The 50 Biggest Fails in New York Mets History

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Date: 6/28/1994, 9/15/1994

Gooden's 1987 drug suspension was shocking, but was tempered somewhat by the afterglow of the Mets' 1986 world championship. By '94, though, memories of '86 were far in the rearview mirror, and Doc's continued struggles with cocaine just became sad. His second positive test of the year (prompting a ban from the sport for the '95 season) occurred while baseball was already on "hiatus" for the player's strike, and while Mets fans probably weren't itching to get that '94 squad back on the field (they sure as hell weren't making the cancelled World Series), it was adding insult to injury to see the final rail, er, nail put in the coffin of the mid-'80s would-be dynasty.

Date: 12/11/1986

Sure, McReynolds had four really good seasons for the Mets, but he never won an MVP, and he never decapitated a cat. OK, so Mitchell probably never actually decapitated a cat either, but he did win an MVP while McReynolds was playing for the Mets, and having a guy on your team who people think conceivably could decapitate a cat is pretty cool.

Date: 2009

Yeah, Fred Wilpon grew up in Brooklyn loving the Dodgers, but George Steinbrenner grew up in Cleveland and we don't see a bunch of Indians tchotkes at the new Yankee Stadium. In Citi Field's inaugural season, Wilpon was taken to task for filling the place with odes to his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers (whose Los Angeles offspring the Mets happen to play a few times every year), before introducing more Mets memorabilia in the second season. But the jinx was already on. If Wilpon were a ballplayer, he wouldn't jump over the foul line; he'd probably run up and down it yelling "He's pitching a no-hitter!"

Date: 2/28/1981

When Dave Kingman made contact, more often than not it resulted in tape-measure home runs. The rest of the time, he struck out. The Mets' new owners (including a minority partner named Fred Wilpon) re-acquired King Kong in 1981 to appease an angered fanbase, and Kong responded by leading the National League in strikeouts in '81 and '82. He did equal his own Mets single-season home run record in 1982, but he did it while batting .204 — until Carlos Pena hit .196 last year, the lowest average ever recorded by a first baseman with enough ABs to qualify for the batting title. Of Kingman's 109 hits, 37 were home runs. He struck out 156 times.

Date: 6/23/1963

You think Manny Ramirez shows up pitchers after hitting home runs? After hitting his 100th career homer, Jimmy Piersall took Duke Snider up on his clubhouse bet and ran around the bases backward. This was probably about the time Mets manager Casey Stengel started thinking "I've had enough of this lovable shit." To be fair though, Piersall was a little crazy.

Date: 1/13/2010

Granted, if you're a baseball player, and you know you need surgery, scheduling it for January is pretty silly. But if you're a baseball team, especially one that's come off a season with an historical cavalcade of injuries, it's just plain shitty to claim your star player's undergone surgery without your knowledge...especially when you actually DID know about it. Yo Fred: surgery's like being pregnant, you either is or you isn't, and calling during the middle of one to suggest getting a third opinion isn't really an option.

Date: 7/12/1998

You can't really fault the Mets for trading for Mike Piazza, the player widely considered to be the best hitting catcher of all time. The only problem was, when they traded for Piazza, they already had a pretty good hitting catcher in Todd Hundley, who was a two-time All-Star and the record holder for most home runs by a catcher when Piazza was acquired. Of course the Mets tried to play Hundley in the outfield. How can you put a guy that crouched down to catch his whole life, and move him to a position that requires mobility? Well, at least they didn't try to play Piazza at first or anything crazy like that...

Date: 6/17/1962

Missing first, OK, it happens. Missing first AND second on your way to third, well, that only happened to the '62 Mets.

Date: 8/17/2008

Your bullpen sucks. Like, epically, the-very-last-dregs-of-the-milkshake-in-the-straw sucks. So what do you do? Trade for a reliever with a 5+ ERA! And then, you know, LET HIM CLOSE GAMES!!! Yeah, that's gonna work.

Date: 5/18/2009

The Mets woke up on the morning of May 18, 2009 in first place, leading the defending world champion Phillies by a half-game in the NL East. But that night on his way to scoring what WOULD'VE BEEN the go-ahead run in the 11th inning of a game against the Dodgers, Ryan Church fails to touch third base and is called out. The Dodgers won the game in the bottom of the 11th, and the Mets didn't look back (mostly because they were looking up at the Phils, Braves, and Marlins), finishing the year 22 games back. The organization actually exacted a bit of unintentional (we assume) revenge on Church, forcing him to come back early from a concussion and ruining his career. Although to be fair, the Mets haven't really been "healthy" themselves ever since.

