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Casey Stengel's last season as the original manager of the New York Mets was in 1965. He turned 75 on July 30 that year. The Mets followed tradition that day, falling to 33-70 with a 5-3 road loss to Gene Mauch's Phillies.
The "Ol' Perfessor" had many wondrous quotes to describe the Mets' follies during his four years in the dugout. One of those was offered as a scouting report on Ron Swoboda, a 21-year-old rookie.
Asked about Swoboda's play in right field, Stengel said, "He leaps for 'em, and they ain't there."
At least, my memory is that it was Swoboda. There were many other candidates for such a review from Stengel as he guided the Mets to a 194-452 record over those first four seasons.
Four years later, Swoboda was a contributor to the Miracle Mets in the 1969 World Series victory, and in retirement he once said this of Stengel to the Baltimore Sun:
"Sure, Case nodded off occasionally on the bench during a game, but if you managed a team as bad as the Mets were when I got there, then sleep was an easier alternative than going off a bridge."
The Mets have put some perfectly fine ballclubs on the field in the six decades since those formative follies, including in 2022 when they won 101 games. They were eliminated 2-1 in a wild-card series by San Diego.
This season has been a horrendous disappointment, to the point that billionaire owner Steve Cohen went from spending huge money trying to buy the Mets' third World Series championship (1969, 1986) to trading away Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and others, then offering an announcement that the Mets were in a rebuild.
The Mets arrived at Target Field on Friday night with a 64-75 record and in a tussle with Washington to avoid last place in the NL East.
A lively crowd announced at 26,154 showed up, including an organized group of Mets fans that will number 700 for Saturday's game. That was the promise of several Mets fans waiting to take a tour of the ballpark four hours before the first pitch.
Their team has been an immense flop, and they were happy. Amazin', just like Casey's Mets.
And as a throwback, the Mets showed us some play that surely could be found on black-and-white film of New York's lovable losers.
The score was tied 2-2 entering the bottom of the seventh. Matt Wallner, slumping recently, drew a walk from reliever Sean Reid-Foley. Andrew Stevenson replaced him as a pinch runner. Willi Castro spun a chopper toward third, and Brett Baty decided to eat the ball rather than throw to first.
Stevenson and Castro took off on a double steal. In the meantime, Reid-Foley's pitch escaped catcher Francisco Alvarez. Stevenson headed toward the plate, realized that was a mistake and started to retreat to third when a good throw from Alvarez probably had him.
Except, Alvarez's throw went into left field, so Stevenson arose and headed toward the plate. Left fielder Tim Locastro had Stevenson in his sights with a good throw but made an awful one … and the Twins had a 3-2 lead.
Mets historians might insist these players simply were recreating actions taken by Rod Kanehl, Chris Cannizzaro and Frank Thomas in 1962.
The Twins scored two more on the second rocket of the night from Royce Lewis — a double off the center field fence — and Max Kepler's single.
Twins 5, Mets 2, with four scoreless innings from the bullpen: Emilio Pagán, Caleb Thielbar, Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran (for save No. 25).
One big pickup for the Twins for these final three weeks was the return of Alex Kirilloff. It was a shoulder injury, not the surgically repaired wrist, the team and the player insist.
Whatever the ailments, Kirilloff is a major asset with both his lefthanded swing and his play at first base. He made a nifty dig to save Lewis an error … on a throw that might have led to three bases with the Twins' other options at first base.
Manager Rocco Baldelli said there was a period this season when Kirilloff was "a swinging fool," but then he got right, and he expects to see this:
"He's not going up there with the incredibly aggressive mentality. It's more, 'I'm going to go to the plate right now and do it.' "
