still a very entertaining game.

I was at this game; it was overcast, but Pedro was brilliant. 6 Innings 61 pitches.

This game is Braden Looper in a nutshell. Against a young team, that is most probably adept at hitting fastballs right down the middle, he blows the save, then the Mets re-gain the lead in the 10th, and Looper goes back out and BLOWS IT AGAIN! Wow. This probably clinched him not returning as the closer in the 2006 Season. He stinks!

The Mets were still in the thick of things for a wild card when Braden Looper (Good Riddance) blew the lead in the bottom of the 10th inning against the bleeping Braves!!! After the game, I turned off the tv and was deep in thought when it hit me and it reminded me of a scene of the 1970 Rankin/Bass Christmas cartoon "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" when the Burgermeister ordered his guards to burn all the toys in front of the poor kids of Somberville. But subsitute Burgermeister for Bobby Cox, the kids for us Mets fans and Somberville for Turner Field aka Our HOUSE OF HORRORS!!!! You get the picture.

This was the time when the Mets realized they just blew their chances of making the playoffs and they tried to make it up to their fans by winning the rest of their games. Pedro Martinez, the one bright spot for the Mets all season, was on the mound and he pitched a gem. He woke up the Shea crowd from its two week hibernation and for the last three innings, it felt like the Mets were in the playoff race again. For those three innings, all you could hear throughout the stadium were chants of "Let's Go Pedro" and Pedro ended the game with a 6-hit shutout and ten strikeouts. It was only when I woke up the next morning that I remembered that the Mets were not going to the playoffs this year.

What an awesome night. Myself and two friends who accompanied me to a lot of games last year went to our first of the season. I also ended up running into my brother-in-law, his brother, and some friends they were with. Braves were their same pesky selves, but Pedro and the bullpen were able to hold them off for his 200th win. There was a Braves fan with a Chipper Jones jersey on getting a rise out of the Shea faithful. Here's hoping that this is the season where the Mets finally dethrone the Braves.

Nady and Delgado have been so great this year and they each blasted off, holding it down for Pedro and giving him his 200th win.

David Wright has been great this year, and I feel that he is the main reason the Mets have a shot at making the playoffs and possibly winning it all this year. But today, he made 3 errors, made the final out, just not his day. And the Mets need to find some way to hold down Andruw Jones. He hit his fourth home run of this series this day, dominating the Mets the way the other Jones (Larry!!!!) would have if he wasn't injured. Even though, after these two losses, they still are tied with the best record in baseball (10-4), the Mets really need to focus on beating real teams. Just because you can beat the Nationals, the Marlins, and the Brewers, doesn't mean you can beat the big guys, and they still need to start beating the good teams.

Man, what a way to begin a series at Turner Field. Pedro was amazing for starters and David Wright hits 2 nice dingers. And Billy Wagner with 3 ducks on the pond, strikes out former playoff hero Todd Pratt to end the game. Last year, Loopy Looper woulda gave up a game winner, BUT NOT THIS YEAR!!! Give this message to Ted, Fred Flintstone, Larry King, and the former president from Plains, Ga.: YOUR REIGN OF DIVISION TITLES ENDS IN 2006!! LETS GO METS!!

This is by far the greatest game I have ever been to. The Mets came back with 4 runs to tie the game in the 7th after it looked like they were never going to get anything together this night. Then Billy Wagner gives up a go ahead home run to Wilson Betemit in the top of the 11th and I was sure that the Mets were going to lose. Then Cliff Floyd, who has been struggling leads off the 11th with a bomb to right! Everyone was going crazy. The game ended 3 innings later with a double by David Wright. The game ended at midnight and I did not get home until 1 AM. What a night.

I have attended over 200 games in my lifetime, and many of them have been memorable. Few, however, have defied explanation quite like this game has.

A see-saw battle began with Trachsel getting into--and out of trouble several times in the early innings. Anyone who has been to a Trachsel game knows that he takes forever between pitches, especially with runners on base. He makes Sid Fernandez look fast by comparison. But he gave up a run in the first, and the Mets tied it on Beltran's HR, a beauty off the base of the scoreboard in Right Center.

