Mount Coachmore

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

You've been asked to carve the likenesses of four Met coaches -- and only four -- into a mountain facing the new Stadium. It's actually a pile of old cars, but whatever.

Which 4 coaches do you choose? Why? That's staff, not managers.

[HahnSolo]

Rube Walker
Mel Stottlemyre
Joe Pignatano
Roy McMillan

Rube and Mel because of how they handled their respective staffs; Roy because he was seemingly a coach forever; and Joe because in team pictures I always recognized him.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Rube Walker, the pitching coach who guided the best pitching staff we ever had

Joe Pignatano, planter of tomatoes

Mel Stottlemyre, who did well with the 1980s era teams

Bill Robinson, his teams were mashers

[metirish]

John Stearns - uttered the famous line " the monster is out of the cage", just really liked his passion for the team.

Mookie Wilson - liked him for his personality more than his coaching skills.

Rick Peterson - like to listen to him talk pitching and he seems to have some success( insert 10 minute joke here )


Tom Robson - loyal Valentine coach.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Walker -- hafta
Yost -- good 3rd base coach
Peterson -- too much personality to leave off
Robinson -- hitting coach for exciting offense

[Benjamin Grimm]

Rube Walker is the first and most obvious choice.

Beyond that, hmmmm.

I'd hold off on Rick Peterson for now. Not just because he's still "in office" but because there could be many years remaining in his tenure. (If he had been here for 15 years and was still around, that would be different.)


I think I'd add Stottlemyre and Robinson (Bill, not Sheriff).

For the fourth choice, I'd have to consider Yost or Piggy. I'd ask guys who were with the team, or who covered the team (I'd start with Marty Noble) to get some opinions on their relative merits.

There aren't a lot of great options to choose from.

[Farmer Ted]

Bob Apodaca. His face would look good in stone. It would make a good climbing wall.

[Guest sharpie]

Not Stottlemyre. Too MFY-connected, has been blamed for taking talented pitchers and letting them get worse during his watch.

Walker, Robinson, McMillan, Pignatano.

Maybe Peterson one day.


A manager one would feature Stengel, Hodges, Johnson and Valentine.

[soupcan]

sharpie wrote: Maybe Peterson one day.

Peterson!?

Put his face on that mountain and you're asking for a landslide.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Gotta be Peterson. No coach has ever been as discussed by Met fans. No coach ever had so much influence or made so much $$.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Let's just accept that Walker belongs and discuss the other three.

He only put in 2 1/2 years or so, but Bobby Valentine the coach was a pretty fun ride.

[seawolf17]

Peterson!?!? Hell no.

I'll give you Rube Walker, although he was before my time. I'd definitely add Uncle Bill Robinson, and I'd be tempted to add Bobby V, but he's better known as a manager than as a coach.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, that's a problem. Should a managerial reign disqualify you from Mt. Coachmore? Yogi had a nice run under Stengel, Westrum, Parker, and Hodges before taking over. Is he disqualified?

I guess so, as we've gotten this far and haven't mentioned two-termer Frank Freaking Howard.

That's it. Frank Howard is my second coach on my personal Mt. Coachmore.

[seawolf17]

I think Howard is big enough that the likeness would be lifesize.

[Guest Iubitul]

Oh man - this is a great topic.

sharpie wrote: Not Stottlemyre. Too MFY-connected, has been blamed for taking talented pitchers and letting them get worse during his watch.

I blame him more than the drugs for Doc losing it.

My list:

Walker (of course)
Bill Robinson
Sam Perlozzo
Joe Pignatano

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

OK, Mt. Coachmore currently looks like this:

Rube Walker (8 votes)
Bill Robinson (6)
Joe Pignatano (4)
Mel Stottlemeyer (3)
Roy McMillan (2)
Rick Peterson (2)
John Stearns (1)
Mookie Wilson (1)
Tom Robson (1)
Eddie Yost (1)
Bob Apodaca (1)
Frank Howard (1)
Sam Perlozzo (1)

[Guest sharpie]

I move that Bill Robinson be included along with Walker and that discussions be now limited only to the other two.

Will someone second that motion?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Seconded.

I'd like the floor to push for Eddie Yost. On a team that hardly scored any runs for the entirety of his tenure, a good 3rd base coach was important. Yost was no Sandy Alomar.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Let's look at prize pupils. How many guys made their first All-Star team under these particular coaches?

