Guest Post: Top 5 Mets All Star Game memories

So there’s nothing going on and I have a meeting.  Fortunately my buddy Hayes @godgoogler handed in a guest post!  He even went the extra step of proving URLs for the videos.  No mention of Murph?

So I love the All Star Game.   Shannon got me into this when he said to me once that he recorded the ASG every year because those are all the big stars of the era and we’ll look back on these games later and want to see these guys again.  I suppose that’s true.

 

While Jacob DeGrom did strike three guys out in his ASG appearance last night, Mike Trout took him deep and I think he’ll be more remembered for that than for dominating the three other hitters.  Fair or not, a homer is a homer.

But I’d like to go through the top 5 ASG Mets Memories that I have.  These are games I saw live—-so sorry Seaver and Matlack fans but those early 70s games are just before my time.  (I was born in 1970).

So here are my favorites in reverse order:

#5:  2006:   David Wright blasted a homer in the game   and made the finals of the Home run Derby losing to Ryan Howard.

If you really wanted a DeGrom memory to hold on to, this one was it.  He struck out the side on 10 pitches sitting down….Stephen Vogt, Jason Kempkis and Jose Iglesias.  Not exactly murderers row, but hey 10 pitches is 10 pitches.


#3:  2013:     TDK…yes he was a baby.   But he started this game and threw 2 scoreless innings. 


#2:  1984Doc Gooden struck out the side with Lance Parish, Chet Lemon and Al Davis all going down.

Gooden was also the youngest all star in history at 19.  In his second inning, Lou Whitaker grounded out Gooden to Hernandez, Eddie Murray then hit a windblown double into short left field that Ozzie Smith nearly caught.

Cal Ripken grounded out Schmidt to Hernandez and then Dave Winfield flew out to Tim Raines in LF.   Two scoreless innings and he pitched to Gary Carter.

The link is the whole game.  Which is cool because there are cheesy commercials and Al Michaels, Howard Cosell and Don Drysdale were the broadcast crew.  Fernando Valenzuela also struck out the side, which I believe may be the only time two pitchers did that in the same All Star game.

#1: 1979:   Lee Mazzilli – Maz cracked an opposite field Home run to tie the game and then later walked to bring home the go-ahead run in a National League win.  Dave Parker’s two throws to the plate garnered him the MVP award.  I talked to Parker about that on a trip to Cincinnati with Big League Tours once and asked him if Lee Mazzilli was still bitter about not being named the MVP and he replied, “Lee Mazzilli’s home run barely went over the fence!”  He’s not wrong. Maz’s homer comes at 2:58:00 in this video.  
Honorable mention:  Lance Johnson 1996.  Played the whole game!