Mets blog

Being a Major League baseball team in New York City, the Mets attract their share of celebrity fans. Over the years the team’s popularity with the rich and famous has had its peaks and valleys. Usually coinciding with how well the team is currently playing. Here are a few New York Mets quotes from stars both on and off the baseball diamond.

“Being a Mets fan is like lending someone a lot of money and you just know that you’ll never get paid back.”

John Oliver

“I don’t think there’s anything more fun than being a Mets fan. The team always has personality.”

Jerry Seinfeld

“I don’t know. I’ve never smoked AstroTurf.”

Mets pitcher Tug McGraw, on whether he prefers grass to AstroTurf

“Do you think they’ll ever make a movie about a big-market team that has the money to spend but still sucks. We could call it something fictitious, like the Mets.”

“The Met fan, we are a beaten creature.”

“These moments of joy that occur sporadically are even more appreciated.”

“There is something truly indelible about a championship season that makes it worthy of remembrance.”

“I have suffered much for these Mets during my lifetime.”

Jon Stewart

“Some teams have Bat Day; we have bring a bat day.”

Chris Rock

“The Mets have shown me more ways to lose than I even knew existed.”

“We (the Mets) are a much improved ball club, now we lose in extra innings!“

Casey Stengel

“To be a Mets fan takes character and a degree of masochism. If someone tells you they are a Met fan, you know they ain’t lying.”

Matt Dillon

“You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn’t maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a t-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller?”

Jimmy Breslin, Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?: The Improbable Saga of the New York Mets’ First Year

“God is living in New York, and he’s a Mets fan.”

Tom Seaver

Related: Keith and Josh Satin’s eyebrows.

Listen to Mets radio play-by-play announcer Wayne Randazzo interview Mets MLB beat writer Anthony DiComo. DiComo talks about the new book he wrote with David Wright, “The Captain”.

Related: These are the Mets beat writers.

Related: Piazza welcomes Wright into Mets Alumni.

The New York Mets are not a team that baseball fans think of when talking about stolen bases. Other teams are more associated with the stolen base category. Even though the greatest base-stealer of all-time, Rickey Henderson played for the Mets for 2 years.

During the 1980’s center fielder, Mookie Wilson thrilled Mets fans with his speed. Mookie stole 58 bases in 1982 alone. His 281 steals were more than twice Bud Harrelson’s previous franchise record of 115.

Later, infielder Howard Johnson, mostly known for being a switch-hitting power hitter, led the team in steals twice and stole 20 or more bases six straight years. He had 30-30 seasons twice, in 1987 and 1989 when he swiped 41 bases. Johnson finished his Mets career with 202 swipes.

Vince Coleman only played for the Mets three years. Better known for his glory days as a Cardinal, Coleman joined the Mets in 1992. His stolen base totals the next three seasons were 37, 24, and 38. Nothing to sneeze at, but far from his 6 years in St. Louis where he had three separate seasons of stealing over 100 bases.

Most Stolen Bases in a Game

Vince Coleman and Roger Cedeño have the most stolen bases in a single Mets game. They both stole 4 bases in a game. Coleman did it twice, once in 1992 and again in 1993. Strangely he didn’t get a hit in either game! Cedeño stole 4 bases in a game in 1999.

The first time Vince Coleman stole 4 bags in a game was on June 26th, 1992 in St. Louis against his old team the Cardinals. He actually tried to steal 5 bases but was caught once. As mentioned, he didn’t get a hit in the game, walking 3 times. The next time was on June 23, 1993, at Shea against the Expos. He didn’t get a hit in that game either! Reaching on a ground out, an error, and a walk.

Roger Cedeño stole 4 bases in a game in 1999 at Philadelphia. On May 14th of that year, Roger went 2-5 and also reached on an error. The Mets won the game 7-3.

Related: Who hit the most home runs in a Mets game?

Then Jose Reyes joined the Mets in 2003. Reyes obliterated most of the other Mets’ stolen bases records. He set the single-season record for stolen bases in 2007 with 78. By the time his Mets career ended in 2018, he totaled 408 stolen bases. Easily outpacing Mookie’s 281 bags.

Mets play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen told NorthJersey.com that he kept busy at his Connecticut home during the coronavirus shutdown. He was gardening, cleaning up after his two Great Danes, and expanding his cooking skills.

Related: Why Gary Cohen once had long hair.

In the article, Cohen says that although he keeps up-to-date with the latest sabermetrics, he doesn’t believe that they belong in a broadcast. He acknowledges their importance in constructing a team in MLB today. But feels most fans either don’t know about them or don’t care. Besides, it would be tough to smoothly insert them into calling a game without stopping to explain how the specific stat is calculated.

