Joey's World Tour: Missouri Madness (Part I - Busch-whacked in St. Louis)

Meet me in St. Louis, preferably in front of the home plate entrance.  (Photo by Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

Greetings, baseball and travel enthusiasts.  I'm Joey Beartran, your favorite roving reporter/culinary expert for Studious Metsimus.  Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Missouri, which is the home of two Major League Baseball teams.  Unfortunately, both of those Show-Me State squads have caused great suffering to Mets fans, as they each contributed to two of the team's most heartbreaking postseason defeats in the 21st century.

As much as I can never root for the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals because of what they did to the Mets in 2006 and 2015, respectively, I can put aside my differences with the teams for just a moment to discuss their cities, ballparks and cuisine, which I will do in this two-part installment of Joey's World Tour.  (You can read the second part by clicking here.)  We begin in the Gateway to the West, St. Louis.

After taking two out of three games against the Cardinals at Citi Field to open the season, the Mets appeared to be on their way to winning another series when they traveled to St. Louis and took the opening game, 6-5 in 10 innings.  The Studious Metsimus staff and I didn't attend that thrilling contest, but we did have tickets to the final two games of the series.  So how did the Mets reward us for traveling halfway across the country to see them finish the job against their hated rivals?

They got blown out in the first game we attended, then dropped a 13-inning heartbreaker in the series finale.  Thanks for nothing, guys!

The games might not have been anything to write home about (or devote more than two sentences about in a blog post), but Busch Stadium and the immediate vicinity around the ballpark were something else.

Behind me is a village within the city, all devoted to food, fun and baseball.  (EL/SM)

Directly behind the left field fence is Ballpark Village, which is a complex that houses several eateries and bars.  From Drunken Fish (sushi) to El Birdos Cantina (Tex-Mex) to the Fudgery (you figure it out), dinner and dessert can all be had a hop, skip and a jump away from the ballpark.  For those who like entertainment with their food and drink, there's the Budweiser Brew House, which is three stories of adult beverages, dancing and live entertainment.  And if you like sports, there's FOX Sports Midwest Live!, which is 20,000 square feet of sports, sports and more sports.  There's also a stage for concerts and a VIP area for people like me.

I didn't visit any of those places, mainly because I had two Mets losses to attend.  But I did enter the Ballpark Village complex for one other thing; the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum.  And what an experience that was!

The floor design as you exit the elevator to the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum (EL/SM)

The first thing you see (besides what's in the photo above) is the wall of Hall of Fame plaques.  Similar to the Mets Hall of Fame, each player given the highest individual honor by the Cardinals has a plaque mounted on a wall, depicting his career highlights.

To the left of these plaques are the players who will be inducted this year.  For 2018, those players are Pepper Martin, Mark McGwire and former Mets broadcaster Tim McCarver.  In addition to their own plaques, each new inductee has a display booth featuring the jerseys they wore and other memorabilia from their career with the Cardinals.

Lots of red in the Cardinals Hall of Fame.  And lots of legends as well.  (EL/SM)

In addition to celebrating their best players, the Cardinals are also proud of their ballparks.  There is a room dedicated to the previous Busch Stadium, complete with a model of the ballpark St. Louis called home from 1966 to 2005 and one of the dugout benches from the dearly departed venue.

The Cardinals also haven't forgotten the other team that used to call St. Louis home.  Until they moved to Baltimore for the 1954 season, the St. Louis Browns shared the city with the Cards.  And in 1944, the two teams squared off in the Street Car Series, which was the first (and only) World Series featuring both teams from the Gateway City.  A display in the museum proudly remembers that Fall Classic, which was won the town's National League squad.

Speaking of the Browns, probably my favorite artifact in the museum was the actual jersey worn by Eddie Gaedel, the 3-foot, 7-inch "athlete" signed by owner Bill Veeck as a publicity stunt.  Wearing the number 1/8 on the back of his uniform, Gaedel walked in his only plate appearance for the Browns in 1951.  Why is it my favorite item in the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum?  Because it's the only uniform that would probably fit me!

Actually, Eddie Gaedel's uniform still looks too big for me.  That's okay.  I'm still growing.  (Photos by EL/SM)

So now you know my favorite display in the museum.  What was my least favorite?  That's easy.  It was the display on the 2006 Cardinals, also known as the team that took the pennant away from the Mets at Shea Stadium.

Featured in the disgusting display of devastating disappointment was the World Series trophy, a World Series ticket, the championship ring won by the victorious Cardinals and one game-used bat and jersey.  But it's not just any bat/jersey combo.  It's the lumber that was wielded by Yadier Molina along with the threads he wore when he hit his infamous home run off Aaron Heilman in the ninth inning of Game Seven of the National League Championship Series.

It's like they knew we were coming and wanted to pour more salt in the 12-year-old wound.

But I wasn't that bad of a sport.  In fact, the next people to enter the room got a clear view of the 2006 display, mainly because they saw it all under a full moon of my creation.

Is that a championship banner or bear-sized toilet paper?  I vote for the latter.  (EL/SM)

I almost felt like I was walking through a maze in the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum.  There was a room dedicated to the legendary Stan Musial.  Then there was one dedicated to the great 1980s teams that won three pennants and one World Series title.  From there, it was on to an area devoted to the great managers in club history.  There was also a timeline with all the uniforms the Cardinals have worn over the years (complete with a photo of Keith Hernandez), including the sweet powder blue jerseys from the '70s and '80s.