Trachsel promptly gave up a run in the top of the 2nd, on a Brian McCann RBI double. From my perch in the Upper Deck, I was surrounded by 3 separate and distinct circles of fans.

1) The official Angry Old Man section, where they yell at each other, do bizarre strikeout chants, and say things like "That Trachsel is like Randy Johnson! They tie the game and he gives it right back!"

2) A group of female Braves fans, who screeched and fawned over Larry and said things like "Andruw Jones, you need to hit a Home Run NOW!"

3) Another group of Braves fans, hailing from Sweden. I know this because I spent most of the game talking with one of them. How do you get to be a Braves fan from Sweden? TBS, apparently.

Back to the game, and the Braves continue to lead into the 3rd, with the game moving at a snail's pace, and the Braves starter, Hiram Kyle Davies, loses the plate completely, and walks home a run. He threw 8 straight balls, and 12 out of 13 out of the strike zone. So, with 1 out and the bases still loaded, Floyd comes up and swings at the first pitch. Double play. Inning over.

The game picks up pace until the 6th, when Atlanta broke through for 2 runs after 2 were out. Everyone's favorite kind of Rally. The Braves tacked on 2 more in the 7th off of Bradford, and I was convinced that this game was officially a debacle.

I was wrong.

The Mets roared back with a vengeance in the bottom of the 7th, with a key error by Renteria, allowing a sure DP ball from Beltran through his legs, and RBI singles from Delgado, Floyd and Matsui to drive home the tying runs.

And the marathon was only beginning.

Reyes led off the last of the 8th with a triple, his 5th hit of the game, and was stranded.

The Mets had 2 on in the 9th and stranded them.

In the 11th, Wilson Betemit led off with a PH HR off of Wagner, a bomb over the center field fence. Again, I thought I was watching a dead ballgame.

Again, I was wrong. Talking to the Swedish Braves fan, he told me, "This game isn't over. Not with Reitsma coming in."

The old men were busy throwing Wagner under the Bus in so many words.

The Swede was right. Floyd led off against Reitsma and smacked a long HR into the loge section in right, re-tying the game, and sending it further on into the night.

As the game moved into the 12th, my scorecard had officially run out of innings. I had to write in a new set of columns for pitchers, and extend the game score into the margins on the side. Note to the Mets--the old style scorecards--both teams on the same page--was much more effective.

The Mets would load the bases in the 12th and strand them.

Jorge Julio came on for the 14th. I turned to the Swede and told him, "Now this is the guy WE'RE afraid of."

Julio shut me up, setting down Andro Jones, LaRoche and Francoeur after allowing a leadoff single to Larry.

Following the 14th inning stretch, the Mets finally would break through. With 2 out and Beltran on 1st, Jorge Sosa's pitch ticked off McCann's glove. It seemed like nothing at the time, but an alert Beltran immediately took off and was safe at second. It proved to be a huge play when Wright nailed one deep to center, bouncing off the warning track and over the wall for a Ground Rule double, which would have only got Beltran to 3rd had the passed ball not happened. An alert play that was overlooked, but it won the game, gave me some vindication, and, at 11:59, after 4 hours and 47 minutes, finally sent me home. I shook hands with the Swede, who was gracious in defeat, and went on my merry way.

What an incredible game! Wagner blew the game again, but David Wright got his first of many game winning hits to centerfield. MVP!

I was still yawning from the 14-inning thriller from Friday Night when I took my seat in the Mezzanine (Section 31). We got a nice calendar from Banco Popular. (Note to the promotion department: You hand out calendars in April, NOT May!) A beautiful 75-degree day with many of the fans, especially the ladies wearing summer clothes. Me and my friend Kathy watched as Carlos Beltran smacked a home run and Victor Zambrano had his season end as he ran into the dugout. Jorge Julio gave us a Rolaids moment in the 9th but since the relief pitching was taxed from the night before, it was Julio or bust. WHEW! Mets win 5-4.

