1970 - the Mets dynasty ain't gonna happen, and it's a world where the only Met we don't boo is Buddy Harrelson.
I booed Buddy plenty when he was the manager (especially when he was afraid to come to the mound and Mike and the Mad DOg would do 5 hours a day killing him) but it's time he return home.
On this afternoon the script went awry as it so often does these days with the Mets, who are vainly spinning their wheels in pursuit of stumbling Pittsburgh. Line drives whistled through the infield like cannonballs at Balaclava. The Mets treated the baseballs as dangerous enemies, and Seaver was driven from the game after the sixth inning, his earliest departure of the year. Only Harrelson remained immune to the epidemic of bootery. Once, after gracefully saving a grounder headed for left field, he forced a runner at second, then kicked the dirt in disgust. He felt that his hurried throw had been too low to permit the double play. He was the only person in the ball park to think so. "Buddy," says roommate Seaver, "sets impossible goals for himself." In the very next game Harrelson muffed an easy ground ball on the first ball hit to him in the first inning, the errorless streak ended and he was freed to focus his concentration on the more important issue of the moment: helping the Mets back into first place before the season has run its course.
More below:
Bud Harrelson does not exactly have blacksmith's arms, - 09.07.70 - SI Vault
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