But wait, there's more!

There were Cardinals bobbleheads, a model of the new Busch Stadium and a beautiful photo of the construction of the new park with the old stadium still standing.  For some reason, they also had the World Baseball Classic trophy on display.  And there was probably a kitchen sink somewhere in there as well.

But just when you thought the Cardinals couldn't fit anything else inside their museum, they did.  I'm talking about an area dedicated to ex-Met and former teenage shortstop sensation Jose Oquendo.  That's not hyperbole.  The Oquendo space actually exists.

Makes me wonder why there's no Rey Ordoñez jersey in the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum (EL/SM)

If you look at the photo of the construction of the new Busch Stadium, you'll notice that the left field area of the new park overlapped part of the old Busch.  That part of the old ballpark is marked in two places at the new stadium.

In the field level concourse behind the left field foul pole is a painted white line, which is the exact spot while the right field foul line used to be at old Busch Stadium.  Then, on the sidewalk outside the new stadium in the Ballpark Village is a green and yellow line.  That represents the spot where the outfield wall at old Busch used to be.

Howard Johnson took Todd Worrell deep here.  Great memories from before my time.  (EL/SM)

Now that we're talking about the stadium, why not show you what's good there?  The ballpark itself is lovely, with Cardinal red seats on every level.  And if that's not enough red for you, the ballpark is made of red bricks, with small cardinals above every entrance and a pretty big cardinal walking around the ballpark insulting Mets fans in attendance.

Oh, wait.  That was Fredbird, the team's mascot.  And he tried to obscure my colleagues' Mets caps and jerseys when we met him.

My colleagues seemed to enjoy this photo op.  I, on the other hand, wanted to pluck Fredbird's feathers.  (EL/SM)

But seriously, there's red EVERYWHERE.  The ballpark is also decorated with pennants, retired numbers, statues of the greatest players to don the Cardinal red, an homage to a legendary broadcaster, large bricks that detail great moments in Cardinals history (including Steve Carlton's 19-strikeout loss to the Mets in 1969) and a scoreboard that's topped by reminders of each of the Cardinals' World Series championships - all 11 of them.  And the scoreboard on the field isn't the only one in the ballpark.  Located in the field level concourse is the old hand-operated scoreboard from the old Busch Stadium.

I have to say, the ballpark is quite photogenic.

Sweet view, right?  (EL?SM)

Busch Stadium offers beautiful views of the city if you're lucky enough to snag a seat behind home plate, like I did in the above photo.  And speaking of plates, many of the food options at the ballpark are served in containers that are shaped like home plate.  But unlike other ballparks that have unique food options, the fare at Busch Stadium is mostly what you would expect at a minor league ballpark.  You have the basic ballpark cuisine and not much else.  But they did have tater tots, which is always a plus for me.

I also had another potato product, but that was absolutely awful.  It was a potato knish and it pretty much looked like a bread bowl; a very dry flavorless bread bowl with nothing in it.  Don't just take my word for it.  Have a look for yourself.

At least the tater tots were edible.  And that's not saying much.  (EL/SM)

Thinking of how disappointed I was in the food, the fact the Mets lost both games we attended, the stress-inducing artifacts in the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum and the fact that I couldn't convince Fredbird to wear more orange and blue made me glad this was only the first stop in our tour of the two Missouri ballparks.  Surely, Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City had to be better by default.  (Spoiler alert: It was soooooo much better.)

So that's all for the first part of my recap of the two Show-Me State stadiums.  Remember to click here to read about my adventures in Kansas City and also remember to bring your own food into Busch Stadium the next time you visit the park.  Unlike Aaron Heilman's pitch to Yadier Molina, you won't regret that decision.

I regret attending these two losses by the Mets.  (EL/SM)

For previous installments of Joey's World Tour, please click on the links below, where you will be entertained by Joey's wit, photos and love of ballpark cuisine:

World Tour Stop #1: Baltimore
World Tour Stop #2: Washington, DC
World Tour Stop #3: Pittsburgh
World Tour Stop #4: Texas
World Tour Stop #5: Los Angeles
World Tour Stop #6: San Diego
World Tour Stop #7: Toronto
World Tour Stop #8: Chicago (NL)
World Tour Stop #9: Milwaukee
World Tour Stop #10: Seattle
World Tour Stop #11: Cleveland
World Tour Stop #12: Brooklyn (Ebbets Field site) and Manhattan (Polo Grounds site)
World Tour Stop #13: Baltimore (again) and Pittsburgh (part deux)
World Tour Stop #14: Cincinnati
World Tour Stop #15: Colorado
World Tour Stop #16: Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame)
World Tour Stop #17: Detroit
World Tour Stop #18: Atlanta
World Tour Stop #19: Miami

 

The Most With The Least: Jose Valentin (2006)

Before anyone had ever heard of Bernard Madoff and Ponzi schemes, the Mets were a free-spending team.  Under general manager Omar Minaya, the team gave Carlos Beltran a seven-year, $119 million contract, then topped that three years later when Johan Santana signed a six-year deal for $137.5 million to pitch for the Mets.

Along the way, Minaya doled out four-year contracts to a quartet of thirty-somethings when he recruited Pedro Martinez, Billy Wagner, Luis Castillo and Jason Bay to play for the team.  The foursome went on to spend as much time on the disabled list or in the doghouse as they did on the field.