It's one thing to lose a game fair and square. It's another when you have an umpire that appeared to be dictating the outcome of the game.

Angel (aka "Devil") Hernandez has, for years, been a contstant thorn in the Mets' side. To date, I have never seen more arguments and more controversy whenever this arrogant jabroni is involved in an Amazin's contest. But when you read in the newspapers that he's telling one pitcher (Jose Lima) that his strike zone will be smaller than the more established, prestige hurler (John Smoltz), that action reeks of blatent biasness.

I also don't want to write a sollioquy on the Paul LoDuca play at the plate in the second inning. Clearly, the runner was tagged out before he reached the plate. I'm surprised LoDuca didn't smack "Devil" in the jawbone over that play.

Now I understand why Bears' footballer Steve McMichael knocked Hernandez's play-calling over the p.a. system at Wrigley Field several seasons ago. I think the Mets should be extra mindful of "Devil's" play-calling whenever his crew is in town.

What a way to start a series that potentially could bury the Braves from winning their 15th consecutive division title. Pedro was roughed up a little bit in the first inning but Mets scored 2 in the second to tie it up and Pedro never looked back. David Wright hit an opposite field home run in the 7th to put the Mets ahead 6-4 and dropping the Braves 13 games back again. Found it very strange that the Braves would trade Wilson Betemit to the Dodgers after the game considering that Chipper A.K.A "Larry" Hones left the game with an injury.

MVP.MVP.MVP. CARLOS,CARLOS,CARLOS! Is he our MVP or what Met fans? If he is not yet he sure is very close after today's game against the Braves. Smacks 2 home runs and drives in 5 in an 11-3 romp of the third place, 14 games back Atlanta Braves. Braves were talking a lot of smack before this series started, saying how they aren't playing for a wild card spot but still think they can catch the Mets for the division title. Yeah okay chop this! After Sunday's game they might even be done for the wild card! Maybe this series will wind up like the series in early April of 86 when the Mets swept the Cardinals. Either way this team is winning this division. Probably by double digits.

Went down with my friend Billy for a weekend in Atlanta to see a special friend of mine and a couple of games. We had not had tickets yet and were heading to the booth when this guy who is a Mets' fans stopped us and offered two extra free field level tickets cause we were Mets' fans. Little did we know that the seats were in the first row behind homeplate. We were on TV the whole game. A guy I know from school texted me to ask me if that was me behind homeplate. My mom also texted to tell how family friends called to tell them they saw me. My cousin Dan also left me a voicemail saying he saw me on ESPN. It was an awesome weekend. GO METS!

The Braves were literally swept under the rug and out of the division race by Carlos Beltran. Beltran was just an animal in this series hitting 4 home runs one of them which came in today's game was a grand slam. Beltran now has 32 home runs on the season. Last year he only hit 16! Felt bad for Tom Glavine though; he was staked to a 7-run lead in the second inning and could not even go 5 innings. Maybe he should get a month off just like Pedro.

Second game I attended in two days during a weekend trip to Atlanta. A good friend of mine named Lauren accompanied us. We had to sit in the upper deck this time, but it was good to be out of the sun. The Mets made quick work of Chris James, as they knocked him out in the second inning. Carlos Beltran had another two-homer game, including a grand slam. Unfortunately, Tom Glavine looked like his old bad self against his former team. However, the bullpen held it down en route to the Mets' first ever sweep at Turner Field and clinching of their first ever winning seasonal record at Turner. I also should mention the real awesome cab driver on the way to the game.

This game was the first time we truly saw how good Oliver Perez can be. If only he can control his great fastball more consistently. It was great to watch the expressions on the faces of the Atlanta Braves. Finally, they know what it feels like!!

Mets rack up 15 hits in this one and win 11-1 to retain their hold on first place. Jose Reyes had 3 hits, 2 of them triples. He also had 4 RBI'S. Oliver Perez was sharp giving up just 5 hits and striking out 6. He also did not walk a batter.