Date: 8/12/2000

The Mets made the World Series in 2000 (remember?), although they did so despite some of the squad's best efforts. Benny Agbayani was a pretty atrocious outfielder, but at least he caught this ball in an August game versus the Giants at Shea. Problem was, he handed the ball to a kid in the first row, and it was only the second out. Lovable? Yup, the Mets are lovable. But so is your cousin with the soft spot on his head. You get where we're going with this, right?

Date: 6/11/2009

Is it actually true? We're gonna say probably not. But the fact that the Phillies have owned the Mets since Citi Field opened, and the fact that the Yankees came down like a ton of bricks, concrete, and steel on the dude that tried to pull a similar stunt at the new Yankee Stadium (and the Mets pretty clearly won't be able to do the same), makes this a fail, even if it's just a rumor.

Date: 8/27/1992

David Cone's not going to make the Hall of Fame, and Jeff Kent will, so where's the fail in this you ask? Well, Kent's going into the Hall wearing a Giants uni BECAUSE THE METS TRADED HIM, TOO. That and the fact that Coney got Mike Piazza out in Game 4 of the 2000 Subway Series.

You just can't make this stuff up. While giving the Double A Binghamton Mets a scolding after a 1-6 homestand, Vice President of Player Development Tony Bernazard ripped off his shirt and challenged the young players to a fight. His roid rage-esque tirade led Bernazard to get fired shortly after. But hey, Jose (and Ozzie) Canseco's boxing; he can always fall back on that.

Date: 10/19/1999

In Game 6 of the NLCS, while their teammates were clawing and scratching back into a game they trailed 5-0 in the first inning (SPOILER ALERT: They didn't succeed), Ricky and Bobby were playing Go Fish in the clubhouse. Veterans are supposed to stand as examples to the youngsters, showing through their actions what appropriate MLB behavior is. The Mets never seem to get guys like that. *sigh*

Date: 11/5/2010

How's this for the recent Mets in a nutshell? Last October 27, as the rest of the baseball world prepared for the first game of the World Series, the Mets were busy suspending their longtime equipment manager for gambling and fraud. Charlie Samuels, the Mets' equipment manager since 1983 had allegedly been facilitating his own memorabilia business on the side by stealing the equipment he was "managing." He was also alleged to have substantial gambling debts after betting extensively on horse races, NFL games, and, yes, baseball (that's kind of a no-no). Good news though Charlie—at least you don't have to work for the Mets anymore!

Date: 9/3/1999

Luis Lopez was greatly frustrated with his diminished playing time, so he decided to take it out on his main competitor, Rey Ordonez, and his face during a bus trip back to Shea Stadium. After the scuffle was broken up, the starting shortstop was left with a black eye and needed six stitches, while the backup was unscathed. With Lopez hitting only 22 home runs in his 11-year career, we have to wonder where his sudden power outburst came from.

Date: 4/30/2003

Mike Piazza getting his mullet frosted in the clubhouse during a blowout would probably not be a big deal, but when you're a journeyman shortstop struggling (and not succeeding) to reach the Mendoza Line, in-game touch-ups are a definite no-no. Sanchez retreated to the clubhouse for a trim (remember when Mets used to retreat to the clubhouse for trim?) during an early season loss to the Cards in '03, and the fail was compounded by a) his continual denials, and b) the fact that the whole matter came to light when then-Met and former Yankee Mike Stanton complained to some former teammates about the professionalism of his Flushing compadres.

Date: 7/27/1993

The New York media can be a bit prickly, but squirting bleach at a group of reporters is never OK. Saberhagen two weeks later confessed and stated,"My intention was simply to paint the employee's jeans with bleach." So it was all just an innocent tie-dye accident! Lulz, we're not sure what was less funny, this whole bleach-squirting episode or Saberhagen's injury-plagued tenure in Queens.

Dates: 5/14/1996; 7/18/1999

Following up on Tom Seaver's '78 no-hitter for the Reds, Dwight Gooden and David Cone were also both able to accomplish—in another team's uniform—what no Met pitcher has ever done. That they tossed their no-nos playing for the cross-town rival Yankees was just salt in the wound.