Omar Minaya loved to make a splash with lucrative free agent signings, even if they ended up hurting the team in hindsight.  But one acquisition that cost the team less than $1 million ended up paying unexpected dividends for the Mets on the way to their sole postseason appearance in the Minaya era.  Minaya signed many former All-Stars near the end of their careers.  But this player never made an All-Star team, nor did he ever win a Gold Glove or Silver Slugger award in his 16-year career.  He did, however, play a key role in the Mets' push toward the playoffs, surprising everyone who thought he would be nothing more than a bench player.

Jose Valentin went from bench player to everyday middle infielder on a division-winning team.  (Al Pereira/Getty Images)

Jose Antonio Valentin was signed as an amateur free agent by the San Diego Padres on his 17th birthday in 1986.  Twenty years after signing his first professional contract, he became a member of the New York Mets, inking a one-year deal worth $912,500.  Valentin had just come off an injury-plagued season with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2005, batting .170 with two home runs in 56 games.  But Minaya was confident in Valentin's versatility and ability to produce off the bench in the late innings, citing those attributes as reasons for the signing of the 14-year veteran.

"(Valentin) can play anywhere," said Minaya.  "He can hit the fastball at the end of the game.  He's got power."

Valentin did hit a career-high 30 home runs in 2004 as a member of the Chicago White Sox, which was also his fifth consecutive season of 25 or more homers.  (Valentin was one of 18 players to hit 25+ HR in each season from 2000 to 2004.)  However, the version of Valentin being acquired by the Mets was 36 years old, battling injuries and coming off the worst season of his career.  At best, he was expected to be the team's top pinch-hitter, occasionally getting a start in left field for the injury-prone Cliff Floyd or allowing one of the infielders to get a day off here and there.  And that's exactly what Valentin did during the first month and a half of the season, although he didn't do it very well.

Through May 12, Valentin appeared as a pinch-hitter in 23 of the team's first 35 games.  He also appeared in three other games as a left fielder and once as a first baseman.  Valentin batted a mere .167 in those 27 games with no extra-base hits and just two RBI.  But in a rare start against one of his former teams in Milwaukee (Valentin spent the first eight seasons of his major league career with the Brewers), Valentin produced a two-run single and a two-run homer to help the Mets to a wild, 9-8 victory.  The following afternoon, Valentin delivered four hits and drove in two more runs in the Mets' 6-5, extra-inning loss to the Brewers.  Four days later, manager Willie Randolph gave Valentin a start at second base for the first time as a Met.  Although Valentin had started just nine games at the position prior to 2006, Randolph's decision ended up being one of the most important choices he made all year.

Although the Mets lost on May 18 to the St. Louis Cardinals, Valentin homered and scored two runs in the 6-3 defeat.  He also played flawless defense at second base, handling seven chances (five assists, two putouts) without an error.  Even before Valentin's first start at the position, the Mets' incumbent second baseman, Kaz Matsui, had fallen out of favor with the team and its fans.  Matsui was struggling to keep his batting average above .200 and as a result, was being constantly booed at Shea Stadium.  Following Valentin's impressive debut at second, Matsui continued to start at the position.  However, Matsui put up a horrendous .129/.182/.161 slash line over the next eight games, causing Randolph to give Valentin another start at second base on May 28.  Valentin rewarded his manager by driving in two runs in the Mets' 7-3 victory over the Florida Marlins.

Jose Valentin points at all the Kaz Matsui haters.  That's a lot of people he's pointing at.  (NY Daily News/Getty Images)

Valentin's performance against the Marlins earned him another start at second base the following night against the Arizona Diamondbacks.  Trailing 1-0 in the second inning, Valentin delivered a two-run single to give the Mets an early lead.  Four innings later, Valentin homered to give the Mets a much-needed insurance run in a game eventually won by New York, 8-7.

After the game, Randolph insisted that Valentin had not supplanted Matsui as the team's everyday second baseman, despite Valentin's resurgence at the plate after his slow start.

"I have a feeling (Matsui will) be making more starts," said Randolph.  "He's not totally out of the picture.  Everyone thinks he's lost his job, but that's not the case.  He's struggling a little bit, and we want to get him going again."

One day after Randolph claimed Matsui hadn't lost his job, Valentin homered again as the team's starting second baseman.  Ten days after that, the Mets sent Matsui - and $4.5 million in cash - to the Colorado Rockies for utility player Eli Marrero.  Second base now belonged to Jose Valentin for the remainder of the season, and Valentin made sure that no one would take the position from him.

From May 28 to June 21, Valentin batted .364 with a 1.060 OPS, producing 14 extra-base hits and 13 RBI in 19 starts to raise his batting average for the season above .300 for the first time.  Six of Valentin's 14 extra-base hits came during the Mets' season-changing ten-game road trip in Los Angeles, Arizona and Philadelphia.  New York began the long trip with a 4½-game lead over Philadelphia and a six-game advantage over Atlanta.  After winning nine of ten games away from Shea, including a three-game sweep in the city of Brotherly Love, the Mets' first-place lead had ballooned to 9½ games over the Phillies and a whopping 13 games over the Braves.

