Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #23: Boisclair Was There

Welcome to the twenty-third installment of Mets Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly meditation on Mets players who’ve slipped through the cracks of history like sunflower seeds through the Shea Stadium bleachers. This is where we remember the names that don’t make the highlight reels or the bobblehead nights, though, once in a while, they get called back for Old Timers’ Day, more curiosity than crown jewel.

Last week, we turned the page back to the very beginning, spotlighting Al Jackson the original Met who lost 20 games not once but twice, and somehow still managed to earn nothing but admiration. In a sea of chaos, he was the anchor: quiet, reliable, and far tougher than his win-loss record suggested.

This week, we flash-forward to the disco-era Mets, when the stands were half-empty, the wins were scarce, and the only thing being rebuilt was morale. Amid the haze of mediocrity, one name kept showing up in the lineup,an outfielder who ran hard, hit just enough to stick around, and played like being a Met still mattered.

Let’s talk about Bruce Boisclair, a left-handed bat with a smooth swing, a perpetual five o’clock shadow, and a front-row seat to the Mets’ slow unraveling in the post-Seaver years. He wasn’t a star. He wasn’t even a starter every day. But for a stretch of the late ‘70s, Bruce Boisclair was there. And if you were too, you remember.

Bruce Boisclair wasn’t supposed to be the face of anything. He didn’t burst onto the scene with a Sports Illustrated cover or roll into Flushing with first-round pedigree. He didn’t have the hair of Tug, the fastball of Seaver, or the smile of Mazzilli. What he had, bless him, was a lefty swing as easy as a summer breeze, a decent enough stick, and that beautiful kind of baseball devotion that doesn’t show up in box scores.

Born in Killingly, Connecticut a place that sounds more like a Stephen King setting than a baseball pipeline, Boisclair was a three-sport star in high school and nearly took a football scholarship to Boston College before the Mets came calling in the 20th round of the 1970 draft. He said no to college and yes to riding buses for the next half-decade, chasing a dream through the dimly lit outposts of the Mets’ minor league system.

By September of 1974, after five years of hitting just enough and dreaming just hard enough, Bruce got the call. His first big league appearance came in the 23rd inning of a 25-inning Shea Stadium marathon because of course it did. Like a guy showing up for a wedding after the cake’s been cut, Boisclair pinch-ran for Duffy Dyer and tried to make the most of the Mets' weirdest party. A few games and one RBI later, he had his cup of coffee—and probably a desperate need for caffeine.

In 1976, he finally stuck with the club for a full season, winning a spot as the fourth outfielder and backup lefty bat. And he made the most of it: .287 average, .571 off the bench, and a quietly reliable presence in a Mets lineup already transitioning from post-Series respectability to late-‘70s weirdness. Boisclair wasn’t flashy, but he gave the Mets something they sorely needed: professional at-bats and fewer reasons to cry into their foam fingers.

Then came 1977 ,a year best known for the Midnight Massacre, when Tom Seaver was traded to Cincinnati and the soul of the franchise left with him. Boisclair, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He posted career highs in nearly every offensive category: .293 average, 21 doubles, 44 RBIs, and four home runs—including one off Burt Hooton and another off future Hall of Famer Don Sutton, who likely still wonders how Boisclair went 4-for-8 against him. (Bruce probably wonders that, too.)

In a time when the Mets’ front office was trying to build a contender out of broken toys and discount veterans, Boisclair did something radical he just showed up and played decent baseball. The next season, they handed him a semi-regular role, platooning in right field with Elliott Maddox. He homered in his first start of the '78 season but quickly cooled off like a Citi Field hot dog in October, eventually settling back into bench duty.

Injuries hit in '79, and by 1980, Boisclair was released. But rather than hang up the spikes, he took his act to Japan, where he joined the Hanshin Tigers and delivered eight home runs, a two-homer game, and at least one new page in a passport. He gave it one last shot with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1981, but the big leagues had moved on.

Still, for a five year window in Flushing, Bruce Boisclair was part of the furniture. A lefty with a quick bat and a quiet demeanor who made contact, made friends, and made the most of his moment. You won’t find many kids wearing his jersey in the Citi Field stands but for those of us who lived through the Mets’ awkward teenage years, he’s a reminder of those seasons when loyalty was tested, patience was a virtue, and you learned to appreciate the guys who simply showed up and played hard.

Bruce Boisclair didn’t save the Mets. He didn’t transform the lineup, electrify the fan base, or crack the highlight reels. What he did was show up, day after day, during a time when being a Met required more grit than glamour. He stood in against Don Sutton, chased fly balls across a windblown Shea outfield, and wore the uniform with a quiet kind of pride. He even gifted Mets legend Bob Murphy one of his signature tag lines, when Bruce would track down a fly ball in right, Murph would deliver it with poetic certainty: “And Boisclair is there.” In a franchise history littered with heartbreak, hilarity, and the occasional miracle, there’s a place for guys like Boisclair, the steady hands, the willing souls, the ones who remind us that every era, even the bleak ones, had a heartbeat.