Date: 1996

Young pitchers Jason Isringhausen, Bill Pulsipher, and Paul Wilson were supposed to be the Mets' future, the new Seaver, Koosman and Matlack. And, the Mets being the Mets, they were hyped as such. Instead, "Generation K" became the lost generation as they all got hurt. But hey, they did win 28 games. In their Mets careers. Combined.

Date: 9/24/2008

With the Mets fighting to avoid another September collapse, Daniel Murphy led off the 9th inning of a tie game against the Chicago Cubs at Shea with a promising triple. After a David Wright strikeout, and intentional walks to Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church and Ramon Castro couldn't advance any runners with the bases loaded, and the Mets went on to lose 9-6 in 10 innings. In terms of bad losses during the collapse of 2008 this ranked high on the "We're Really Screwed" meter.

Date: 2002

If there's one thing the Mets are really, really good at, it's squandering goodwill. So in the summer of 2002, less than two years removed from a World Series appearance, and less than a year after Mike Piazza's walk-off in the first game played in New York after 9/11, the Mets became famous for...smoking pot? In July, Mark Corey suffered a seizure (what is this, an after-school special?) after smoking weed with teammate Tony Tarasco, and in September, reliever Grant Roberts was forced to 'fess up to a previous dalliance with Mary Jane after a picture of him puffing on a bong hit the papers. Other teams have players that get busted for using performance-enhancing drugs; the Mets get dudes who get seizures from coughing too much.

Date: 1962

It's a truism across sports: If a team is ever described as being "lovable," it means they suck. The 1962 Mets put up a record of 40-120, featured players traded for themselves, an "ace" who went 10-24, and some of the most inept playing the sport had ever seen. The next season, the Mets followed up with a stellar record of 51-111. They were lovable (they outdrew the Yankees their first five years), but they were deplorable, too. FTL!

Date: 1977 - 1981

It wasn't Joe Torre's fault. Not entirely, anyway. The Mets of the late '70s and early '80s were a truly dismal team, and Torre had never managed before. But still, you'd think a future Hall-of-Fame manager could have done better than 100-plus games under .500 over five seasons. Or at least managed to get them over .500 once. Nope.

Date: 5/8/2010

Who needs Ambien? All former-Met-turned-sportscaster Keith Hernandez needed to do was watch the Mets play during an extra-inning game against the San Francisco Giants in 2010. Hernandez was caught sleepin' during a commercial break, before being awoken by an SNY producer and co-anchor Gary Cohen. And by all appearances this was the real thing, and not one of the dumb stunts SNY pulled in the past year (silent inning anyone?) to try to maintain interest in the team.

Date: 7/27/2009

Say what? If signing Luis Castillo, Oliver Perez, and Jason Bay, and trading for Luis Ayala weren't enough to convince you that Omar Minaya probably shouldn't be running a major league franchise, this little exchange with a Daily News reporter should've sealed the deal. We've heard of shooting the messenger, and that actually probably works, provided you actually shoot the messenger. If you just passive-aggressively try and embarass him, but he still retains his job writing for a major tabloid, well, that ain't gonna work out too hot.

Date: 5/29/1990

Winning the 1986 World Series should have earned Davey Johnson a lifetime gig with the Mets and legend status in New York. Instead, he got three more seasons before getting canned 42 games into the '90 campaign (the team was in second place). The next three full years Johnson served as an MLB manager, he led his team to the playoffs, while the Mets suffered through the Bud Harrelson, Mike Cubbage (!), Jeff Torborg, and Dallas Green errors, er, eras. Not for nothing, Johnson is still the Mets all-time winningest manager.

Date: 1/20/1984

After being traded to the Reds in 1977 in a move dubbed "The Midnight Massacre" (just keep reading, it's in here), Seaver was traded back to the Mets in 1982 (after he pitched a no-hitter for Cincinnati, of course). After a decent '83 season, Seaver and the Mets were poised to enter '84 as an up-and-coming success story—until the face of the franchise was picked up by the White Sox in the free agent compensation draft after he was inexplicably left off the protected list by (otherwise competent) Mets GM Frank Cashen. In '85 Seaver recorded his 300th win for the Sox. But hey, Tom Glavine got his 300th with us! That counts for something, right?

