After a day of trudging through the snow, slush and ice of the sidewalks of Lower Manhattan, little did I know what a wonderful reward was waiting for me when I got home, SNY was showing the 1975 Mets Yearbook and a name from the past that only Mets fans of a certain era would know, Randy Tate was the star of the show.

What you don’t remember or never heard of Randy Tate? Don’t worry you’re not alone. I vaguely remember Tate and for good reason, he not only had just one season in Flushing but that one year been the extend of his big league career.

On the night of August 4, 1975, Randall Lee Tate of Florence Alabama came close to becoming the first Mets pitcher to hurl a no hitter. As we all know, the Mets have not had a pitcher throw a no hitter in their history, but Randy Tate joins the ranks of those who came close, as Tate held the Montreal Expos hitless for  7 innings and the Mets held a 3-0 lead. Tate was dominating through 7 as he K’d 10 and walked 4 which for Tate was a great ratio as his season tally of BB/K was 86/99 in 137.2 IP. Tate came into the game with a 4-9 record after his last start against the Cardinals that lasted just 1.2 innings and got his tits lit for 5 runs on 5 hits and 5 walks. Tate was a back end of the rotation guy, along with Hank Webb. The front end of the staff by the way was 22 game winner Tom Seaver along with Jerry Koosman and Jonathan Trumpbour Matlack.

The Mets scored all of their runs in the 5^th inning of this game as Jerry Grote singled and went to second base on a wild pitch by Expos starter Dan Warthen (Yes, our own pitching coach Old School Dan Warthen) The 8 hole batter, Jack Heidemann (what a head of hair Heidemann had back then) walked. Randy Tate then tried to lay down a sac bunt but he bunted right at Old School Warthen who wheeled and threw to Larry Parrish at third to force out Grote. Gene Clines the Mets centerfielder and lead off man stepped up and hit a triple down the right field line that scored Heidemann and Tate. Second baseman Felix Milan hit a ball down to first base that Mike Jorgensen misplayed and Milan was safe and Clines scored the third run of the inning and the game. Jesus Alou flied out to left field and the inning was over.

Tate was strong through six but in the seventh inning he started to show signs of fatigue. He walked rookie catcher Gary Carter and Parrish but was helped out by two force plays and a key strikeout of 2B Pete Mackanin .

Now remember, the manager of the Mets at this time was one Lawrence Peter Berra, who was hanging on to his job by a bare thread. Berra was not very popular in the clubhouse especially by his pitchers as he had never lived down not going with a rested George Stone in Game 6 of the 1973 World Series with the Mets up 3game to 2 over the A’s but making a bad move by going with Tom Seaver on 3 days rest and then going with Jon Matlack on 3 days rest when he could have had both his pitchers on 4 days rest in case of a game 7.

The Mets go down in order in the bottom of the 7^th with Tate making the last out. On to the top of the 8^th.

Expos manager, Gene Mauch goes right to his bench as he sends up Jose Morales to hit for Pepe Frias. Tate K’s Morales. Jim Lyttle now comes up to bat for pitcher, the pride of Glen Cove LI, Don DeMola. You’d have to figure that Tate was getting a bit weary on the mound. I don’t know what the weather was that night but August nights in NYC are usually warm and humid and Tate had thrown just an average of 4.2 IP in his last five starts but Tate was just 5 outs away from becoming the first Mets pitcher to toss a no hitter, but first he would have to get Lyttle out.

There weren’t many people at Shea that night as the paid attendance of 10, 720 shows but you can bet they were making as much noise as if the place were packed. That was one thing about Shea when the die hards hung around they were a noisy bunch. I can imagine the clapping and cheering as Lyttle stepped into the batters box to face Tate.

All the clapping and cheering turn to moans and groans on one pitch that Lyttle connected with to singled to left field to break up the no-hitter and spoil the greatest day Randy Tate ever had as a major league pitcher. Now that the no hitter was by the boards, it was time to concentrate on winning the game.

You’d have to think that Yogi Berra would have his bullpen up and have a fresh arm ready to close out the last five outs and preserve the win. Well, Tate stayed in the game and then walked the next batter Pepe Mangual to bring the tying run to the plate and still no movement from the manager. Tate then gave Berra a false sense of security by striking out Jim Dwyer, so with two out and one on up stepped Gary Carter, rookie Gary Carter. Again no change in pitcher and Tate is now up into the high 120’s in his pitch count as he gives up a single to Carter that plates Lyttle to make it 3-1 Mets. So the no-no and the shutout are gone and the go ahead run in former Met Mike Jorgensen is strolling to home plate. Still no pitching change by Yogi Berra.

I would love to know what was being said in the Mets dugout as this was playing out on the field. Rube Walker was still on staff as pitching coach and of course Tom Seaver was there as well. I can’t believe that Walker wasn’t looking to get his pitcher out of the game and get a new arm in the game, just from reading the play by play of this game I’m breaking out in a cold sweat.

Now remember Jorgensen was shipped out by the Mets to Montreal along with Ken Singleton and Crazy Horse Foli for Rusty Staub , no doubt he wanted to make his ex-team suffer and sure enough he did by hitting a 3 run home run to put the Expos ahead 4-3.