By the time July rolled around, the Mets' lead in the division had grown to a dozen games and top pitching prospect Mike Pelfrey had been called up to temporarily fill a spot in the rotation.  Pelfrey won his major league debut against the Marlins at Shea Stadium on July 8, but much of the credit for the victory belonged to Jose Valentin, who hit a grand slam in the first inning and nearly hit another one in the second, settling for a three-run triple off the base of the right field wall.  Valentin became just the second player in Mets history to drive in seven runs in the first two innings of a game, joining Gary Carter, who accomplished the feat on July 11, 1986.  

Video courtesy of MLB.com's YouTube channel

Less than two weeks after Valentin cleared the bases twice against the Marlins, he continued to mash in bases-loaded situations when the Mets took on the Houston Astros on July 21, as he broke a scoreless tie with a grand slam against Astros starter Taylor Buchholz.  This time, Valentin's blast helped John Maine earn his first win as a Met, as Maine completed a four-hit shutout in the 7-0 victory over the Astros.  Five days later, Valentin played the hero once again, delivering a walk-off single against Cubs reliever (and former Met) Glendon Rusch with two outs in the tenth inning to plate the game's only run.

Valentin continued to produce in August and September, coming through in a memorable way on September 18.  Valentin homered in his first two at-bats, leading the Mets to a 4-0 victory over the Marlins that clinched the National League East division title for New York - the team's first division crown since 1988.  Although Valentin had only 384 at-bats in his first season in Flushing, he still produced 24 doubles, three triples, 18 homers and 62 RBI.  Valentin also had an impressive .490 slugging percentage and .820 OPS.  And on a team filled with All-Stars, his 3.6 WAR ranked fourth behind Carlos Beltran (8.2), Jose Reyes (5.8) and David Wright (4.1).

Prior to his comeback campaign in 2006, the only second basemen in Mets history to hit more home runs than Valentin in a single season were Jeff Kent (1993, 1995) and Edgardo Alfonzo (1999, 2000).  In addition, the only second sacker in club annals to boast a higher slugging percentage than Valentin's .490 mark in 2006 was Alfonzo.

After the Mets swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the division series (Valentin took an oh-fer in the three games), Valentin finished second on the team in RBI in the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.  The second baseman drove in five runs in the series, which was only surpassed by Carlos Delgado's nine runs batted in.  But much like Carlos Beltran was unjustly vilified for striking out with the bases loaded in the ninth inning to end the series, Valentin is remembered negatively by some fans for fanning with the bases loaded in the sixth inning, just minutes after Endy Chavez's leaping catch had apparently shifted the momentum of the game in the Mets' favor.  However, it was Valentin who started the failed ninth inning rally against Cardinals closer Adam Wainwright by delivering a single on a 3-2 pitch.

Just three weeks after Beltran took strike three from Wainwright, the Mets re-signed Valentin for one year and $3.8 million - approximately four times as much money as he earned in 2006.  Unfortunately, the injury bug that stayed away from Valentin during his first season with the Mets found him repeatedly in his second.  In spring training, Valentin missed some time because of a sleeping injury; he claimed to have slept incorrectly on the team bus.  Valentin then missed the entire month of May with a knee injury. 

Valentin's season came to an end shortly after the All-Star Break in a bizarre series of events.  First, he punched a wall in Puerto Rico out of frustration during the mid-season hiatus following an argument that took place while he was attempting to sell the local baseball team he owned.  A week later, a foul ball broke his leg, causing his season to come to an abrupt end.  Valentin re-signed with the Mets in 2008, but never played for the team and was released in June.  The team then gave him one last shot in 2009, signing the 39-year-old Valentin to a minor league contract, but released him before the end of spring training.  Valentin then retired to become a baseball instructor in his native Puerto Rico.  He returned to the majors as a first base coach for the Padres in 2014 and 2015, but he still holds out hope for a managerial position in the near future.

Photo by Doug DuKane/Getty Images

"I think I can be a good manager.  I would like to take my chances and see if I can be one of those Puerto Ricans that are managing in the big leagues.  Or a coach.  I would do it; start in the minor leagues.  I'd do it as a coach or as an instructor.  That's my goal - to make it to the big leagues again."

Jose Valentin had a solid 16-year career in the major leagues.  Although he hit over 300 doubles and nearly 250 homers, he never made an All-Star team or played in a World Series.  The closest he ever got to the Fall Classic was in 2006, when he had his final hurrah as a productive big league ballplayer - a last go-round that might never had happened had Omar Minaya not signed him for under a million dollars.

Valentin had one of the finest offensive seasons ever produced by a second baseman in Mets history and did all he could to help the Mets win the pennant, including leading off the ninth inning of Game Seven with a base hit.  But in the end, all he could do was watch the Cardinals celebrating their National League crown from third base, where he was left stranded along with the dreams of his teammates and the club's fans.

The 2006 season is bittersweet for anyone associated with the Mets, as the team had one of the most successful regular seasons in franchise history, only to be followed up by a disappointing postseason.  But for Jose Valentin, the 2006 campaign marked his final moment in the sun.  And no one will ever be able to take that season away from him.