“I’m not a huge stat guy. I have never, ever had a fan come up to me and say, ‘You need to do more statistics.’ I think that there’s a very dedicated, committed portion of the fan base who cares very deeply about statistics and advanced statistics. But my experience in talking to actual human beings who watch actual baseball games is that most of them could not care a whit about most of it.”

Gary Cohen

Late in the season, SNY began to insert more sabermetrics like exit velocity into their broadcasts. It seemed to coincide with the agreement to sell the team to Steve Cohen. Was that just a coincidence or does the SNY crew believe that’s what he’ll want?

Here’s a funny video from 2014 of Keith Hernandez commenting on a lady eating a hot dog in the stands. The Mets were in Arizona to play the Diamondbacks at Chase Field. The Mets were up 9-0 in the 5th inning with Travis d’Arnaud batting.

Related: That wild 1986 Mets plane ride.

So play-by-play man Gary Cohen and Keith were talking about how the ballpark’s enormous hot dogs cost $25. When the camera zooms in on a woman in the stands eating one of the huge hot dogs. Keith says “My goodness!” then seconds later admits “I wasn’t talking about the hot dog!”.

According to SABR.org the All-Time record for home runs in a single game is 8 by Jay Clarke for Corsicana of the Texas League on June 15, 1902. But what about Mets players? Who has hit the most home runs in a single Mets game?

The most home runs hit by a Mets player in a game is three. Several Mets have achieved it, most recently Robinson Cano. On July 23, 2019, Cano hit 3 home runs against the Padres at Citi Field. He went 4 for 4 that night with 5 RBIs.

Cano’s first two home runs were off Chris Paddack in the 4th inning and the 6th inning. The third home run was against Logan Allen in the 7th inning. Robinson Cano didn’t get any more at-bats after the last homer.

Other Mets players who have hit 3 home runs in a single game include Jim Hickman, Dave Kingman, Claudell Washington, Darryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Edgardo Alfonzo, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Ike Davis, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Lucas Duda, and Yoenis Cespedes (twice).

Related: Who has the most stolen bases in a Mets game?

Several players have hit 4 home runs before they joined the Mets.

Before joining the Mets in 2004, center fielder Mike Cameron hit 4 home runs in a game. It occurred in 2002 when his Seattle Mariners defeated the White Sox. Cameron hit two solo homers in the first inning, along with solo shots in the third and fifth innings.

While playing for the Dodgers in 2002, Shawn Green hit 4 home runs in a single game. He hit a three-run homer in the second inning and solo homers in the fourth, fifth, and ninth innings. Green joined the Mets in 2006 and played right field and a little at first base.

In 2003 Carlos Delgado, then with the Blue Jays, hit 4 home runs in a game. He hit a three-run homer in the first inning and solo homers in the fourth, sixth, and eighth innings. Delgado became the Mets’ first baseman in 2006.

The value of a sacrifice fly seems to have diminished in the era of launch-angle swings. Everyone is swinging for the fences all the time. The sac-fly harkens back to the time of “small-ball” when moving a runner over and getting one run across was a big deal. Especially if you had a lights-out pitching staff on your side.

According to MLB, a sacrifice fly occurs when a batter hits a fly-ball out to the outfield or foul territory that allows a runner to score. It does not count as an at-bat and therefore does not count against a player’s batting average. The thinking behind the rule is that with a man on third base and fewer than two outs, a batter will often intentionally try to hit a fly ball, sacrificing his time at bat to help score a run.

Will my guess that the sac-fly is more a thing of the past be right? Let’s see who is on top of the single-season sacrifice fly leader board for the Mets.

Most Sacrifice Flies in a Season

Gary Carter and Howard Johnson tie for the most sacrifice flies in a single Mets season. Carter hit an NL leading 15 sac flies in 1986 for the World Champion Mets. Johnson had an NL leading 15 sac flies for the Mets in 1991 while driving in 117 runs, which also led the league.

Carter set his sacrifice fly record while playing on a great offensive team. Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson, Wally Backman, Tim Teufel, or Keith Hernandez were frequently on base when he came to bat. Carter led the league by grounding into 21 double plays in 1986. But he also drove in 105 runs and finished third in MVP voting. Hernandez finished fourth in the voting.

Howard Johnson had a great year in 1991, leading the league with 38 home runs, 30 stolen bases, and 117 RBIs. The Mets were a bad team in ’91, finishing in next-to-last place with a 77-84 record.

There’s only one player on the single-season list who appears twice. He’s a familiar name and also the man who has the most sacrifice flies in a Mets career.

Most Sacrifice Flies in History

David Wright has the most sacrifice flies in New York Mets franchise history. Wright had 65 sacrifice flies over his 14 years with the Mets. The third baseman led the National League in sac flies twice, in 2008 with 11 and in 2010 with 12.

David Wright appears at the top of many of the Mets all-time batting leader boards. Including the most hits, singles, doubles, and total bases in Mets history.