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If you want to understand just how big Dwight Gooden was in 1985 how he went from Tampa teenager to the most unhittable pitcher on planet Earth you don’t have to watch a highlight reel, or read a stat sheet, or listen to your Mets-fan uncle explain that he “hasn’t been the same since Doc left.” All you have to do is go back to Sunday, August 18, 1985, when one of the most powerful institutions in American journalism, 60 Minutes, showed up and said: Yep. This kid belongs her

If you’ve followed the first ten installments of our Kollectors Hall of Fame series, you already know this is where we celebrate the diehards — the fans whose devotion to the orange and blue doesn’t stop at the final out. These are the people who live Mets baseball, preserve its history, and build their lives around the memories the team has given them. This month, we induct a collector whose dedication to the Amazins predates Shea Stadium, predates Seaver, and goes all the w

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly rummage through the Mets’ attic, where we dust off the bubble-gum cards and game-used jerseys of the guys who made you squint and go, “Wait… didn’t he play for us?” Last week, we spotlighted the slime-soaked, neon-splattered Nickelodeon crossover era, a chapter of Mets lore so bizarre you’d swear it was dreamed up by a pack of sugar-fueled 10-year-olds who’d just mainlined Fruit Gushers and were ready to p

The way the Mets began 1998, it looked like they would be playing a long season. They ended it much shorter than they hoped.                In-between, they made some key acquisitions – including perhaps the biggest acquisition in their history (the jury remains out on Juan Soto, long-term) –won 88 games, the same as in 1997 – and fell a single game short of what would have been a three-way tie for what was then the only wild card spot.                The first key acquisitio

Last week, the Mets did something nobody had on their offseason bingo card unless you’re the kind of person who fills out that card after the fact: they traded Brandon Nimmo for Marcus Semien . And immediately, instantly, in the blink of a Mets fan’s heartbreak, left field became a sudden, yawning, canyon-sized void. A Daniel Vogelbach–sized hole. In other words: big, impossible to ignore, and slightly confusing. So now the question on every Mets fan’s mind is: How do we fill

The Dodgers landed the first haymakers. In the bottom of the third, the Brooklyn–Hollywood hybrid unleashed a historical mashup that only a strat-o-matic simulation could produce. Corey Seager, who never sniffed a trolley car, blasted a two-run homer. Then Duke Snider, who practically owned the trolley line, added a two-run shot of his own. Just like that, the Mets trailed 4–0, and Doc Gooden—who had racked up strikeouts like it was 1985—saw his ERA on the afternoon jump fast

Baseball lost one of its great travelers this week. And I don’t mean the “Edwin Jackson played for fourteen different teams” kind of traveler. I mean the “he basically was the poster child for TSA PreCheck for three different baseball worlds” variety traveler. George Altman — Negro Leaguer, Major Leaguer, Japanese baseball star, two-time All-Star, and possessor of enough passport stamps to make Rick Steves ask for travel advise, passed away at 92. Bob Kendrick of the Negro L

If you’ve followed our little corner of the Mets universe here at Kiner’s Korner, you may have noticed that it doesn’t take much to send me tumbling down the rabbit hole. A Ralph Kiner video? I’m gone. A forgotten Mets stat? Forget it, I’m living in it. Well, yesterday after the Marcus Semien press conference and all the chatter about how his age might affect his performance, I should have been counting sheep. Instead, I was counting Mets second basemen going over the fence t

The Mets’ newest second baseman, former Rangers star, Gold Glover, father of five, and now owner of the Most Spoken Words in a Zoom Call Since 2020, Marcus Semien met the New York media today for the first time. And if first impressions matter… well, Mets fans, start stretching now because this guy plays like he expects you to run out every grounder too. From the jump, Semien was vintage Semien: direct, thoughtful, polished, and sneakily funny in that “I’m a dad of five and

The Texas Rangers spent the Monday before Thanksgiving talking about the kind of move that shakes organizations, fan bases, and group chats from Arlington to Queens: trading Marcus Semien, the durable All-Star second baseman and cornerstone of their 2023 championship, to the New York Mets in exchange for longtime Met Brandon Nimmo and cash considerations. On Monday, Rangers President of Baseball Operations Chris Young and GM Ross Fenstermaker met with the media to explain one