Robinson gets credit as such there for Howard Johnson, and sub-All Star Lenny Dykstra. Darryl Strawberry belongs to the as-yet-un-nominated Jim Frey.

Seaver, Koosman, Matlack, and Swan all belong to Walker. We'll let Piggy have McGraw.

Mel Stottlemeyer is unimpeachable by this measure. Gooden, Fernandez, Darling, Cone.

I can't measure Roy McMillan by this measure because I don't know which division if any he had dominion over.

Rick Peterson hadn't coached anybody to his initial All-Star game yet, so he strikes out by this measure, though you can give him John Maine.

John Stearns may or may not have made Mike Piazza a better catcher, but he didn't coach him into an All-Star or Gold Glover.

Mookie Wilson, outfielder and baserunning coach briefly oversaw Roger Cedeño's breakthrough, though not quite to All-Star level.

Was Tom Robson hitting coach his entire tenure, or was he merely a bench coach during part of it? I know he came and went. I think we can give him Edgardo Alfonzo.

Eddie Yost gets Grote, but not Stearns.

Bob Apodaca had an interesting time to be a pitching coach with the Mets ending up with a lot of projects. You can blame him for the failure of Generation K, or you can credit him with the success of the mediocrities that stepped in. Bobby Jones and Rick Reed are in his trophy case.

Frank Howard was a bench coach from 1982 to 1984. You can't necessarily give him Straw because Jim Frey has the greater claim there. From 1994-1996 he coached first, I think. Maybe he helped Todd Hundley and Bernard Gilkey mature. I don't know. Hard to credit these guys without units.

Sam Perlozzo coached third, and nobody ever made the All-Star team primarily for his ability to score from second on a single or first on a double. Perlozzo did (as Jonathan Stern recalls in the UMDB) get ripped as a Red by Lou Pinella (and Tim McCarver more gently) for a red light he threw up during the 1990 World Series. The Reds swept anyhow.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Dack is a good case. He was an overachiever, and so were many of his pupils. Did you know Apodaca was undrafted, and asked to get a save on opening day, at home, in only his second lifetime appearance, entering with 2 men on, 1 out, and Tim McCarver batting?

[G-Fafif]

If Lunchbucket's mountain is to have four coaches, I think it should have one of each. It's got pitching, it's got hitting (something I called batting before Uncle Bill set me straight). So I superfluously endorse the already chosen Rube and Robinson. Bill has the benefit of coaching first as well.

Bullpen coach has got to be Piggy. He was part of a combo with Rube and he helped inaugurate the modern relief pitching era at Shea. And yes, the tomatoes.

That leaves third base, which to me has always meant Eddie Yost, though I'll confess I don't remember a lot specific about him other than he was always there in the bottom of the first: "The coaches are Yogi Berra at first, Eddie Yost at third." Occasionally we'd be reminded Eddie was the Walking Man.

I'd like to have a representative from the Bobby Valentine era so we'd have each period of Mets Success (not counting the current one, one hopes), but Cookie Rojas' greatest contribution (in my mind) was arguing intensely and incorrectly on a fair/foul call in Game Four of the NLDS in '99 for which he was thrown out (runner-up: narrating the Rey O defensive video when Rey-Rey pretended to speak no English), and John Stearns' entire oeurve was the Monster/Cage remark. This downgrades their actual efforts, I'm sure, but it's what I remember.

A vote for Piggy and a vote for Yost.

[seawolf17]

Piggy's a yes from me too. The only 3B coach I have any particular memory of is Bobby V.

[Guest sharpie]

Fafif's reasoning is good. I had already cast a vote for Piggy but I would have no objection to Yost over McMillan.

[Benjamin Grimm]

When this is settled we'll have to nudge Zvon into Photoshopping an image of Mt. Coachmore.

It's so hard to coax him into creating Mets graphics, though.

[seawolf17]

Worst case, we can ask Steve to post some Billy Joel song lyrics about them.

edit: I'm Rick Reed! I'm a scab!

[Guest Edgy DC]

Wow, we can change names without starting a new ID.

[Valadius]

When I think of third base coaches, the first guy that comes to mind with me is Cookie Rojas.

[Benjamin Grimm]

="Edgy DC"]Wow, we can change names without starting a new ID.

Well, I can, anyway.

[Guest Edgy DC]