The recent post about David Wright must be the Mets player who wore the most Mets jerseys let to a discussion of who might be #2.
I imagine that there’s a good chance that it’s someone who has played on very recent teams – like a deGrom or someone, only because of all the Mother’s Day/Father’s Day/Money Grab Day jerseys that roll out every season. If we put all that aside and only discuss “real” jerseys – I think there’s a good case for Franco. (I also on a future post may take a look at Mookie, because the Mets were pretty all over the place with road jerseys in the 80s, so he may have racked up a few).
Today, let’s take a look at John. Unlike the Wright post, my blog was not active when John played, so I can’t tap into my stash of photos and will make due.
John joined the Mets in 1990. At that time the jerseys were Racing Stripes (1) and “Yankees road” (2)(seen here as a throwback)
He also apparently wore blue (3) as seen in this 1990 Traded Topps card.
It looks like an M on the front there to me – not sure, feel encouraged to remind me. If it is an M, then Blue “Yankees road” is (4) and I kinda forgot this happened.
Backing up a bit, Wikipedia reminds me that In 1991, the pullover jerseys became button-down jerseys, and a thin white outline was added to the graphics on the home jerseys. So I guess thats 5 and 6.
Then SWOOSH home and SWOOSH road…make 7 and 8
And look at this monstrosity…..(9)
Wikipedia reminds me that the first year of swoosh did not have numbers on the front, but the second year did (I did not know that, and would have lost to Jed Lowrie in Mets Trivia). That makes 10. Wait is Franco going to make a run at Wright here? We didn’t even get to ice cream or black yet!
Then Swoosh left and we had normal traditional uniforms. Home and Away (12)
OK now it starts to get really weird and we can argue over what counts as different or not…
In 1997, the squatcho (aka squatchee aks button on top of the cap) switched from blue to orange. Let’s not count that. (Somewhere in here we had one year of NNOB…let’s not count that either.)
In 1997 we also got the ice cream caps and jerseys (13) and no that’s not John Franco.
In 1998, the Apocalypse. Black. Black Home (14), Black N E W Y O R K (15), Home with dropshadow (16), Away with drop shadow (17) and I won’t even run up the numbers by mixing and matching caps although the Mets surely did.
John played for the Mercury Mets (18) and did play in the First Responder Caps in 2001 although I won’t count that one.
John Franco appears in the boxscore of the June 15, 2001 game – when the Mets wore New York Cubans throwbacks (19) against the Blue Jays. Here’s Jon Niese in a Cubans in 2010. (Kinda snazzy)
So that’s 19. I had Wright at 22+
It’s possible there are throwbacks or Spring jerseys that I have forgotten or overlooked. Johnny gave Wright quite a run, but I think Wright just edges him out.
