Met Trivia Question

[Theoldmole]

Can we give up?

[Benjamin Grimm]

We're trying.

[MFS62]

Is it a coincidence that he said he would reveal the answer today?
April Fools Day?
What if there is no answer?

Pitchfiorks and torches.
Who's with me?

Later

[seawolf17]

I don't mean this in a bad way, but if a trivia question takes sixteen hints and ninety posts without anyone sniffing an answer, I think it's a bit of trivia that would get you fired from the "Jeopardy" clue crew.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Alright already. I'll post the answer in about 20 minutes. I would've really liked for someone to have solved the question. Reallly. I didn't set out to be a stumper. Or a sadist.

The answer's so easy that when I post it, I guarantee that everyone on this forum will be able to confirm the accuracy of the answer mentally, without having to reference any printed source.

[metirish]

Oh just give us the fucking answer for fucks sake , it can only be a disapointment at this stage.

[MFS62]

Come on already.
I'm putting curare on my pitchfork.

Later

[batmagadanleadoff]

What do the following Mets -and no other Mets- have in common:

Ed Kranepool, Jerry Koosman, Bud Harrelson, Jerry Grote, Wayne Garrett and Rusty Staub?

Hint #5 - Whatever it is that these Mets have in common (Ed Kranepool, Jerry Koosman, Bud Harrelson, Jerry Grote, Wayne Garrett, Rusty Staub and depending on how the answer is phrased - Tom Seaver), they did it three times.

Hint #6 - Actually, Bud Harrelson did it four times; thrice as a player and once as a manager/coach. But for the purpose of this question, I only counted the three times Bud did it as a player.

The answer is ����.

They all played for the Mets in a season --three times-- in which one of their teammates won the Cy Young Award.

(Hint #13. Bud Harrelson did it four times. This is the maximum possible number of times that any Met could have accomplished this whatever you wanna call it.)

Bud Harrelson did it four times. He played for the Mets for all three of Seaver�s Cy�s, and was a coach for the Mets in �85, the year that Gooden won his Cy Young award.

Seaver, of course, can�t be his own teammate, so the answer would have to be re-phrased to work around the word �teammate� in order to include him: something like �these Mets played for the Mets in seasons when a Met won that year�s Cy Young award.

="Edgy DC"]Rusty Staub is the key here, as he is the only non-'69er.

This is as good a time as any to segue into hint #7.

Hint #7. Rusty's path to this "accomplishment" ("accomplishment" for lack of a better term) was slightly different than that off all the other Mets in the question.

All but Rusty were teammates of Seaver in each of the three years when Seaver won the award (�69, �73 and �75). Staub missed Seaver�s first Cy but came back for a second stint with the team in the 80�s and was Gooden�s teammate for Doc�s Cy campaign in �85, Staub�s last season as a major leaguer.
Hint # Last. Sigh.

Sigh Young.
Hint #8. Earlier, I wrote that Cleon Jones just missed making the list. Cleon's omission from the list is a technicality based on the way I chose to phrase the answer, more than anything else. I could rephrase the answer so as to include Cleon Jones. The inclusion of Cleon would then leave about a dozen or so Mets who "accomplished" this bit of trivia twice. Of those dozen or so, the Mets that came the closest to making the list (Kranepool, Koosman, Harrelson, Grote, Garrett, Staub - Seaver & Jones depending on how the answer is phrased) without actually making it are, in no particular order, Ken Boswell, Tug McGraw and Duffy Dyer.

Hint #9. Under the narrower Jonesless version of this trivia question, Cleon misses the cut by a few months.

Cleon was a Met in �69, �73 and �75, so he�s part of the answer. In my original answer, I excluded Cleon because he wasn�t on the Mets for the entire �75 season. I thought that by including partial seasons, the answer would include too many Mets, and the question would be too confusing. Really. But as it turned out, Cleon was the only Met affected by allowing partial seasons.

Boswell, McGraw and Dyer were Mets for Seaver�s first two awards; their careers as Mets concluded at the end of the �74 season.

Hint #10. As I said, Bud Harrelson did this four times as a Met, if you include his roster stints as coach and/or manager. Including all Met managerial and coaching stints, add Yogi Berra, Rube Walker, Joe Pignatano and Eddie Yost as Mets who did this three times.

All four were in Mets uniforms for each of Seaver�s three Cy Young awards.

="batmagadanleadoff"] Hint #16. Yogi did it four times as a Yankee. Hint #17. For most of Yogi's Yankee days, this was twice as hard to do as it is now, if not outright impossible. Hint #18. Babe Ruth never did it. So -- George Thomas 3, George Herman 0. Did anyone ever notice how the greatest Met and Yankee are both named George, and how they were both commonly referred to as something other than George?

Yogi played for the Yankees in 1958 when Bob Turley won the Cy Young award and in 1961, when Whitey Ford won the award. He coached the Yankees in 1977 when Sparky Lyle won the award and the following season, when Ron Guidry won it.

The award didn�t exist prior to 1956, and between 1956 and 1966, only one award was given, instead of the two that are now awarded, -- one for each league.

Hint #20. Dwight Bernard did it twice in his career; never as a N.Y. Met.

Bernard�s MLB career consisted of two seasons with the Mets (�79 and �80) and then the following two seasons with the Brewers as teammates of Cy Young award winners Rollie Fingers (�81) and Pete Vuckovich (�82).

Hint #19. Tommy Davis did it seven times in his career; never as a N.Y. Met.

Tommy Davis was a teammate of the following Cy Young award winners in the same seasons that the pitchers won the award:
Don Drysdale (�62)
Sandy Koufax (�63, �65, �66)
Vida Blue (�71)
Jim Palmer (73, �75)

[MFS62]

Well played.
Good question.
Helpful clues.

I'd still advise you to have someone else open your packages and start your car for you for a while.

Later

[Zvon]

="batmagadanleadoff"]Hint # Last. Sigh. Sigh Young.

[batmagadanleadoff]

="Zvon"] ="batmagadanleadoff"]Hint # Last. Sigh. Sigh Young.

Welcome back, man!

[G-Fafif]

The answer was kind of, sort of waiting to be divined. A couple of more weeks and I feel I would have caught on.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Agreed. Definitely by the All Star Break.

[batmagadanleadoff]

If you guys weren't so impatient, my next hint would've been: Ironically, Cy Young never did this.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Tom Seaver
Nolan Ryan
Dennis Eckersley
Rich Gossage

[Guest Swan Swan H]

WAG - Four pitchers who got a win and a save in an All-Star game.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm pretty sure this is an exclusive club (though I suspect there might be one more out there). I know that Bruce Sutter has also both won and saved an All Star game.

You'd also think Sutter would be part of this list for the reasons I'm looking for, but he's not.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Is this a trivia question? And if so, is there a Met theme (thread title)?