Oldest Living Mets

[Benjamin Grimm]

New UMDB feature. Check it out!

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/oldestliving.php

[TransMonk]

Yogi. Wouldn't have had any clue, but it makes sense. Cool addition, BG!

[Benjamin Grimm]

Only four men have held the title of "Oldest Living Met" and, ironically, one of them died rather young. They are: Gil Hodges, Gene Woodling, Warren Spahn, and Yogi Berra.

[metirish]

Great feature, although I find the last name with first and middle name a bit distracting .

[G-Fafif]

Great list, but you left out El Duque.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Sweet feature.

Willie Mays would be the oldest living Met to play his first game with the team in the '70s, by virtue of joining the team just after his 41st birthday, relatively early in the decade, and also by not being dead at the present time.

[Chad ochoseis]

Looks like Frank Thomas, Hobie Landrith, and Joe Ginsberg have been in the top 20 every day since the beginning of Metdom.

Ginsberg isn't on the UMDB list for 4/11/62 and 4/12/62 although he's an original Met. Is the rule that a player isn't considered a Met in the UMDB until he's actually gotten into a game?

Great feature.

[seawolf17]

Great list, but you left out El Duque.[/quote:1s7iyuka]
And Julio Franco.

Joe Ginsberg and Dave Hillman jump to the top of my "guys to send autograph requests to" list.

[nymr83]

damn, i got beat to the Julio Franco joke my a matter of seconds

[G-Fafif]

If it was funny, I'd say it. Like Alka-Seltzer, cupcake, pickles, chicken -- words with the "k" sound. You don't get laughs with tomatoes or lettuce. Or Frumpies.

--Willy Clark, The Sunshine Boys

They both have the "k" sound, but Julio Franco doesn't strike me as nearly as funny as El Duque.

Then again, Ed Bouchee doesn't strike me as nearly as old as Julio Franco.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Ginsberg isn't on the UMDB list for 4/11/62 and 4/12/62 although he's an original Met. Is the rule that a player isn't considered a Met in the UMDB until he's actually gotten into a game?[/quote:3h4a5kze]

Yup.

[ashie62]

Looks like Frank Thomas, Hobie Landrith, and Joe Ginsberg have been in the top 20 every day since the beginning of Metdom.

Ginsberg isn't on the UMDB list for 4/11/62 and 4/12/62 although he's an original Met. Is the rule that a player isn't considered a Met in the UMDB until he's actually gotten into a game?

Great feature.[/quote:21xted5q]


The Mets signed Hobie Landrith to a minor league contract to tutor Thole

[Guest sharpie]

Home come Willie Mays doesn't get his middle name (Howard) on the list?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I read where he denied that his middle name was "Howard" and that his given name was simply "Willie Mays."

I don't know if that's true or not, nor do I remember where I read it, but I guess I was convinced enough at the time to remove the Howard from his name.

[MFS62]

Then again, Ed Bouchee doesn't strike me as nearly as old as Julio Franco.[/quote:14lkx1kz]
Maybe it was that non-baseball "hobby" that kept him young.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Bouchee

Later

[stevejrogers]

I read where he denied that his middle name was "Howard" and that his given name was simply "Willie Mays."

I don't know if that's true or not, nor do I remember where I read it, but I guess I was convinced enough at the time to remove the Howard from his name.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Here, from his autobiography, Willie Mays, My Life In and Out of Baseball as told to Charles Einstein:

Take the record book. It doesn't even have my name right. My name is Willie Mays. It's not Willie Howard Mays, or Willie H. Mays, or any of those three names with a "Jr." after it. My real name is Willie Mays.

My father's father was Walter Mays, a pitcher in Negro ball in Tuscaloosa around the turn of the century. My father is William Howard Mays, because William Howard Taft was president when he was born.