On a gray November morning, with Thanksgiving somehow both days away and already weighing heavily on the stomachs of Mets fans, David Stearns stepped onto a Zoom call and did something no Mets executive ever enjoys doing: explaining why he just traded Brandon Nimmo. And not just traded him… traded him to Texas, for a 35-year-old second baseman whose best years “may or may not be” be behind him depending on how optimistic you are this holiday season. Stearns opened the call th

I’ve had the privilege of covering Brandon Nimmo for his entire Mets career, and let me tell you, the guy has been more gracious with his time than any ballplayer has a right to be. On-field interviews, appearances on my radio show, random chats in the dugout—Brandon always showed up with that trademark smile that made you wonder if he knew something wonderful about the world that the rest of us Mets fans didn’t. And it’s not just me; he’s exactly the kind of player an organi

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly rummage through the Mets’ attic, where we dust off the bubble-gum cards and game-used jerseys of the guys who made you squint and go, “Wait… didn’t he play for us?” Last week, we spotlighted Kevin Baez — the smooth-handed Brooklyn shortstop who carved out a life in baseball that’s been more meaningful than many players with ten times the headlines. A grinder, a teacher, a championship manager, and a guy wh

Despite coming off a disastrous 1996 season where they finished 71-91 and were 25 games out of first place and 19 games out of a wild card spot, the Mets became one of the surprise teams and challenged for a playoff spot in 1997. Manager Bobby Valentine replaced Dallas Green and was heading into his first full season as the “dugout general.” During the off season, the Mets made a very shrewd trade when they sent pitcher Robert Person to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for f

Former Mets reliever Adam Ottavino recently went on the offensive against his former team during an episode of his Baseball & Coffee podcast, criticizing manager Carlos Mendoza and the Mets organization for what he called “haphazard” bullpen management and a lack of communication that allegedly led to numerous injuries during the 2025 season. Ottavino didn’t mince words. He claimed Mendoza “has no idea what he’s doing when it comes to bullpen guys and how to keep them healthy

For the first-ever Franchise Friday Strat-O-Matic showdown, baseball fans got to witness a matchup that never happened in real life: Tom Seaver vs. Sandy Koufax. Koufax retired after the 1966 season, Seaver debuted in 1967, yet here they were, as if time itself had hit “rewind and fast forward at the same time.” Seaver was magnificent, striking out 13 Dodgers over nine innings, walking just one and allowing two runs. Koufax, as if proving the baseball gods had a sense of humo

If you’ve ever fallen down the Strat-O-Matic rabbit hole—and if you’re reading this, the odds are dangerously high—you understand that the game is less a hobby and more a lifelong affliction. Those dice don’t just “roll”; they call to you. And for some of us, like the faithful members of the Long Island Strat Club (where the first rule of Strat Club is you constantly talk about Strat Club), Strat isn’t just baseball. It’s religion. With charts. So imagine the kind of mind it

Randy Jones never threw a pitch that frightened a radar gun, but he built a career that could humble even the most electrified arms of his era. He grew up in southern California, a left-hander whose fastball wasn’t exactly the sort of thing scouts sprinted to see twice. What he did have—and what would eventually make him one of the great artisans of 1970s pitching—was a stubborn belief that there were other ways to get hitters out. When he talked about it, even decades later,

By the time the conga lines hit the third-base line, the flags were waving like a United Nations parade on double espresso, and the temperature dipped to a wind-chill-enhanced 47 degrees, Citi Field felt less like early-winter Queens and more like a giant Caribbean block party sponsored by LIDOM, the LBPRC, and maybe a little by the New York Mets themselves. And yes — this was absolutely a Dominican Republic vs. Puerto Rico showdown. But make no mistake: it also had a tremend

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly rummage through the Mets’ attic, where we dust off the bubble-gum cards and game-used jerseys of the guys who made you squint and go, “Wait… didn’t he play for us?” Last week, we looked back at Brent Gaff — the Indiana right-hander who quietly became a dependable arm in the early ’80s Mets bullpen and now builds some of the finest fishing rods this side of the Midwest. This week, we stay closer to home — a