Joe Sambito, Rusty Staub, and Jose Bautista

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I'm always excited when new historical Mets uni info comes to light.

http://www.mbtn.net/?p=2922

I barely remember Sambito as a Met but I remember this game, and funny inasmuch as a small group of us spent much time discussing Rusty Staub last night.

By the way while I was researching this 2 interesting stories crossed my purview in the same newspaper. One was that Sambito along with several Met pitchers, combined to no-hit the Tidewater Tides in an exhibition game, back when they used to play them every year, but lost the game 1-0.

The other was that a Met minor league pitcher threw a legit no-hitter in league play for Class A Lynchburg the same night. His name was ... Jose Bautista.

This Jose Bautista was eventually Rule 5'ed away by the Oriles and went on to have a 9-year career with the O's, Cubs, Giants, Tigers and Cardinals. I have no memory of him at all.

[MFS62]

Is that the Jose Bautista who was from the Bronx and was Jewish (He was raised in his mother's religion.)?
If so, I sent him a Jewish New Year card one year when he was with SF and wrote kind wishes in Spanish.
Never got a response. I sent it to the stadium clubhouse, so maybe somebody thought it was a joke and he never got it.

Later

[seawolf17]

I have weirdly specific memories of Mets minor leaguers from that era, because I played a LOT of Micro League baseball back in the day, and I used to run the franchise, calling up and sending down guys quite a bit. I also used to pore over the Mets' annual books with all of the minor league stats.

(For example, I *distinctly* remember Chris Bosio, in the news yesterday for other reasons, because he pitched a no-hitter against me.)

So I do remember Bautista the pitcher being in the Mets system, because he had a good season in 1987 so I would have "called him up" at some point. I remember a handful of guys because they had productive Micro League seasons: Lou Thornton, Chris Jelic, Terrel Hansen, Joaquin Contreras, for example.