New Mets outfielder Tommy Pham turns 35 today. Among players born on March 8, he’s fourth all-time in wins above replacement, behind Dick Allen, Jim Rice, and Carl Furillo. (He’s tied on Baseball-Reference’s list with Harry Lord, a pre-World War I outfielder for the Red Sox and Tigers, and let’s nicely project Pham as better than replacement level this year.)
When Pham makes his first Mets appearance, he’ll be only the second member of the team with a March 8 birthday, ever. The only other one was lefty pitcher Willard Hunter, who went 4-9 with a 5.06 ERA over 68 appearances for New York from 1962-64. Hunter debuted with the Dodgers on April 16 of that first year of Mets baseball… and immediately showed himself to be 1962 Mets material by coming into a game that Los Angeles trailed by eight runs in the sixth inning, and immediately issuing a walk to Harvey Kuennn and giving up a single to Chuck Hiller before serving up a three-run ding dong to Willie Mays.
Hunter got to face Mays again in his debut, and walked him as part of a seven-run inning that included Orlando Cepeda stealing home.
That was it for Hunter as a Dodger (one appearance, 40.50 ERA) and they sent him to the Mets on May 25 as the player to be named later in the Charlie Neal-Lee Walls trade from the previous December.
On July 4, 1962, Hunter returned with the Mets to the scene of his disastrous major league debut, Candlestick Park, this time with a clean slate as the starting pitcher in the back end of the holiday doubleheader. The Mets had lost the first game when Jay Hook couldn’t get out of the first inning, Mays tripled, and Willie McCovey hit a pair of homers. But for the nightcap, they had Hunter, familiar with the scene and with a score to settle against the Giants for spoiling his first game as a big leaguer.
Frank Thomas (not that one) started the bottom of the first inning — after Neal had bounced in to a 4-6-3 DP to end the top of the first, tremendous 1962 Metsing — with an error on a Kuenn grounder. After Jim Davenport walked, Hunter got his rematch with Mays, who promptly blasted a three-run homer. But, hey, since the Mets had used so much bullpen, and Hunter didn’t give up anything else in the first, he stayed in there… and gave up a two-run homer to Mays in the third inning. The Mets lost, 10-3.
Mays also singled against Hunter at the Polo Grounds on July 15. Overall, they faced each other for nine plate appearances: Mays was 5-for-8 with three homers, eight RBI, a walk, and on June 3, 1962, in the ninth inning of a 6-1 Giants cruise, one beautiful strikeout that Hunter could remember for the rest of his life. He died two years ago, at the age of 85, having recorded strikeouts in his major league career of Mays, Lou Brock, Eddie Mathews, Ron Santo, Mays, Cepeda, and Roberto Clemente. And the only guys who touched him up for more than one homer? Two of the greatest to ever swing a bat — three each for Mays and Henry Aaron.
Hunter’s final career appearance was a rough inning in St. Louis in the last game of the 1964 season. After giving up a two-run homer to future Yankees broadcaster Bill White, the last batter Hunter faced was future Mets broadcaster Tim McCarver, who hit a two-run double to drive in Ken Boyer and Dick Groat, but himself was thrown out at third on the play.
That’s not exactly how Mets-Padres in San Diego ended in 1986 with McCarver at the mic, but we’d be remiss not to remember that, and to continue celebrating the late McCarver’s legacy as a Mets voice.
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