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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

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

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

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

The Mets announced today that three of the franchise’s most memorable figures Carlos Beltrán, Lee Mazzilli, and Bobby Valentine will be inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame in 2026. That brings the total to 38 Mets immortals and three new plaques for the wall at Citi Field, which, at the pace we’re adding them, may need its own renovation soon. Maybe not quite East Wing-of-the-White-House territory, but close enough that an architect should probably start warming up. When t

Let the record show, I’ve been driving the Max Kranick bandwagon since Day One. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and check the KinersKorner.com Facebook group archives. As the kids say, I’ve got the receipts. And why not? The guy’s got that mix every Mets fan dreams of: lifelong Mets fan ,he even attended a baseball clinic run by Al Leiter as a kid and fifteen years later caught the ceremonial first pitch from Leiter on Opening Day in 2025 — hometown roots, bulldog mentality, and a

The annual General Manager Meetings are sort of the appetizer before baseball’s offseason buffet.The Winter Meetings get all the glory, the signings, the trades, the Scott Boras monologues that go longer than a game-winning home run given up by Ryan Helsley, but the GM Meetings? That’s where everyone starts slow-cooking the rumors. And this week, the baseball world descended on Las Vegas, which feels appropriate, because nothing says baseball wants to distance itself from a g

If you’ve been a loyal reader of Kiner’s Korner over the years, you probably know I’m usually all in on most things the Mets do. I take a wait-and-see approach to most moves, rarely critical, because let’s face it anyone sitting in that chair at Citi Field making Major League hires has more baseball smarts in their pinky fingernail than I do in my entire body. That being said, this is one of the first moves in a long, long time that has me scratching my head. Time will tell,

Not hitting much lately? Grab a Snitker. You’re not you when you’re slumping and Mets fans know that better than anyone. After too many nights of runners stranded and warning-track fly balls, this lineup has been hungry for something or someone to finally satisfy. Enter Troy Snitker, the new Mets hitting coach, here to feed an offense that’s been living off empty calories. He’s not a candy bar, though his last name sounds like one. He’s a data-loving, launch-angle-tracking

Inspiration for a story can come from just about anywhere. Sometimes it’s a stat that jumps off the page. Sometimes it’s a random YouTube clip of Ralph Kiner interviewing Ed Kranepool in glorious 1970s color, the kind that makes you miss both of them and Shea Stadium all over again. And sometimes, it’s a text from my good friend Ken Ricken. After reading yesterday’s piece about Rusty Staub and George Steinbrenner appearing together on Face the Nation during the 1981 baseball

On July 5, 1981 , as Major League Baseball sat still in silence, the diamond’s disputes found their way to the Sunday morning airwaves. On Face the Nation, one of television’s most respected public affairs programs, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and New York Mets first baseman Rusty Staub joined CBS News to publicly discuss the game’s crippling labor strike — a rare and fascinating crossover between America’s pastime and America’s political discourse. For fans ac