Note:  The Most With The Least is a thirteen-part weekly series spotlighting those Mets players who performed at a high level without receiving the accolades or playing time their more established teammates got, due to injuries, executive decisions or other factors.  For previous installments, please click on the players' names below:

January 4, 2016: Benny Agbayani
January 11, 2016: Donn Clendenon
January 18, 2016: Tim Teufel
January 25, 2016: Hisanori Takahashi
February 1, 2016: Chris Jones
February 8, 2016: Claudell Washington
February 15, 2016: Moises Alou
February 22, 2016: Pat Zachry
February 29, 2016: Art Shamsky
March 7, 2016: Mark Carreon 

Three Mo-METS In Time: Kenny Rogers, Aaron Heilman, Tom Glavine (The Three Enemigos)

A general manager can acquire baseball players in several ways.  These ways include - but are not limited to - trading for players, signing free agents or drafting players.  From 1997 to 2003, the man who traded, signed and drafted players for the Mets was general manager Steve Phillips.

Phillips helped build the Mets into a contender, adding proven talent like Mike Piazza and Robin Ventura to a squad that had ended a six-year run of futility during the first year of Phillips' tenure.  He also set the Mets up for success after his departure by drafting David Wright and signing Jose Reyes.

But Phillips also had his share of duds, as anyone who remembers the 2002 season can attest.  (The law office of Alomar, Vaughn, Burnitz and Cedeño lost a lot of cases for that team.)  He also failed to keep quality players when he had them.

Phillips could not re-sign first baseman John Olerud, who went back home to the Pacific Northwest after Phillips made a poorly-timed comment about the World Trade Organization riots going on in Seattle, saying, "I can't understand why anybody would want to play in Seattle after seeing the chaos.  I would think there'd be a mass exodus."  Olerud went on to win three Gold Gloves and made an All-Star team with the Mariners (he accomplished neither in his three years as a Met).  He also played in the postseason four times after leaving the Mets.

In addition to Olerud, who left via free agency, Phillips also pushed the panic button when shortstop Rey Ordoñez got hurt in 2000, trading Melvin Mora to the Orioles for short-term solution Mike Bordick.  The 35-year-old Bordick, who was having a career year in Baltimore (.831 OPS), underperformed in New York (.685 OPS).  Mora went on to become a two-time All-Star and Silver Slugger recipient in ten seasons with the O's, while Bordick went on to become an Oriole again in 2001, leaving the Mets as a free agent.

Needless to say, Phillips had his ups and downs as general manager of the Mets.  But three players - players who are now vilified in New York - were originally viewed as key pieces to helping the team either make a push for the postseason or bringing the team back to respectability.  One was acquired via a trade.  Another was drafted by Phillips.  The third came to New York as a free agent.  For the most part, they performed well while in New York.  But no one ever remembers that.  The only thing anyone remembers about them was their contribution to three of the lowest moments in Mets history, essentially turning them into the Three Enemigos - enemies of Mets fans who wanted so badly to taste postseason success, only to have it taken from them through three epic meltdowns.

Kenny Rogers, Aaron Heilman and Tom Glavine - the Three Enemigos!

In 1998, the Mets failed to end a ten-year postseason drought, coughing up a one-game lead in the wild card race in the season's final five games.  Although New York added future Hall of Famer Mike Piazza in May, the team only made minor moves at the trade deadline in 1998, dealing for players such as Tony Phillips, Wille Blair, Jorge Fabregas and Mike Kinkade.  Not wanting to use the same approach in 1999, general manager Phillips went all-out at the trade deadline, acquiring veterans Darryl Hamilton and Shawon Dunston.  He also made two separate trades with Oakland, dealing away former Generation K member Jason Isringhausen for reliever Billy Taylor and shipping off outfield prospect Terrence Long (who became the AL Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2000) for starting pitcher Kenny Rogers.

Rogers pitched well for the Mets during the season's final two months, tossing two complete games, one of which was a four-hit shutout against the San Francisco Giants on September 6.  The Mets won ten of the 12 starts made by Rogers, including his critical performance in the first game of the season-ending series versus the Pittsburgh Pirates.  With the Mets two games out of the wild card with three games to play, Rogers held the Bucs scoreless into the eighth inning, striking out a season-high ten batters.  But Rogers allowed a run in the eighth, then watched from the bench as a walk by Turk Wendell and a single off John Franco allowed the tying run to score.  The Mets eventually won the game in 11 innings to keep their postseason hopes alive and three days later, their playoff dreams came true after they defeated the Cincinnati Reds in the season's 163rd game.

In his first nine starts for the Mets following the trade, Rogers was a perfect 5-0 with a 3.23 ERA and 1.26 WHIP.  The Mets won eight of those nine starts, which impressed manager Bobby Valentine.

''He surprises me with his curveball, something I didn't know he had developed so well,'' said Valentine.  ''He's a much better pitcher than I remembered. ... He's everything that we had hoped for.'' 

What Valentine hadn't hoped for was Rogers falling apart in his next two starts, allowing a total of ten runs and not making it past the fifth inning in either game, both of which came against the sub-.500 Phillies.  His strong performance against the Pirates in his final regular season start only served to place a bandage on a cracking dam.  That crack would burst in the postseason.

The Mets lost a total of five games against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Atlanta Braves in the 1999 postseason.  Three of those five losses were charged to Kenny Rogers.  A home run by backup catcher Todd Pratt ended the division series in four games, temporarily making Mets fans forget that Rogers was responsible for the team's only loss in the series, a game in which he allowed four runs in 4⅓ innings.

