Who Is Your 26?

[Edgy MD]

Please don't take a dubious position, just to distinguish yourself. You're all about Ralph Milliard and always have been? Please be prepared to back that up!

We need hard data here!

[Benjamin Grimm]

Dave Kingman.

Sorry for the brevity!

[whippoorwill]

Gotta say Kingman

[AMonkey]

it's factually Nolan McLean. duh.

[The Hot Corner]

I guess Dave Kingman was the best to wear #26 for the Mets. However, I sincerely hope (and expect) that Nolan McLean will proceed to do more in #26 than any prior Met.

[Edgy MD]

Dave Kingman.

Sorry for the brevity!

 

A Kingman endorsement speaks for itself!

[smg58]

I liked Kingman when I was little. But I liked disco back then too.

[Edgy MD]

Mazzilli is disco.

Kingman is, like, Foghat.

[metsmarathon]

Rico brogna resonates for me….

[Edgy MD]

One of the least-credible candidacies may have been the first — Eddie Alvarez, the already-hard-to-remember utility infielder from 2024 who, to his credit, somehow managed to post a positive bWAR despite going 0-for-9 with a walk at the plate. This statistical oddity may or may not be due to him entering as a pinch-runner in his first game as a Met, scoring the go ahead — and what would ultimately prove to be the winning — run on a passed ball.

Sadly, baseball-reference gives him no measurable positive bWAR for his single inning of one-hit shutout ball on the mound.

Anyhow, with King Kong in the lead as the new year passes, here is wishing a happy 20Kingman to all. May The Year of David Arthur be blessed one.

[metirish]

Gotta go with Seo

[Fman99]

Mine is McLean but that's based mostly on my optimism for what lies ahead.

[DocTee]

I coulda swore Boisclair was #4.

Gotta be Kong for 26.

[Marshmallowmilkshake]

Had to go with Frank "Sweet Music" Viola! The pride of East Meadow was a three-time All-Star, World Series MVP, and Cy Young Award winner! Won 20 games for the Mets in 1990.

We traded another 26, Kevin Tapani -- a member of the Central Michigan University Hall of Fame -- to get him, along with Rick Aguilera. Worked out better for the Twins.

[Edgy MD]

I coulda swore Boisclair was #4.

 

According to the wonderful and still active Mets by the Numbers, Bruce's initial late season 1974 tenure, from September 11 to October 3, was as a 26.

He returned to the minors in 1975 before re-emerging in 1976 as a glorious 4 — the Mets apparently being in some sort of rush to put the Rusty Staub legacy behind them.

So if you are blessed to meet Bruce Boisclair, perhaps the most illuminating question you can ask would be: was he by nature a 4, forced to take 26 in 1974 due to the far more juicy presence of Staub? Or was he, alternatively, a 26 by nature and sensibility, but forced to go with 4 from 1976 onward, due to the far more juicy presence of Kingman?

A doorway in Mets history hangs on the squeaky hinge of his answer.

[MFS62]

Teddy Roosevelt wasn't in this poll.

So I voted for one of my favorite unsung hero Mets, Terry Leach.

Later

[Lefty Specialist]

Kingman, no contest. Perhaps McLean in a few years.

Not that anyone would ever vote for him, but wasn't Mickey Callaway #36?

[Edgy MD]

Not that anyone would ever vote for him, but wasn't Mickey Callaway #36?

 

In one of the more curious head-scratchers among the long history of head-scratching moves that the Mets have long made when trying to define their identity, they announced on September 24, 2019, of all days, with the team trying to mount a late-season run that would prove to be too late to overcome a long mid-season slump (with locker-room melodrama!), that they would be retiring #36 in honor of Jerry Koosman, 40 years after the enigmatic lefthander had last played for the team.

The expected and unexpected repercussions of this move would be many, but perhaps the first was that manager Mickey Callaway was forced to shed his digits and spend the last week of the season — and what would prove to be the last week of his Mets managerial career — with a new numerical identifier.

He chose #26 for his rebrand — and while that may only technically qualify him for this poll — he went 5-1 while donning his shiny new integers, both opening and closing the run with walkoff victories (the latter being the remarkable back-from-the-dead Dominic Smith moment).

Hey maybe he does deserve a vote or two. Maybe Mickey 36 was Mickey-of-the-Darkness, while Mickey 26 was Mickey-of-the-Light.

[Edgy MD]

And to continue, it seems to me that, when a number retirement is such an afterthought of a gesture that you have to remove it from somebody else's back in order to retire it, it is more of a performative pantomime of an honor than a solemn one.

It would be more convincing if any official number retirement was preceded by a period of unofficial retirement.

But back to 26,

[kcmets]

The poster formerly known as d'Kong76 votes Kingman.

[Chad ochoseis]

I don't know if it's about being the best player, because that probably would be Viola. It's more the Pavlovian response, which has a lot to do with the era when you were a kid and read the sports pages first thing in the morning. This is why Jerry Grote is my eternal #15, even if Beltran was objectively a far better Met, and why Kong will always and immutably be my #26.

[Lefty Specialist]

Not that anyone would ever vote for him, but wasn't Mickey Callaway #36?

 

In one of the more curious head-scratchers among the long history of head-scratching moves that the Mets have long made when trying to define their identity, they announced on September 24, 2019, of all days, with the team trying to mount a late-season run that would prove to be too late to overcome a long mid-season slump (with locker-room melodrama!), that they would be retiring #36 in honor of Jerry Koosman, 40 years after the enigmatic lefthander had last played for the team.

The expected and unexpected repercussions of this move would be many, but perhaps the first was that manager Mickey Callaway was forced to shed his digits and spend the last week of the season — and what would prove to be the last week of his Mets managerial career — with a new numerical identifier.

He chose #26 for his rebrand — and while that may only technically qualify him for this poll — he went 5-1 while donning his shiny new integers, both opening and closing the run with walkoff victories (the latter being the remarkable back-from-the-dead Dominic Smith moment).

Hey maybe he does deserve a vote or two. Maybe Mickey 36 was Mickey-of-the-Darkness, while Mickey 26 was Mickey-of-the-Light.

 

Well, I'll be dipped. I'd totally forgotten/didh't even realize that. I'm not worthy.

[Edgy MD]

I come here to be enlightened. It certainly is nice to know that, once in a while, I get to drive the enlightenment train.

It makes me feel like too can be G-FAFIF on a good day, and at least a little like Chuck Norris.