Very good pitching performance from Oliver Perez. Looked much better with his command of his pitches today than compared to his last start when he walked 7!!! Mets go deep a couple of times. Reyes and Castro go yard and Beltran and Reyes both had shots at hitting for the cycle. Mets finally get a win over the Braves. The Braves look much better than last year but, we have to wait and see how their bullpen will shape up for the rest of the season.

I was at this game because my cousin had an extra ticket as I sat in Mezzanine Section 22. A beautiful day, eating Nathans, drinking Pepsi's, got my 2007 yearbook (I remember when they were 50 cents in the 1970's) and so forth. Oliver Perez looked great unlike his previous outing plus Reyes, Easley & Castro went yard.

I blame this loss on Willie Randolph! Why wouldn't he bring Pedro Feliciano in to pitch in the 7th instead of Heilman? Heilman has not pitched well of late. This loss hurts, not only did the Mets lose this one but they have lost 4 of 6 to the Braves, a team that doesn't impress me that much!

Second day in a row I was at Shea. Was with my sister and our good friend Kathy and sat in the Mezzanine box and had to put on the sunblock because we were in the (aah!!!) warm sunshine all game. We got there too late to get a calendar but we waited until the crowds thinned a bit afterwards and we scooped up three Mets calendars (ones that were not ruined by beer and soda). Plus it was great seeing Chris Rock chant "LETS GO METS" on the Diamond Vision as me and sis are big fans of his but the only fly in the ointment was when the bullpen failed big time.

After a brutal four game sweep at the hands of the Phils and holding on to a 2 game lead the Mets badly needed a big time ace performance, and Maine surely came through. Maine who's struggled abit in the second half got help from Delgado with a 3 run homer in the 4th off of Hudson. Maine manned up big time in the 6th loading the bases and only giving up a run on a wild pitch getting Chipper, and Texiera to popup and striking out McCann. Big win hopefully they build on it

Wow! What a way to bounce back after being swept by the Phillies. Mets needed a reality check and the Phillies gave it to them. They came into Atlanta and got great pitching, good bullpen, and clutch hitting. I am proud of the way they bounced back. Glavine was solid once again, Wagner got it done in the ninth, and Delgado looks like he is finally starting to heat up. GO METS!

Got the tickets at the last minute and what seats they were!!! A couple of rows behind the blue seats at home plate. Met the Geico gekko before the game and told him I was a big fan of his and also met 2 attractive Geico ladies (I called them the Geico-ettes) as well and what a game with David Wright hitting a nice homer, Oliver Perez pitching out of trouble on occasion and a SUPER catch by Beltran to end the game. A great night at Shea and great seats as well.

Good win for the Mets. Maine was pretty good minus the one inning where he walked 3 straight. Green came through in the 8th inning, but lets give credit to Beltran as well for his leadoff single and awesome base running. Bullpen is still a concern, Heilman, Feliciano, and Mota fail to preserve the win for Maine. Mets win the last 2 series of the season against Atlanta and increase their lead to 7 full games over Philly. Mets should pretty much wrap up the division in the next week and look towards another playoff appearance.

What a wasted pitching performance for the Mets. Johan Santana was absolutely brilliant. But Mets couldn't give him any run support today. Johan made some play on a comebacker. I guess thats why he will win another Gold Glove.

YAY! Gustavo Molina makes his Mets debut!

I am not even going to talk about the disappointing doubleheader sweep because I believe that there is something more important to talk about. At the end of Game 2 we witnessed a horrific collision on a double play which sent the Mets most consistent hitter this year onto the ground in a daze. Braves shortstop Yunel Escobar seemed to also get banged up on the play as well. As I watched the replay it looked as if the whole Braves team came out to see if Escobar was ok, many of them even seemed quite concerned about Church as well. Amazing that the only Mets that I saw out there were Damion Easley, Billy Wagner, and Willie Randolph. Where was David Wright? Where was Beltran? Where was Delgado? Where was Reyes? Where is the chemistry on this ball club? Where is the brotherhood? Are you telling me that none of those guys noticed that Church was seriously hurt? We wonder why this team is going nowhere.