Rogers didn't fare much better a week later in his first NLCS start.  After dropping the first game to Atlanta, the Mets desperately needed a series-tying win before coming back home to Shea Stadium.  Although Rogers kept the Braves scoreless through the first five innings, he was constantly pitching in and out of trouble, allowing eight base runners in those five frames.  But the Braves squandered several scoring opportunities, grounding into two double plays and getting picked off first base on two occasions.  Rogers was more lucky than good in the first five innings.  His luck ran out in the sixth, as he allowed a game-tying two-run homer to Mets killer Brian Jordan, followed by another two-run homer by light-hitting catcher Eddie Perez.

"I can't believe I just gave up a homer to Eddie Perez." (Steve Schaefer/AFP/Getty Images)

It was bad enough that Rogers had coughed up the lead in the critical Game Two loss to the Braves.  But that's not what Mets fans remember him for.  The moment that truly made Rogers an enemy of the Mets' state happened four games later, when two of his fellow pitchers blew late-inning leads and he was called upon to keep the game tied.  Until it wasn't.

As a result of the game-winning Grand Slam Single by Robin Ventura in Game Five - a game in which Kenny Rogers pitched two scoreless innings of relief, the Mets became just the second team in big league history to force a Game Six after dropping the first three games of a best-of-seven series.  The series shifted back to Atlanta for the sixth game, but the Mets didn't show up for that game until after it had begun, falling behind by five runs in the first inning.

The never-say-die Mets did not panic, despite the early 5-0 deficit.  New York scored eight runs from the sixth through the eighth innings, taking a one-run lead into the bottom of the eighth.  But John Franco allowed a one-out single to Eddie Perez (you may remember him as the aforementioned light-hitting catcher), a stolen base by pinch-runner Otis Nixon and a run-scoring single by Brian Hunter.  Once again, the Mets and Braves were going to extra innings with the Braves a run away from winning the pennant.

In Game Five, Todd Pratt tied the game in the 15th inning with a bases-loaded walk.  Two days later, Pratt gave the Mets an extra-inning lead, hitting a sacrifice fly to score Benny Agbayani in the tenth.  But once again, the Mets bullpen could not hold the lead, as Armando Benitez allowed a one-out RBI single to yet another light-hitting Brave - pinch-hitter Ozzie Guillen.  The game was now tied, 9-9, as the teams moved on to the 11th inning.  This time, the Mets could not push across a run to take the lead in their half of the inning, a frame that saw the Mets use Shawon Dunston as a pinch-hitter for Benitez.  New York had used nine pitchers in their Game Five victory.  With Benitez now out of the game, the Mets needed an eighth pitcher to start the bottom of the 11th in Game Six.  Valentine rolled the dice and turned to Kenny Rogers.  The decision ended up costing the Mets their magical season.

Rogers allowed a leadoff double to Gerald Williams, who advanced to third on Bret Boone's sacrifice bunt.  Valentine then had Rogers intentionally walk Chipper Jones and Brian Jordan to set up a force play at every base.  But that also forced Rogers to pitch with pinpoint control to slugger Andruw Jones.  Finally, on a 3-2 count, Rogers threw a pitch that wasn't even close to the strike zone, allowing Williams to scamper home with the pennant-winning run and the Mets to fly home with their season coming to a screeching halt.

Although he pitched fairly well during the regular season following his mid-season trade to the Mets, Rogers fell apart in the postseason, going 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA.  Rogers pitched 12 innings in two starts and two relief appearances, allowing 26 base runners (16 hits, nine walks, one hit batsman).  The Mets eventually did win the pennant in 2000, but they did so without Rogers, who signed as a free agent with the Texas Rangers following his postseason pratfalls.  For many Mets fans, he left the team four balls too late.

After the Mets lost the 2000 World Series to the Yankees (without Rogers), Steve Phillips went into the 2001 June amateur draft hoping to find a talented arm who could help the team in the near future.  After all, four of the club's five starting pitchers in 2001 were already in their thirties and the team had just lost starting pitcher Mike Hampton to free agency.  However, as a result of Hampton's defection to the thin air and utopian school system in Denver, the Mets received two first round draft picks from the Rockies.  With their supplemental pick from Colorado, the Mets chose infielder David Wright and with their compensation pick, New York selected pitcher Aaron Heilman.

At least David Wright turned out okay.  (Doug Benc/Getty Images)

As a student-athlete at Notre Dame, Heilman set school records in career wins (43) and strikeouts (425).  He also rarely gave up home runs, allowing just 12 homers in 393⅔ innings.  That trend continued in the minor leagues, as Heilman surrendered just 15 homers in three minor league seasons before making his major league debut for the Mets in 2003.  Unfortunately, Heilman took some time to adjust to major league hitters, especially ones with power.

From 2003 to 2004, Heilman made 18 starts for the Mets, allowing 17 homers in 93⅓ innings.  It was more of the same for Heilman in his first start of the 2005 campaign, as he allowed home runs to noted Met-killers Brian Jordan and Chipper Jones in a loss to the Braves on April 9.  His next start was a revelation, as Heilman pitched a complete-game one-hit shutout against the Florida Marlins, allowing just a fourth-inning single to future Met Luis Castillo.  But when Heilman faced the Marlins again in his next start, he allowed seven runs and 11 hits in just four innings of work.  A month later, Heilman had lost his spot in the starting rotation.

