35 Years of Misery & Counting
Happy for Doc and I’m glad that they got another series win, but 15 games in and still no J.D. Martinez is really concerning.
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Prayers up for a speedy recovery,
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NYPost.com:
Former major league outfielder Lenny Dykstra had a stroke this week and is recovering at a Los Angeles hospital, the New York Post reported Thursday.
The Post reported that Darryl Strawberry and Kevin Mitchell, teammates of Dykstra on the New York Mets, said Dykstra was in good spirits and set to undergo further evaluation at UCLA Medical Center.
The former players said Dykstra had been moved out of intensive care. Mitchell told the Post that Dykstra would likely be hospitalized into next week.
“He’s laying down, but he is being Lenny,” Mitchell told the Post. “We get to an age now where we have got to take care of ourselves. I told him he has to take more care of himself. You can’t let stress bother you. He’s been through a lot. I love him with all my heart.”
Hope for a speedy recovery.
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Forever linked are those two.
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Great for Keith who deserves all the accolades and belongs in the HOF. What a statement it is too that this happened under Steve Cohen’s watch instead of the Wilpon’s. Now they need to do Gary Carter next.
While reflecting on his career, which earned him a number retirement from the Mets and a congratulatory press conference on Wednesday, Keith Hernandez also came face-to-face with his own mortality.
Specifically, when the topic shifted to his chances of making the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the 68-year-old Hernandez said that if he does earn an induction, he’d like for it to happen while he’s still around to appreciate it. “It’s out of my hands,” Hernandez said. “I’ve been out of the game for a long time. Hopefully I’ve got another 15, 16, 17, 18 years of life. Maybe it’ll happen before I kick the bucket.”
I’m not into the analytics stuff, so I went old-school and counted 9 Hall of Fame-ish seasons for Hernandez during his career. Add to that an MVP in ’79, two World Series championships and 11 Gold Gloves and to me, Hernandez should be in there. Of course, the biggest knock will be the lack power for a 1st baseman (only 162 HRs in a 17-year career), but in his prime Keith was pretty consistent run producer with a guarantee of around 90 per year and an OBP that was always high. That said, the fact that Hernandez never got better than 10.8% in a Hall of Fame vote when he was on the ballot is mind-boggling. Time for the Veterans Committee to make up for that mistake.
On Wednesday, on a Zoom news conference to talk about that honor, Hernandez may have added a second new line to his resume: Newsbreaker. As he was talking about the Mets’ growing efforts under owner Steve Cohen to celebrate their history, Hernandez seemed to break the news that the team is going to hold its first Old-Timers’ Day since the 1990s this summer.
“The fact that we’re going to have an Old-Timers’ game again,” Hernandez said. “They’re going to bring in 50 players, I understand. That is fantastic.” The Mets have not announced the return of Old-Timers’ Day. Team president Sandy Alderson was asked on the same Zoom call if they plan to in 2022.
Yet another great move here by Steve Cohen in respect to Mets tradition.
The Mets are going to retire Keith Hernandez’s No. 17 next season, during a ceremony on Saturday, July 9, prior to a game with the Marlins. Hernandez, the lynchpin of the Mets’ 1986 world championship team, joins Casey Stengel (37), Gil Hodges (14), Tom Seaver (41), Mike Piazza (31) and Jerry Koosman (36) to be so honored.
Hernandez played for the Mets from 1983 through 1989, acquired from the Cardinals in a trade on June 15, 1983. He hit .297 as a Met and won five Gold Gloves as a first baseman in New York. In 1984 he finished second to Ryne Sandberg in the NL MVP vote, hitting .311 with 97 RBIs.
Hernandez’s number being retired is not only long overdue, but also further testament to former owner’s Fred Wilpon’s incompetence in running the team all those years. David Wright will obviously get his number retired some day soon. But why the late, great Gary Carter hasn’t had his number retired already is beyond me.
Bill Buckner was much more than Game 6 and it wasn’t his fault (Dave Stapleton should’ve been playing 1st and as many foregt, there was a Game 7) the Red Sox lost the ’86 World Series. Buckner was a batting champ, an All-Star and had a long and distinguished career. Still, it was a good thing that he and Red Sox fans were able to reconcile before he passed and how awesome was it for Larry David to show Buckner’s ‘true spirit’ in that infamous Curb Your Enthusiasm episode years back.
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Darling made a lot of news lately for his new book that contained uncorroborated claims of racism against Lenny Dykstra, but this news is something different and way more important. I love listening to Darling, Keith and Gary Cohen while I watch games and hope to continue doing so for a long time. Hope he gets better soon.
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Score one for Team Dykstra.
Wally Backman became the latest former Met to chime in on the feud between Lenny Dykstra and Ron Darling over whether Dykstra shouted racial slurs at Red Sox pitcher Oil Can Boyd from the on-deck circle during the 1986 World Series, as Darling claims he did.
Dykstra has vehemently denied the allegation while former teammates Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden and Kevin Mitchell, along with Boyd, have all said they did not hear his comments. Keith Hernandez, meanwhile, said he saw Dykstra “barking” at Boyd, but did not hear the alleged insults.
Backman was adamant the episode never happened.
“The fact of the matter is I [was] standing right besides Lenny on the on-deck circle before that game,” said Backman, the former minor-league Mets manager now in charge of the Long Island Ducks. “If something like that would have happened, if something would have been said, I would have said something to him at that time. But I’ve known Lenny a long time and I know for a fact — on my kids’ life — he did not say that.”
The evidence on both sides has been weighed and I think it’s pretty clear on who the winner is. Darling should apologize and admit he got it wrong.
