Mets Leftovers is a recurring series where I post all the articles that have been bounced 85 times for various more timely articles. This one I remember scheduling in March….today it sees the light of day.
During the daylight hours of the New York City summer, the Padres took the field against another relatively new franchise, the New York Mets. Playing in Shea Stadium, on a plot of land that at one time was supposed to keep the Dodgers in New York, the Padres were a small fry in the Big Apple. It was a normal day in baseball, one in which Bob Gibson won his sixth game of the season, Bobby Bonds hit his 17th home run, and the Cubs extended their National League East lead to 4.5 games over the Montreal Expos. Yet on this normal day, the Padres would be exposed to a pitcher who would one day find his number retired in San Diego.
I remember sitting in the awesome box seats my dad used to get from a guy named Pat. My dad was a bartender, and Pat had season tickets since 1964! They were in that part of Shea behind home plate that faced straight out, but were just to the right of the netting and had nobody in front of us. It was an also odd-ball three seat box.
Pat’s wife had died, so more often than not he would tip my dad two Mets tickets. My dad finished up at 6, and we lived along the 7 line so we’d head off to the 7:35pm game.
I saw a LOT of the bad early 1980’s Mets teams. Plenty of Mike Scott. Plenty of Randy Jones.
One night I remember is Randy walking the first 6 batters. Awful.
Dad and Pat would have several (and my recollection is quite a few several) beverages and I would sit in the front of the three-box with my walkman on listening to the game, or sometimes rock music on WPLJ.
Good times, and nice of a random Randy Jones link to bring that back.
