IGT 6/3/2023: TOR@NYM -- A Game for Fame

[Edgy MD]

Funky Fact: Willie Mays has had his number retired but not been inducted in the Mets Hall of Fame.

[metirish]

Thanks Greg

[G-Fafif]

The Mets are actually 13-8 — 1986 HOF Day was a doubleheader, with Buddy & Rusty inducted between games of a makeup twinbill versus the hapless Pirates on the final Saturday of the season.



Koosman's was on a single-game Saturday, 9/9/1989, whose attendance topped 41,000 in the days when they counted clicks of the turnstile rather than tickets sold. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if the seats weren't filled for Kooz, as the Mets were more than a decade away from figuring out the timing of ceremonies of this nature.



Except for Seaver's day, which was more about retiring his number, these things prior to 2001 were regularly scheduled for the final month of the season, which didn't help attendance in those years when the Mets were far out of it. Bill Shea accepted his honor, in his stadium, in front of whoever arrived early ahead of a throng of little more than 9,000, meaning few heard him, and one member of his intended audience didn't listen to him.

William Shea stood at home plate in Shea Stadium yesterday afternoon and made a public appeal to Leon Hess, owner of the Jets, not to move the football team to New Jersey. ''Leon, I ask you,'' Shea said over the public-address system, ''don't leave us. Stay with us. We'll be successful again. I remember when the only place the Jets had to play was here. They were brought out of bankruptcy for $1.2 million. We brought them through some tough years.'' Shea, the lawyer who was instrumental in bringing National League baseball back to New York 21 years ago, made his appeal before 9,126 people before the Mets played the Chicago Cubs. He was on the field to be inducted into the Mets' Hall of Fame, along with the late Johnny Murphy, onetime general manager of the club. In an interview before his public appeal, he said that the Jets owed it to their fans to stay. ''They got the team for $1.2 million, and they're worth $40 million now,'' he said. ''They're a Long Island team. Their fans are from here. They ought to stay.''

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/19/sports/shea-in-plea-to-jet-owner.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/19/sports/shea-in-plea-to-jet-owner.html

[Benjamin Grimm]

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