Will Keith Hernandez Cover the World Series Again
On Baseball
Past Honoring Hernandez, the Mets Fully Encompass Their Past
The retirement of Keith Hernandez'southward No. 17 continues a recent tendency of recognizing the players most crucial to the team's celebrity years.
It's a feel thing, the notion of retiring a player's number, every bit the Mets will now do for Keith Hernandez'due south No. 17. It is more about symbolism than statistics, a referendum on the meaning of a player to a team and a boondocks.
Many teams have long understood this. There is no plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y., for Thurman Munson, just the Yankees retired his No. 15 anyhow. Same with Johnny Pesky and the Boston Red Sox, Frank White and the Kansas City Royals, Randy Jones and the San Diego Padres and on and on and on.
The Mets took a long fourth dimension to grasp the concept. It took them until their 55th season, in 2016, to retire a second thespian's number. That was because Mike Piazza had just been elected to the Hall of Fame, meaning his No. 31 could join Tom Seaver's No. 41 on the facing of the top deck in the left field corner at Citi Field.
The Mets had also retired the numbers of managers Casey Stengel (37) and Gil Hodges (14), and Jackie Robinson's 42 is retired throughout Major League Baseball. But the team was notoriously stingy in recognizing players; even Gary Carter, the Hall of Fame catcher whose No. 8 has been out of use since 2001, was non honored with a number retirement before his death in 2012, a cruel and pointless oversight.
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Hernandez, 68, is yet here. You tin can discover him on SNY broadcasts and Twitter and "Seinfeld" reruns on Netflix. Later on a ceremony on July nine, you volition too find him in a lineup with other essential Mets players: Seaver, Piazza and Jerry Koosman, whose No. 36 was retired last year. No Met has worn No. 17 since Fernando Tatis Sr. in 2010, and now it belongs to Hernandez forever.
"He brought a winning civilization, just the way he moved and the style he acted and the mode he played," said Ron Darling, Hernandez's teammate on the field and in the circulate berth, adding later, "I didn't know the game could be played that correctly."
In his 20s, with the St. Louis Cardinals, Hernandez achieved nearly everything a player could promise to do: a Earth Serial title, a Most Valuable Player Honor, a Silver Slugger, ii All-Star selections and five Gold Gloves at start base.
He also used cocaine, clashed with Manager Whitey Herzog, and got traded in June 1983 to baseball oblivion: the last-identify Mets, for the giveaway price of pitchers Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey.
"I recall Dave Kingman meeting me in the clubhouse — Dave Kingman, who was so deadpan, never whatsoever emotion, straight confront, I never saw him smiling," Hernandez said. "He had a large smiling on his face to greet me and shake my hand, and he said, 'Thank gosh you're hither, considering you're my ticket out of here.'"
The Mets had been in a spiral since trading Seaver in 1977, merely by 1983 he was dorsum for a 2d stint. Things had gotten loopy for the franchise and The Franchise.
"Seaver comes up to me and says, 'Welcome to the Stems,'" Hernandez said. "I become, 'Stems?' He goes, 'Mets spelled backwards!' I went, 'Where am I?' I left a team in kickoff place, was a defending world champion, and I'chiliad going, 'Oh my gosh.'
"I become on the double-decker later the ballgame to go dorsum to the hotel, there'due south no one on the coach. I go into the hotel bar after the game, there's no 1 in the hotel bar. I went, 'Oh, boy.' And so I had 3 months to actually soak information technology all in."
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The Mets finished the 1983 flavour 68-94, worst in the National League. Hernandez, a California native, considered signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers or the San Diego Padres. His father, John, persuaded him to stay in New York, reminding him of the Mets' loaded subcontract organisation. After seven losing seasons in a row, the Mets would accept the majors' all-time record (575-395) during Hernandez's six full seasons in Flushing.
Hernandez prepared himself with mental and physical changes earlier his start spring training with the Mets. Newly separated from his married woman, he spent the winter in Philadelphia at the suggestion of a friend, Gary Matthews, who had just finished the season with the Phillies. Matthews liked to run for practise, and while Hernandez had never trained much in the off-flavour, he took to Matthews'due south program, running forth the Schuylkill River, by Boathouse Row, down to the Art Museum. He reported to camp in peak status, gear up to embrace a new role for his 30s: wizened clubhouse leader and debonair homo about town.
Hernandez, who had stopped using cocaine only before the trade, found a mentor in Rusty Staub, the veteran pinch-hitter. Staub encouraged Hernandez to live in Manhattan, on the East Side, in Turtle Bay. Hernandez took to his surround, on and off the field, and was the runner-upwardly for K.V.P. The Mets became contenders, then added Carter for the 1985 season and won the World Series in 1986.
To practise information technology, they first had to outlast the Houston Astros in a tense National League Title Series. Earlier the final out, in the 16th inning of Game 6 at the frenzied Astrodome, Hernandez met with Carter and Jesse Orosco on the mound. Orosco had given upwardly a homer off a fastball in the 14th, and a homer by Kevin Bass would lose the game. Hernandez told Orosco he would kill him if he threw Bass a fastball.
Orosco threw all sliders and struck out Bass to win the pennant. Such was the gravitas of Hernandez.
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"I was trying to recall of the history of New York sports, and I retrieve of Keith a little bit like I think of Marker Messier — a world champion with some other organization, an M.V.P. player, a guy that, once he wore a New York uniform, brought instant credibility," Darling said. "And that's what Keith was for our '86 players."
Hernandez won six Gilt Gloves with the Mets, with a .387 on-base of operations per centum and 80 home runs. His .297 average ranks second in club history to John Olerud's .315 amid players with at least 1,500 plate appearances. The Hall of Fame has eluded Hernandez, simply he would seem to accept a gamble in the side by side few years.
Hernandez had more wins to a higher place replacement (60.3) than Harold Baines, Lee Smith, Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, Minnie Miñoso and Hodges, who have all been elected past committees in the terminal four years. He did not have the power of Eddie Murray or Tony Perez or other star first basemen of his era. But he would not look out of place in Cooperstown.
"Hopefully I've got another, what 15, sixteen, 17, 18 years of life?" Hernandez said. "Possibly it'll happen earlier I kick the bucket."
The Mets and their possessor, Steven Cohen, did not wait for a committee to validate Hernandez's legacy. They understand — finally — that they are stewards of their past, and Hernandez is vital to their story.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/sports/baseball/keith-hernandez-mets.html
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