Date: 9/29/2008

Sure, team execs had no way of knowing the Mets would be putting the finishing touches on a SECOND CONSECUTIVE COLLAPSE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS during the final game at Shea. But they should have (they are familiar with the team's history, right?), and even if they thought the team was going to win, wouldn't they want the post-game celebrations to be about the current team? Best case scenario is grandpa's funeral after the wedding; worst case is grandpa's funeral after grandma's funeral. It's the Mets, we'll let you guess which scenario occurred.

Date: 1998

Before he was a philandering ESPN analyst with an eye for low-level production assistants, Steve Phillips was a philandering big league GM with an eye for low-level team employees. Keep in mind Mets fans, this is also the man who signed Mo Vaughn, so he fucked us, too!

Date: 1992-1993

Biggest loser ever? Yes. Anthony Young lost a record-breaking 27 games in a row from May 6, 1992 to July 24, 1993. He broke the shitty streak against the expansion Florida Marlins. If at first you don't succeed, try try again...but maybe in AY's case a good ol' fashioned quit was called for.

Date: 1991-1993

Whether playing with the Mets or against them, Vince Coleman was a menace. At least as a Cardinal, he only hurt them on the basepaths. As a Met, he whacked ace Dwight Gooden with a golf club, then tossed firecrackers at fans, injuring three children. That got him suspended for the remainder of his so-called Mets career. Good lookin' out, Vince.

Date: 6/16/2002

Your mom? She couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Shawn Estes? He couldn't hit the broadside of a beanballing, 'roid raging, broken bat-tossing dickhead when he (Estes) was called upon to exact some long overdue revenge for said dickhead's treatment of Mike Piazza. So yeah, your mom > Shawn Estes. That's called faint praise.

Date: 8/11/2005

In recent years, major league front offices have emphasized defense when putting together their rosters, to great effect (see: 2008 Tampa Bay Rays). In a rare case of foresight, Mets brass was actually up on defense early. Only problem? They hired two guys for the same position. Prior to 2004, the Mets signed Gold Glove centerfielder Mike Cameron; the next year they signed future Gold Glove centerfielder Carlos Beltran. They moved Cameron to right, which was fine until his inner center fielder emerged in a game against the Padres and he collided head first with the actual center fielder, Beltran. Cameron came away with a concussion, broken cheekbones, and loss of vision, Beltran was lucky to walk away with only vertigo. Anybody that saw the collision live figured they were both dead though.

Date: 12/10/1971

Yes, the Mets never really had a solid third baseman. And yes, 24-year-old fireballer Nolan Ryan was a bit wild. How could they have known he'd go on to strike out 5,700, win 324 games and throw seven no-hitters? Meanwhile, Jim Fregosi played all of 146 games as a Met. Oops.

Date: 6/1966

Draft blunders happen every year, but when you take a guy No. 1 who becomes the first top pick to never play a major league game, and the guy that goes No. 2 goes on to earn the nickname Mr. October, that's a blunder of Mets-ian proportions.

Date: 7/30/2004

It wasn't just that Jim Duquette traded the team's best prospect. It wasn't just that Duquette made the trade when the team was 7.5 games out of the wild card race. And it wasn't just that he traded for a middling starter who led his league in walks, wild pitches, and hit batsmen the year before. No, it was that he did all three at the same time. Well, that and the fact that the Mets really, really, really could've used Kazmir in the 2006 NLCS. If Jim Duquette could screw over the Mets this bad in only 11 months, imagine what he could’ve done with more time at the helm.

Date: 10/21/2000

Thinking that Todd Zeile had hit a home run in Game 1 of the 2000 Subway Series, Timo Perez decided to jog his way around the bases without realizing that the ball never went over the fence. Perez—surprise, surprise, surprise—got thrown out at home, and the Mets lost a valuable run (and, eventually, the game and the Series). We all make mistakes, but when your lapse in judgment comes during one of the most important games of your life, all we can say is: Hello bad memories, meet the rest of your life!

