The A’s held their 50th anniversary celebration for the 1973 World Series yesterday, and Brandon Nimmo was not having it. In fact, Nimmo was so not down with the Oakland dynasty that he decided to make the day more about the 1969 Mets, emulating Fall Classic catches by Tommie Agee and Ron Swoboda.
Swoboda couldn’t help the Mets in 1973 against the A’s because he was traded with Rich Hacker to the Expos right before the 1971 season, in exchange for Don Hahn. It wasn’t Hahn’s fault that the Mets couldn’t take down Oakland 50 years ago, as he went 3-for-4 in Game 7 and was on base in the ninth inning when Wayne Garrett, representing the tying run at the plate at Oakland Coliseum, popped up to end it.
After the next season, Hahn was part of the trade that sent Tug McGraw to Philadelphia, and brought Mac Scarce, John Stearns, and Del Unser to New York. Scarce was traded a few months later for Tom Hall, who was meh out of the 1975 Mets bullpen and then traded to the Royals for minor leaguer Bryan Jones, who never advanced past A-ball, early in the 1976 season.
Stearns only played one game with the Phillies, then 810 for the Mets from 1975-84, so he had some extremely bad teammates over the years. Unser may be thought of as one of those, as one of the classic ‘70s dudes who couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag — Unser had a .677 career OPS — but he did hit .294/.337/.392 for the 1975 Mets, with 10 of his 87 career home runs, a total that trailed only Dave Kingman (37) and Rusty Staub (19) on a team that hit a total of just 101 dingers.
The Mets traded Unser in July of 1976 to the Expos, along with Garrett, for Jim Dwyer and Pepe Mangual. Dwyer, who was in the majors until 1990, only took 15 plate appearances in 11 games as a Met, then was part of a three-team trade that sent him to the Cubs, Pete LaCock to the Royals, and Sheldon Mallory to the Mets. Mallory didn’t make the Mets out of 1977 spring training and had his contract sold to the A’s,where he played his only 64 major league games, hitting .214/.291/.262 with 12 stolen bases.
Mangual played nearly five times as many games as a Met than Dwyer did, with 49: the last 49 games he spent in the majors, hitting at a .183/.258/.294 clip before the Mets sent him to the Angels in a deal for Gil Flores.
Flores, then, was almost as bad with the bat in 81 games as a Mets reserve outfielder, hitting .213/.281/.279 with one homer, off Bill Bonham in Cincinnati on August 19, 1979. It was an inside-the-parker, according to Baseball Reference, and also didn’t save the Mets from a 6-5 loss.
The 1979 season wasn’t the end of Flores’ career. He went to Triple-A Tidewater in 1980 and stayed there for five seasons, stealing a total of 107 bases while playing alongside many of the players — Wally Backman, Jesse Orosco, Darryl Strawberry, and Mookie Wilson to name a few — who wound up winning it all with the 1986 Mets.
It’s not really a straight line from Swoboda to 1986, just as Nimmo’s catch yesterday wasn’t exactly the same… but it sure is enough to make you smile and remember why you love this game. If that’s the kind of thing you’re into. If it’s not, and you’re asking “who cares about this?” you can join Homer Simpson.
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