A Touch of Grae: When a Kessinger Joins the Mets, Even the Black Cat Purrs

Some transactions exist purely to help a Triple-A roster survive the dog days. Others exist to give a manager a spring training body who can play short, second, third, and probably sell peanuts if needed. And then there are the rare ones that exist almost entirely to poke the baseball gods in the ribs and say, remember 1969?

The Mets’ minor-league agreement with Grae Kessinger, complete with a non-roster invitation to spring training, fits squarely into that last category.

On paper, this is about depth. Kessinger, 28, a former second-round pick, has spent parts of the last two seasons bouncing around the Astros’ infield, appearing in 48 big league games and hitting .131 over 70 plate appearances. He’s a right-handed utility man, light with the bat but capable of playing anywhere on the dirt, the kind of player who shows up in March games just in time for you to ask, “Wait… who is that again?” The Mets are essentially inviting him to compete with Christian Arroyo and Jackson Cluff for bench consideration, lurking behind Ronny Mauricio, and the out-of-options Vidal Bruján, and possibly Tsung-Che Cheng, if waivers break the right way.

But nobody is clicking on this story because of his slash line.

They’re clicking because his last name is Kessinger.

Grae is the grandson of Don Kessinger, the six-time All-Star, two-time Gold Glove shortstop, and linchpin of the 1969 Chicago Cubs — yes, those Cubs — the ones who spent most of the summer ahead of the Mets before watching history sprint past them wearing blue pinstripes. If baseball were scripted (and sometimes I swear it is), you couldn’t come up with a more Mets-y footnote than this: more than half a century after the Miracle Mets chased down Chicago, a Kessinger is now trying to stick in Queens.

When I spoke to Don Kessinger back in 2021, the memories of that season were still vivid, still layered with pride, frustration, and grudging respect. “It was a magical year for us,” he told me. “One of those deals where it’s the best of times and the worst of times. The city loved us, the whole thing. And then the last month… the Mets just played phenomenal.”

That’s Don Kessinger in a nutshell. No excuses. No bitterness. Just baseball truth. When asked about the famous black cat that crossed in front of the Cubs’ dugout at Shea Stadium, he didn’t flinch. “I don’t believe the black cat had anything to do with it,” he said, before adding with a grin you could hear through the phone, “but I sure did give a lot of credit to the dude that did it.”

Kessinger spent 16 years in the majors, won back-to-back Gold Gloves in 1969 and 1970, played every inning of every Cubs game in ’69, and anchored one of the greatest double-play combinations of his era. He wasn’t flashy. He was steady. “If they were going to lose any part of our game,” he once said, “they didn’t want it to be in the field.” That was the standard. Catch the ball. Make the play. Do your job. Repeat for a decade and a half.

That mindset echoes, quietly, in Grae’s profile. He’s not here to slug. He’s here to survive. To be reliable. To be the guy who can play shortstop at 1:10 p.m. in Port St. Lucie and third base at 6:40 the next night without asking a single question. The bat may never carry him. The glove might.

And if he doesn’t make the club? Well, baseball history still gets a chuckle out of it.

Because somewhere in the DNA of this transaction lives the echo of 1969 — the Cubs collapsing, the Mets surging, and a shortstop named Kessinger standing on the wrong side of destiny. Now, his grandson pulls on a Mets uniform in spring training, trying to earn a locker in the same organization that once turned Don Kessinger’s best season into a footnote of a miracle.

Baseball doesn’t forget. It just waits.