What Was Chuck McElroy Doing in Left Field?

[Valadius]

I was searching Baseball-Reference.com, and I came across the following entry for the '99 Mets:

Left Field G PO A E DP .977 1.48
-----------+---+----+----+---+---+-----+-----
RHenderson 116 167 0 2 0 .988 1.44
BAgbayani 47 49 1 1 0 .980 1.06
MMora 28 10 0 0 0 1.000 0.36
MFranco 15 11 0 0 0 1.000 0.73
RCedeno 13 8 0 0 0 1.000 0.62
MKinkade 12 9 1 0 0 1.000 0.83
JAllenswort 10 10 0 0 0 1.000 1.00
SDunston 9 9 0 1 0 .900 1.00
JPayton 5 2 0 0 0 1.000 0.40
BBonilla 2 0 0 0 0 .000 0.00
CMcElroy 1 1 0 0 0 1.000 1.00
TPratt 1 1 0 0 0 1.000 1.00
-----------+---+----+----+---+---+-----+-----
Team Total 163 277 2 4 0 .986 1.72

What the hell was Chuck McElroy doing in left field??

[Guest Edgy DC]

Showed some heart and caught a ball also.

Here's the game:

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=6015

[Valadius]

On the same note:

Right Field G PO A E DP .981 1.72
-----------+---+----+----+---+---+-----+-----
RCedeno 127 213 8 3 1 .987 1.74
BAgbayani 45 66 1 1 0 .985 1.49
BBonilla 23 36 2 1 0 .974 1.65
JAllenswort 15 23 1 0 0 1.000 1.60
MKinkade 8 5 0 0 0 1.000 0.62
MMora 8 1 0 0 0 1.000 0.12
SDunston 5 2 0 0 0 1.000 0.40
MFranco 3 2 0 0 0 1.000 0.67
SHalter 1 0 0 0 0 .000 0.00
RReed 1 0 0 0 0 .000 0.00
-----------+---+----+----+---+---+-----+-----
Team Total 163 348 12 5 1 .986 2.22

Rick Reed in right field??

[MFS62]

Reed had a better arm than McElroy, so he got to play right.

LAter

[A Boy Named Seo]

UMD also shows Roger Cede�o appeared at second base one game in '99. Anyone remember what was up with dat?

Oops. Fixed link.

[Guest SI Metman]

I was at both those games.

Rick Reed in right and Cedeno at second happened the same game. Fireworks night against the Braves (July 2). They were getting shallacked 12-0, John Franco came in for some work and tore some ligaments and had to leave. That put him on the DL for 3 months and led to Armando Benitez getting the closers job. Matt Franco who was at third I think came in to pitch, Luis Lopez switched to third, Cedeno came in from right to man second and Reed went out to right since the Mets had long ago raised the white flag and brought in all the bench players.

Franco gave up a 3 run bomb to Larry and then struck out Andruw Jones.

Chuck McElroy's fielding adventure came in another blowout, a game started by Rick Reed on August 8th against the Dodgers. Reed was ineffective, and the Mets went through Yoshii and Mahomes in relief. McElroy pitched the 8th but went through 30-something pitches to get through it. Bobby V didn't want to throw him out there for a second long inning, so he switched places with leftfielder Matt Franco who pitched his second inning of relief that season.

[A Boy Named Seo]

Huh.

Thanks for the very excellent recap. Bobby was a wild man.

That made for quite a boxscore.