The home run ball was one of the reasons why Heilman never made it as a starting pitcher, as he served up 22 taters in his first 25 career starts.  But once he moved to the bullpen, Heilman thrived.  He allowed just one homer in 45 relief appearances, with that long ball coming in garbage time on August 24 during the late innings of an 18-4 Mets victory over the Diamondbacks.

In 2006, Heilman once again finished strongly.  From July 19 to the end of the season, Heilman made 33 relief appearances, posting four wins, 12 holds, a 2.29 ERA and a stellar 0.93 WHIP.  Opposing batters hit just .190 off Heilman in those 33 games and most importantly, failed to hit any home runs off him in 35⅓ innings.  Heilman went nearly three months without allowing a home run until he surrendered what appeared to be a meaningless home run to Wilson Betemit in Game Two of the division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  It was the only run allowed by the Mets in a 4-1 victory.  Two weeks later, Heilman allowed another home run.  This time, the blast wasn't so meaningless.

In a tension-filled seventh game of the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Mets and Cards were tied, 1-1, going to the eighth inning.  As he had done throughout the season, manager Willie Randolph brought in Heilman to pitch the eighth inning.  Heilman rewarded his manager by pitching a scoreless frame, sandwiching two strikeouts around an intentional walk to Albert Pujols.  But instead of bringing in closer Billy Wagner to start the ninth, even though there was no chance for a save situation with the Mets playing at home, Randolph decided to hold Wagner in case the game went into extra innings, allowing Heilman to pitch the ninth.

Heilman had pitched beautifully in 2006, but he was most effective as a one-inning pitcher.  During the regular season, Heilman was asked to pitch more than one inning in 17 of his 74 relief appearances.  He allowed runs in nine of those 17 outings.  When asked to pitch no more than one inning, Heilman held the opposition scoreless in 45 of those 57 appearances.  But Game Seven was a different animal, and Heilman was going to pitch as long as Randolph needed him to stay on the mound.  Three batters into the ninth, Heilman became a part of Mets history, but not for a moment he wanted.

I wonder what's got everyone's attention in this photo.  (Photo by Bill Kostroun/AP)

During the 2006 regular season, Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina batted .216 and had a .271 on-base percentage.  He also was not a threat to go deep, as he had notched just 16 career homers in 1,033 plate appearances.  Clearly, Molina was not a Mike Piazza-type hitting catcher.  In fact, he couldn't even be compared to someone like, oh, let's say Mike Scioscia.  Although Molina's power was comparable to Scioscia, who hit 35 homers in 3,295 plate appearances through 1988, at least Scioscia knew how to reach base (.263 batting average, .350 on-base percentage during the same span).

In 1988, Scioscia had 31 plate appearances against the Mets during the regular season.  He produced no homers and one RBI against them.  Similarly, in his short career, Molina had 32 lifetime regular season plate appearances versus the Mets entering the 2006 NLCS.  Those plate appearances produced - you guessed it - no homers and one RBI for Molina.  In the 1988 National League Championship Series, Scioscia pulled a two-run homer off Dwight Gooden in the ninth inning at Shea Stadium in what was considered the turning point of the series.  Eighteen years later, a catcher with little power was batting in the ninth inning at Shea during a critical moment of the NLCS.  Once again, the light-hitting catcher had a runner on base and was facing a homegrown, first round draft pick.  And once again, the ball was pulled out of the yard.

Ever since becoming a relief pitcher in 2005, Aaron Heilman had become a master of keeping the ball in the park, allowing just six homers in 119 relief appearances during the 2005 and 2006 campaigns.  But once Molina beat him for a pennant-winning two-run homer in Game Seven of the 2006 NLCS, Heilman became quite susceptible to the long ball, serving up 18 homers in 159 games over the next two seasons.  And it wasn't just the fact that he was giving up homers.  He was also giving them up with men on base.

From 2003 to 2006, Heilman allowed 28 homers.  Exactly half of them (14) were solo shots.  After giving up the fateful home run to Molina, Heilman yielded 18 homers in his final two years as a Met.  Only four of them were hit with no one on base.  Six of them came with at least two runners aboard (four three-run homers, two grand slams).

Aaron Heilman was supposed to be a top prospect for the Mets who prided himself on keeping the ball in the park.  As a relief pitcher in 2005 and 2006, he was one of the best at doing just that.  That is, until Yadier Molina took a page out of the Mike Scioscia Guide to Hitting Devastating Home Runs.  Heilman - and the entire Mets franchise, for that matter - never recovered.

Speaking of being devastated, one player who signed with the Mets as a free agent during Steve Phillips' tenure as general manager was present at both the Kenny Rogers and Aaron Heilman meltdowns.  As a member of the Braves in 1999, he was in a celebratory mood when Rogers walked Andruw Jones to force in the decisive run, but seven years later he was more somber as a member of the Mets who witnessed the Molina home run.  One year after the Molina bomb, he put up a stinker of his own, not that he was all that devastated by it.

Tom Glavine was an enemy before and after he became an "enemigo".  In 17 years with the Braves (1987-2002, 2008), Glavine made 36 regular season starts against the Mets, posting a 17-7 record and 2.82 ERA.  His .708 winning percentage versus New York made him one of just three pitchers (min. 35 starts) who won at least 70% of his decisions against the Mets, joining two former Giants - Juan Marichal (26-8, .765 winning percentage) and Mike Krukow (22-7, .759).  But when Phillips needed to make a splash following the Mets' first losing season in six years, he turned to the Mets' nemesis, signing Glavine to a three-year, $35 million contract with a fourth-year option.  Glavine, who had 242 career wins at the time, thought he needed four productive seasons to reach 300 victories.

