Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #42 : The Hardest Working Arm You Forgot: Ron Herbel’s 1970 Mets Cameo

Welcome back to Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing, our weekly rummage through the Mets’ attic, where the dust smells like pine tar and nostalgia, and where we occasionally find something we forgot we ever owned.

Last week, we wandered off the basepaths entirely and into the barnyard, revisiting Homer the Beagle and Mettle the Mule , the two mascots who barked, brayed, and did their best to distract us from box scores that sometimes made you want to cover your eyes.

This week, we’re back to baseball , and back on the mound with a man who could throw strikes but couldn’t buy a base hit. We’re talking about Ron Herbel, a sturdy right-hander who spent most of his career as a workhorse for the Giants before making a brief but memorable stop in Flushing during the Mets’ 1970 playoff chase.

He wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t famous, and if you blinked during that late-summer stretch, you might’ve missed him entirely. But Herbel was the kind of pitcher every good team needs — reliable, uncomplaining, and allergic to headlines. The kind of guy who’d show up, grab the ball, and quietly do his job before disappearing into baseball’s footnotes.

Ron Herbel grew up in Brighton, Colorado ,the kind of small town where baseball fields had more prairie grass than infield dirt. He was a standout at Brighton High and went on to pitch at the University of Northern Colorado before signing with the San Francisco Giants in 1958.

He spent six long seasons in the minors, the kind of apprenticeship that would’ve tested anyone’s patience, but Herbel kept grinding. His big-league debut finally came in September of 1963 — and in a bit of poetic foreshadowing, it came against the New York Mets. He threw two relief appearances at the Polo Grounds, long before he’d ever imagine calling Shea home.

By 1964, Herbel had carved out a spot on the Giants’ staff, toggling between starter and reliever. He won nine games that season, posted a tidy 3.07 ERA, and even tossed a 1–0 complete game shutout against — who else? — the Mets.

At the plate, though… let’s just say Ron Herbel’s bat was decorative. In fact, he set a record of sorts — going 0-for-54 that season, which remains one of the roughest offensive showings in baseball history. He struck out 30 times, walked once, and likely made every hitting coach in San Francisco reconsider their life choices.

Herbel took it in stride, though. Teammates said he laughed about it. He was, after all, paid to prevent hits, not get them.

By 1965, he’d become a steady rotation piece, going 12–9 for a Giants team that came this close to catching the Dodgers in the pennant race. He’d even notch his first career hit that year — a single that probably earned a standing ovation from the dugout and maybe a ceremonial bronze plaque in the clubhouse kitchen.

As the decade wore on, Herbel shifted more and more to relief duty — a role that fit him perfectly. He was durable, dependable, and unbothered by the spotlight (or lack thereof). By the late ’60s, he’d become one of those unsung bullpen anchors every manager dreams of.

In 1969, after a solid run with San Francisco, he was traded to San Diego — and suddenly found himself going from a perennial contender to a team still trying to figure out which direction Petco Park would eventually face. But Herbel kept pitching, appearing in 64 games for the Padres in 1970 before a late-season twist of fate landed him right where he’d started his big-league journey: facing the Mets.

Only this time, he was joining them.

In late August of 1970, the defending World Champion Mets were still in the hunt — a few games behind the Pirates and looking for one more reliable arm down the stretch. They swung a quiet deal with San Diego for Ron Herbel.

Herbel arrived, slipped on the blue and orange, and did exactly what the Mets hoped: he threw strikes, kept games close, and never once complained about anything. In just 12 appearances, he posted a 1.38 ERA — a microscopic number that would’ve earned him folk-hero status if it hadn’t come during a season when New York’s offense seemed to be on strike.

The Mets ultimately finished third, six games back, but Herbel’s contribution was exactly the kind of quiet professionalism Gil Hodges loved. He was the baseball equivalent of duct tape — not flashy, but indispensable when things got shaky.

After that brief but effective run in Queens, Herbel was traded to the Atlanta Braves for infielder Bob Aspromonte (which, let’s face it, sounds like a name made up by a Mets beat writer who’d hit deadline panic).

But Aspromonte was more than just a random pickup. When the Mets acquired him, he held the unique distinction of being the last active Brooklyn Dodger in the majors a living, breathing link to the borough roots that had helped inspire the Mets’ very existence. And with Wayne Garrett headed off for National Guard duty, the club needed a third baseman anyway. So in a way, it was part roster move, part nostalgia trip a little bit of sentiment wrapped inside a practical bit of front-office patchwork.

Herbel pitched one more season in the bigs, then hung ’em up after a final year in the minors with the Twins’ Triple-A club.

He finished his MLB career with 42 wins, a 3.80 ERA, and a reputation as one of baseball’s most durable and good-natured journeymen. He also holds a more dubious distinction: his career batting average of .029 remains one of the lowest in major league history. To put it in perspective, that’s roughly the same success rate as a first-time Mets draft pick making it to the majors.

Ron Herbel was never an All-Star, never a household name, and never a trivia answer , unless the question involves pitchers with the least hits per at-bat. But for one brief, late-summer stretch in 1970, he was part of a Mets bullpen that kept them fighting to the finish.

He was the kind of player who made baseball work ,the glue guys, the grinders, the ones who didn’t make the highlight reel but helped everyone else get there.

Herbel passed away in 2000 at just 62, far too soon. But if there’s a bullpen in baseball heaven, you can bet he’s warming up quietly, efficiently, and ready whenever his manager needs him.