What in the world was Yogi thinking of not going to the bullpen? Tate had to be on fumes at this point in the game so it seems unless his arm fell off Tate was not coming out this game. Thankfully he got Larry Bitinger ot ground out to end this excruciatingly painful inning. Tate lost his no hitter, shutout and game and maybe his career in this 8^th inning. Sad.

The Mets went down without a fight in the 8^th and 9^th and what could you expect as their manager showed no leadership in this game.

The next day the Mets and Expos played a twi-night double header and the Expos won both games by identical 7-0 scores, after the game, GM Joe McDonald (on orders I’d imagine from M .Donald Grant ) fired Yogi Berra and named Roy McMillan the interim manager. For Randy Tate, the change of manager came a day to late.

Well, thank God that’s over. Because I work in Lower Manhattan, I had no choice but to suffer through that awful parade yesterday. I had thought about taking the day off and not subject myself to the pageantry of douchebags that would be on display but then I thought why should I waste a vacation day on a bunch of jerk offs? It’s good thing I did go in yesterday because the entertainment was hilarious.

I’m on Church St so the parade route is up one block to Broadway and over several more blocks but I guess the suburbanites from East Bubble fuck were lost as most of them just clogged up Church St. There were some fans who I guess were long time Highlander fans but for the most part it was your typical bandwaggoners which is basically the overwhelming majority of Highlander fandom. Now that last statement will piss off a few of the Bronx Bastard disciples who come here to this site as they are obsessed with what we Mets fans are up to and I want to thank them for that as it’s the highest compliment we can have. Now I’m not saying all Highlander fans are clueless. The majority of the Highlander bloggers I’ve been around are so smart and sophisticated it makes me wonder what happened in their life that led them to the dark side. But for the most part Highlander fans can not recite their history the way Mets fan can.

Sure thye all know Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle and Berra and all the players who were on the Championship teams but how many of them can tell you about guys like Stan Bahnsen, Shane Rawley, Roberto Kelly or Steve “Bye-Bye” Balboni ? Just the hard core fans which are a minority.  Look I know Mets fans like you and me are hardcore but if I mention the name Mackey Sasser or Mike Vail or Glendon Rusch more times than not I will get a “ah yeah” smile from a Mets fan about players from yesteryear.

See the big difference between Mets fans and Highlander fans is that we have a passion and love for our team, the Highlander fan has a love and a passion for Championships.  Now that’s not to say we don’t love a championship you bet we do and we get angry and sometime nasty when we don’t win but after about a week of being pissed off, we go to Mets.com looking for next season schedule to see when opening day is and the first home game so we leave that date open to make sure we’re either at $iti Field or in front of the TV to watch our Mets.

Reading some of the stories today most Highlander fans were talking about how great the day was but now we need to win Championship 28. How fucking ignorant are you?  Can’t you just enjoy the moment?

Mets fans are funny because as we bitch and moan about our team and the price of tickets while we’re either writing a check or pluging a credit card number into a web site to make a purchase.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see the Mets win two Championships, maybe it’s just experience as I thought after the each one, the World Series trophies would come in droves. Well I learned they don’t. I thought Gil Hodges would the Mets manager forever. He wasn’t. Of course Tom Seaver “The Franchise” would be a Met 4 Life. Didn’t turn out that way. Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were going to walk in Cooperstown together. Nope. Add in losses to the Dodgers in the NLCS in 1988 and to the Cards in 2006 and of course the recent collapses if anything you’d think I’d have turned my back on the Mets and crossed to the dark side. NO FUCKING WAY!!!!!

After watching the people at that parade yesterday and listening to Highlander fans calling WFAN and talking out of their ass I must say it has made even prouder to be a Mets fan and to associated with the Mets fans.

I don’t know what moves the team will make this off season but hopefully they make enough to put the team back into contention but no matter what I’ll be at $iti Field on opeing day and so will you because you’re a Mets fan and you should be proud of  that.

You know either Gimp Castillo or Carlos Delgado is going on the 15 day DL and this spells reprieve to Omir Grote Santos to stay on as either way Fernando Tatis ,Alex Cora Daniel Murphy and Gary Sheffield have the right side of the infield covered.

If I were Shrek or Brain Schneider I’d be asking the manager if he needed more coffee or his dry cleaning picked up just to curry some kind of favor with him as J- Man is smitten by Santos as are his teammates. When you get a post game shaving cream pie in the face that’s considered love in baseball.

Maybe we should give D- Wright a break eh Mets fans?. Sure he is not driving in runs at a pace we’d like and his extra base hits have been few and far between but back in 2007 he had the same kind of start and ended up with 73 xbh (30HR, 42 2B  1 3B) along with 34 stolen bases. As we saw last night on SNY pre game show no ones works harder than Wright so think about that the next time you asshats boo him.

Not only am distracted by the flu epidemic and low flying planes but the Rangers are getting ready for a Game 7 tonight in DC. Hopefully Coach Torts can control himself tonight and he plays both Sean Avery and Colton Orr and guys like Nik Antropov and Nik Zeredev step up like men. I have a very shaky feeling about tonight  as the coach looks a bit unstable and I’m one more Markus Naslund penalty in the offensive zone from throwing the remote through the TV,  but I’ll be glued to the tube for this one with my Walt Tkaczuk poster by my side.