''I want to have the opportunity to win 300 games, and I think in order to do that, I have to pitch four years,'' said Glavine.  ''So I don't want to make a decision and in three years have to find a team to pitch for in the fourth year.  That fourth year is an important part of it.''

Glavine needed more than four years to reach 300 wins, as he produced 48 victories in his first four seasons as a Met.  But after becoming the only Mets pitcher to win multiple games during the 2006 postseason and needing just ten wins to become the first pitcher to win his 300th game while wearing a Mets uniform, the Mets almost had to bring Glavine back, which they did when they signed him to a one-year, $10.5 million contract to pitch for the team in 2007.

The Mets weren't nearly as successful in 2007 as they had been a year earlier.  Neither was Glavine, for that matter.  After going 15-7 with a 3.82 ERA in 2006, allowing three runs or fewer in all but seven of his 32 starts, his 2007 campaign was quite pedestrian (13-8, 4.45 ERA).  Glavine also allowed six runs or more in seven of his 34 starts in 2007.  One of those seven poor efforts came in Glavine's next-to-last start of the season, when he allowed six runs in five innings against Washington.  The Mets scored six runs in the ninth inning to make the Nationals sweat, but fell short by a single tally, losing a 10-9 heartbreaker.

Although Glavine could have easily been remembered for that subpar performance, the Mets still had a two-game lead in the division over the Phillies with five games to play.  Glavine would get one more opportunity to pitch before the end of the regular season, with the Mets hoping that the division could be clinched before then.  But it wasn't.  And Glavine's final start would determine if there would be October baseball at Shea Stadium.  Spoiler alert: There wasn't.

One day after John Maine had one of the best pitching performances in franchise history (no runs, one hit allowed, 14 strikeouts, no-hitter broken up with two outs in the eighth), Glavine had one of the worst.  Four batters into the game, Glavine had already given up more hits than Maine did the previous day.  Glavine faced every batter in the Marlins' lineup in the regular season finale.  He retired one of them.  The southpaw allowed four singles, a double, two walks and made a throwing error before hitting opposing pitcher Dontrelle Willis with the bases loaded to force in a run.  When reliever Jorge Sosa allowed a two-run double to Dan Uggla - the only batter Glavine retired in his abbreviated outing - the book on Glavine was closed.

In the Mets' biggest game of the season, Glavine pitched one-third of an inning, allowing seven runs - all of them earned.  His ERA for the day was an unfathomable 189.00.  The only thing larger than his earned run average was the enormity of the loss, as the 8-1 defeat, coupled with the Phillies' 6-1 victory, gave Philadelphia its first division crown in 14 years.  The crushing loss also sent the Mets home prematurely after the team held a seven-game lead in the division with 17 games to play.

As upset as Mets fans were with the team's collapse during the final three weeks of the season, they became even more incensed after hearing how Glavine felt about his performance, especially his choice of words when asked by a reporter if he was devastated by the loss.

"I'm not devastated, but I am disappointed.  Devastated is a word used for greater things in life than a game.  I was disappointed in the way I pitched."





For Mets fans who lived and died with the team since before Glavine had thrown his first pitch in the majors, the season-ending loss in 2007 was one of the toughest to comprehend, almost as difficult to swallow as Glavine's post-game comments.  Glavine's performance not only capped an historic collapse, it reinforced the notion that the Mets could not win the big game, similar to Kenny Rogers' loss in Game Six of the 1999 NLCS and Aaron Heilman's defeat in Game Seven of the 2006 NLCS.

The Mets once again lost a late-season division lead in 2008, although that one was just a three-and-a-half game lead, then followed that up with six consecutive losing seasons.  If only Kenny Rogers had not suffered a postseason meltdown in 1999, or if Aaron Heilman had known that light-hitting catchers can indeed become supermen at Shea Stadium in October, or even if Tom Glavine had been a little more terrific and a little less horrific in his final start as a Met, the history of the franchise could have been quite different.

Steve Phillips helped put together a team that made the only back-to-back playoff appearances in club annals.  He also helped lead the team down a dark path with some ill-fated trades, draft picks and free agent signings.  Three of those acquisitions had success with the Mets for most of the time they toiled in New York.  But they wilted horribly when the team needed them the most.

Kenny Rogers (traded to the Mets), Aaron Heilman (drafted by the Mets) and Tom Glavine (signed as a free agent with the Mets) could have been remembered for many things.  But their legacies will always come down to three heartbreaking defeats, turning three potential heroes into villains in the eyes of long-suffering Mets fans.

Nothing the Three Enemigos did prior to their untimely performances with the Mets will ever matter.  Whether they admitted it or not, those three moments in time will always be devastating.


Note:  One Mo-MET In Time is a thirteen-part weekly series spotlighting those Mets players who will forever be known for a single moment, game or event, regardless of whatever else they accomplished during their tenure with the Mets.  For previous installments, please click on the players' names below:

January 5, 2015: Mookie Wilson 
January 12, 2015: Dave Mlicki
January 19, 2015: Steve Henderson 
January 26, 2015: Ron Swoboda
February 2, 2015: Anthony Young
February 9, 2015: Tim Harkness