Being Howard Johnson

[Willets Point]

Mmmm...macaroni & cheese, ice cream and a comfy bed. All in a bright blue & orange building.

Coincidence that a man named Howard Johnson ended up wearing the blue & orange for the Mets? I think not!

First time I saw HoJo was in the first World Series I watched. I probably laughed at his name. And his funky moustache.

Then he became a Met, and eventually a very good Met. I remember 1987 when he slugged and swiped his way into the 30-30 club (nobody talks about the 30-30 club anymore). HoJo amazed us all and Whitey Herzog was convinced he was cheating and kept taking his bats. Ah, the innocent days when the bats were juiced not the players.

I was not following baseball in HoJo's later years, so I missed his sad decline. I still remember him fondly and glad he's still involved with the Mets in the minors.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Don't forget the fried rubberbands.

[MFS62]

For most of his early career he was pretty anonymous. (Playing in Detroit does that to you).
But when he came to the Mets, his games got a lot of National TV coverage. And he did very well.
But I remember the announcers saying "Boy, this guy really can't hit the curve ball".
Well, opposing pitchers must have been watching and the word got out. They started feeding him a steady diet of breaking balls, and his numbers weren't the same after that.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

I don't think anybody needed Tim McCarver to tell them Howard Johnson was a fastball hitter. But his numbers didn't really depress after arriving in New York and getting on TV, unless you mean going, unless by "weren't the same after that," you mean only for his first year in New York.

Year Team PA OPS+
1984 DET 402 99
1985 NYM 428 95
1986 NYM 253 119
1987 NYM 645 133
1988 NYM 594 124
1989 NYM 655 169

Wicked.

I'm hoping Xavier Nady has a bit of Johnson in him, a part-time power hitter who just needs a full-time job to show folks what he can do.

[Willets Point]

Bret Sabermetric wrote: Don't forget the fried rubberbands.

What, huh? Apparently I've forgotten.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

That's what we used to call HoJo's (the restaurant) piece de resistence, which could be very easily resisted. They called them "Fried clams" on the menu, but we knew what the secret ingredient really was.

[Frayed Knot]

First time I remember hearing of him was while he was still w/Detroit playing against the Yanx. He came up (I believe to PH) w/the game on the line and I told him thru the TV that if he hit a HR I'd run out and buy some of his ice cream. He did ... I didn't. I always felt bad about lying to him like that but it was the first thing I thought of after we traded for him.

The rep he had was certainly that of a dead fastball hitter w/shaky defensive skills but Sparky didn't play him in the '84 WS (only 1 AB) reportedly thinking that he was "too high-strung".
Then, in his early weeks w/the Mets, he made some real nice plays at 3rd while not hitting at all. I remember Murph rhetorically asking his broadcast partner (forget who); 'Who told us this guy couldn't field?', before getting the answer; 'probably the same guy who told us he could hit!'

HoJo's numbers didn't take any kind of hit once his rep grew so much as they flucuated wildly. For a while he had an even year/odd year thing going on:
[u:e868d5ebd9]OPS+[/u:e868d5ebd9]:
'88 = 124
'89 = 169
'90 = 106
'91 = 145
'92 = 91


A year or two ago when Keith was just starting his announcing gig someone in the booth brought up the old corking rumors w/HoJo saying he was often accused but never caught.
So Keith immediately blurts out; ' Oh he corked all the time - had a guy do it especially for him!'

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Was that one of the truths Keith told that he was forced to back off of the next day? Or was that one of the ones that stuck?

[metirish]

Bret are you talking about when Keith said the team had quit on Bobby V and then he back tracked the next day, infact I remember Seaver saying on the air that Keith should not have said it beacuse " we don;t know what's going on in the club house"....cool stuff really.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Are you sure that was Seaver? I think it might have been Sergeant Schulz from HOGAN"S HEROES. "I zaw nussing. I remember nussing."

Tom Seaver's really the guy I want to testify on the ontological truths. He wouldn;t know for sure whose dick he was holding when he was taking a leak, not in the purest ontologcal sense of the word "knowing" anyway.


OE: added dick remark.

[metirish]

No it was defintely Mr. Seaver, he was pissed IIRC, then didn't Keith say sorry to the team on a flight back from the west coast?

[Frayed Knot]

"Was that one of the truths Keith told that he was forced to back off of the next day?"

Yeah, there was a public flogging the next day with Jeff Wilpon on lead whip. Bloody pictures are on the internet somewhere I'm sure.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I think you can argue that HoJo was one of the best all-around Mets ever, at least for his period.

I think I told the story before of how I sat behind HoJo's Father at a Spring Training game in St. Petersberg in 92 or 93.

Here he is:

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

Oh, tell it again, Johnny. We all love that story. It's such a great "Now I will reveal my secret identity" kind of tale.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Oh shut up. HoJo's Dad's secret identity was revealed by his buddy sitting next to him, who answered for him when I asked if he was a Met fan (it wasn't a Met game... it was like a Cardinals-Pirates game or something). He told me that HoJo was having a lot more trouble with his back than I could recall reading about in the papers, tho I wasn't obsessively Metted out then like today. Anyway, it must have been 93, he sure enough went on to have a very crappy year.