Another loss at Turner Field. Pelfrey did not pitch that well but he should have had better defense behind him. Castillo not making that play with 2 outs in the third inning really hurt. Just another example of the uninspired play of this team all year long. Not sure where everyone's head is but at some point Mets need to turn this thing around quick. Marlins look like they may be the real deal and at some point the Braves and Phillies are going to get more consistent. I still believe the Mets have the most talented team in the division but talent can take you only so far. What the Mets need right now is fire and desire.

A Friday night rainout made it into an old school doubleheader (2 games for the price of 1) with the first game beginning before 4pm for the FOX Network cameras and I lucked out because it was the first (and only time so far) that I got to see Johan Santana pitch in person. I got to see Seaver pitch in person, Gooden (a few times) and I even saw Pedro in a couple of starts but I was looking forward to seeing #57 on the hill and he looked pretty good as per usual but the bullpen tanked it in the late innings as per usual.

After the first game ended in defeat; it was time for game 2 of the traditional doubleheader but many fans didn't stick around for game 2 unlike me. As a true die-hard Mets fan, I stayed for both games as I watched a young hard thrower by the name of Jon Niese blank the Braves 5-0 and then I got home to New Jersey just in time to hear Tina Fey aka Sarah Palin say "I can see Russia from my house."

My first game ever at Citi Field! I wish it would have been a Mets win but still I had a great time walking around checking out the new stadium! During the game two drunk guys in right field were thrown out of the staduim by security for mocking Jeremy Reed. Only in NY do fans mock their own team! The 7-game-win streak ended and as usual the Mets did not hit for Santana.

Mets are starting to hit their stride now. Starting pitching has been very good of late, Bullpen has been arguably the best in MLB, and looks like the offense is coming around. How about Ike Davis hitting his first career HR? Guy has been pretty impressive in his first few games. Question is what do they do when Murphy comes back? At this point, Murphy is going to have to be a backup player sitting the bench. Mets would be foolish to bench Ike Davis. Hopefully we can get this 2nd game against the Braves this afternoon with Niese pitching. Just looked at the lineup for the game and Braves are sitting Prado and McCann.

Mets caught a break in this one. Big Pelf was walking a tightrope over 5 innings, but he got the job done once again. He is finally maturing into a top notch starting pitcher. I don't know what it is, but I think the Mets have the right group of guys in the clubhouse. You just can sense it on the field that these guys would run through a brick wall for each other and that is a trait that the Mets have been lacking for years

Let's keep it going against the Dodgers this week, then off to Philly.

Another great performance by Santana. He is starting to round into form for the 2nd half. Was not a great home stand for the Mets going 2- 4 against the Braves and Reds but they are firmly in 2nd place and 8 games over. Can't wait to see Beltran's return as it could be a huge lift for their offense. Would like to see Big Pelf get back on track. His last few starts have not been good. All in all I am proud of this team and the grit and fight they showed in the First half

Let's Go Mets and Win this Division!!

In an earlier post (prior to the All Star Break) I wrote about how I was proud of this team for showing grit and fight. I am starting to think I spoke too soon. What we saw tonight, in a game that arguably was the biggest game of the year, was a team that lacks fundamentals and any idea of how to play the game right. It was outright embarrassing to watch them in the field. I don't know who is to blame but for the past 4 years we have been waiting for this team to show the promise that it showed back in 2006. That year was fun, watching Reyes and Wright break out and watching Beltran and Delgado lead the offense. It is so hard to explain what has happened to this franchise, but things have gone downhill since 2006. Better Luck Next Year because this season is pretty much over

My first ever game at Citi Field. Things went well until Derrick Lee's grand slam :( I attended with several of my friends from high school. Good times.

A total of five pitchers to throw a shutout. Welcome to baseball in the 21st century!