Date: 7/1/2011 - 7/1/2035

Question: Who will the Mets pay more in 2011, Ike Davis and Josh Thole combined or a clubhouse cancer from the last century who hasn't played a major-league game in almost a decade? After getting rid of Bobby Bo once, the Mets inexplicably re-signed the "slugger" in 1999. After—surprise, surprise, surprise—Bonilla didn't do shit for the Mets, the team bought out the remaining $5.9 million owed to Bonilla during the 2000 season. Instead of paying him the rest all at once, the front office deferred the payments, so starting this July, Bonilla will collect $1,193,248.20 every year FOR THE NEXT 25 YEARS. Let that sink in for a minute.

Date: 11/19/2007

A big name player past his prime? Check. Injury prone? Check. Ridiculously high-priced long-term contract who wasn't exactly coveted elsewhere? Check. Classic Mets signing. And if the baseball gods have their way (and they always do), he'll pick up a ring with the Phillies this year.

Date: 8/11/2010

You know the saying: The team that assaults its family together, stays together? OK, we ain't heard of it either but it seems to apply here (sorta). K-Rod attempted to KO his lady's daddy in the team's family room (in front of Jose Reyes's wife and son), and then spent the next afternoon—Camp Day!—in the on-site Citi Field lockup. He also spent the rest of the season on the DL after tearing a ligament in his thumb (the Mets didn't pay him, instead saving the cash to pay Luis Castillo and Ollie Perez and Bobby Bonilla to also not play).

Date: 2000s

Remember when there were rumors that the Wilpons had lost $750 million in the Modoff Ponzi scheme? Mets fans should be so lucky. It's now possible the Mets' (for now) primary owners may be on the hook for $1 billion for not getting hosed by Bernie. Typically Mets: even when they win, they lose.

Date: 10/19/1999

Remember how the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit to win the 2004 ALCS? Well, the Mets were on their way to a similar feat in '99 before Kenny Rogers struck. They had already vanquished John Rocker (Game 4) and hit a walk-off grand slam (Game 5) in the series when they fell behind by five runs in Game 6, only to storm back and briefly take the lead. But with the game knotted at 9 in the 11th, Rogers walked Andruw Jones with the bases loaded. In the nightmares of many Mets fans, Octavio Dotel is still warming up in the bullpen.

Date: 10/19/2006

Granted, it was a really good pitch, thrown by a really good pitcher. But it’s Game 7 of the NLCS, your team is losing 3-1, and you’re at-bat with the bases loaded. For the love of "the old college try," "carpe diem," and countless motivational coffee mugs, YOU HAVE GOT TO GO DOWN SWINGING. If the Statue of Liberty and Mr. Met were to have a child, it would probably be Carlos Beltran.

Date: 2/3/2009

So what that Ollie's 15-10 season was just his third winning season ever, or that his 3.56 ERA kind of, you know, sucked? He was a big lefty who was going to lead the Mets to the promised land. Or, um, not. Hey, at least he didn't punch out his girlfriend's dad in the clubhouse family room.

Date: 6/17/2008

Former Mets GM Omar Minaya apparently has a rep around the game for being a "nice guy." How's this for nice? Tell a guy his job his OK, let him fly across the country and win a game, and then fire him in the middle of the night when, presumably, the New York media is asleep (note to Omar: it's called the City That Doesn't Sleep, dumbass). But you know what else is nice, Mets fans? Former Mets GM Omar Minaya. Take a deep breath, and say it again: former Mets GM Omar Minaya...former Mets GM Omar Minaya...

Date: 6/15/1977

Six years after the Mets traded young fireballer Nolan Ryan and watched him become a superstar, they traded Tom Seaver — their best pitcher, the face of the franchise, a three-time Cy Young Award winner — for four middling Cincinnati Reds. He was 7-3 at the time, and would finish the season at 21-6. It's a wonder there weren't riots.

Date: 6/12/2009

Call this one a perfect storm of failure: take one aging player, already despised because of a bloated contract, add game against most hated rival, mix with a potential game-ending play THAT ANY EFFIN' 7-YEAR-OLD COULD MAKE, and voila, you have the most epic fail in a season of epic failures.

Date: 9/30/2007

Pitching against the Mets, Tom Glavine was an unflappable starter who unfailingly led the Atlanta Braves to the playoffs. Pitching for the Mets, he was a flammable starter who, in 2007, led the Phillies to the playoffs. A day after John Maine nearly pitched the Mets' first franchise no-hitter, bringing the Mets back from the brink, Tom Terrific gave up seven first-inning runs to the Marlins and basically looked like he wasn't even trying.