Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #74 : The Big Cat’s Final Baseball Chapter Almost Happened in Queens

Last week in Sunday School, we talked about Dae-Sung Koo and the beautiful insanity that makes baseball the only sport where a middle-aged relief pitcher can accidentally become Babe Ruth, Bo Jackson, and Evel Knievel all in the same inning.

One swing.

One headfirst slide.

One Shea Stadium crowd screaming “KOOOOOOOOOO!” loud enough to register on nearby seismographs and probably wake up people waiting on line at Nathan’s in Coney Island.

It was the kind of baseball story Mets fans love most.

Unexpected.

Completely irrational.

And just dangerous enough to require medical supervision afterward.

But this week, we move from unforgettable Mets moments… to one of baseball’s greatest annual traditions:

Spring Training Delusion Season.

Ah yes.

That magical time every February when Mets fans convince themselves that this year absolutely will be different despite decades of evidence suggesting we may all simply enjoy emotional turbulence as a recreational activity.

Spring Training is where radar guns become mythology.

A guy hitting .438 against split-squad pitching suddenly becomes “untouchable.”

And every veteran in sunglasses standing near a batting cage somehow gets described as being in “the best shape of his life,” which in baseball terms usually means he lost eleven pounds and stopped eating mozzarella sticks after midnight.

It is baseball optimism in its purest form.

And nowhere does hope bloom harder than when a famous name shows up in Port St. Lucie wearing a Mets uniform that somehow feels slightly illegal to look at.

Which brings us to this week’s Forgotten Faces of Flushing.

Or maybe more accurately… Forgotten Almosts.

Because for one strange, hopeful little stretch in the spring of 2005, Mets fans convinced themselves that one of baseball’s most beloved sluggers still had one more miracle left in the bat.

And honestly?

Maybe we all wanted it a little too badly.

Before he ever showed up in Port St. Lucie wearing Mets blue and orange, Andrés Galarraga had already lived about four different baseball lives.

And every one of them felt larger than the game itself.

He arrived in the majors out of Venezuela carrying the nickname “The Big Cat” — or as it was known back home, simply “El Gato,” “The Cat,” while the Americanized version eventually became “El Gran Gato.” The nickname fit perfectly because Galarraga somehow moved around first base with shocking quickness despite looking like a man who should’ve been playing offensive line for the 1985 Chicago Bears instead of scooping throws in Montreal.

Galarraga was enormous.

But graceful.

A power hitter with soft hands around the bag and quick enough reactions to make infielders look better than they actually were — which, as every Mets fan knows, is a public service worthy of congressional recognition.

Over nearly twenty years in the majors, Galarraga became one of baseball’s most feared hitters, launching tape-measure home runs while piling up RBIs across Montreal, Colorado, Atlanta, San Francisco, St. Louis, Texas, and Anaheim like he was trying to complete some kind of frequent flyer promotion for National League sluggers.

At his peak in Colorado, he became an offensive force of nature.

He won a batting title.

Led the league in home runs.

Drove in runs at a pace that probably caused opposing pitching coaches to consider stress eating during games.

And yes, critics loved pointing at Coors Field as if Galarraga personally invented altitude.

But some of those home runs weren’t cheap.

They were crimes against humanity.

Absolute moonshots.

The kind of home runs that make outfielders stop moving halfway through and simply turn around like somebody watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.

One of them in Florida traveled so far people still argue about the distance like baseball fans argue over conspiracy theories about why there were two Darrins and two Gladyses Kravitz on Bewitched—as if somewhere there’s a secret studio vault where TV continuity went to disappear.

But then baseball took a backseat to something bigger.

Cancer.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

And suddenly one of the game’s biggest stars was fighting for his life instead of a batting title.

Everything changed.

Yet somehow Galarraga fought through chemotherapy, returned to the Braves in 2000, and resumed hitting baseballs with the fury of a man offended that pitchers had continued without him.

The comeback became one of the best stories in sports.

Fans everywhere rooted for him because sometimes baseball reminds us that statistics are temporary, but courage sticks around forever.

Which is exactly why the Mets invitation in 2005 felt so emotional.

By then, Galarraga was 43 years old.

Forty-three.

In baseball years, that’s the equivalent of you finding your Frampton Comes Alive 8 track in your closet.

Most players that age are coaching first base, playing golf badly, or yelling at ESPN because nobody slides hard into second anymore.

But Galarraga still wanted one more shot.

One more clubhouse.

One more Opening Day.

One more crack at baseball immortality.

Because sitting there, tantalizingly close, was the number 400.

Four hundred career home runs.

One of those sacred baseball numbers fans cling to the way people in the 1980s clung to Beanie Babies and believed they’d eventually pay for college tuition.

Galarraga entered Mets camp at 399 career home runs.

Just one swing away.

And immediately, Mets fans fell in love with the possibility.

Because this wasn’t some anonymous veteran trying to squeeze onto the roster.

This was Andrés Galarraga.

The Big Cat.

A survivor.

A baseball lifer.

A guy whose smile alone could probably improve clubhouse chemistry by 14 percent.

And for a few weeks in Port St. Lucie, it actually looked possible.

The bat still had life.

He launched a few home runs during camp.

Every batting practice session drew attention because fans desperately wanted to witness number 400 wearing a Mets uniform.

You could practically hear people bargaining with the baseball gods.

“Just give us one.”

One vintage Galarraga swing.

One Shea Stadium curtain call.

One more baseball memory.

But Spring Training optimism eventually collides with reality the way Wile E. Coyote eventually collides with canyon walls.

The power still flashed.

The defense didn’t.

First base had become harder.

The body slower.

The reactions just a fraction late.

Nothing dramatic.

Just baseball quietly reminding everybody that time always wins in the end.

Even against legends.

And then, near the end of camp, Galarraga made the decision himself.

No farewell tour.

No dramatic press conference with sad piano music playing underneath like the ending of a sports documentary narrated by Liev Schreiber.

Just a respected veteran looking around a clubhouse full of younger players and deciding it was time to step aside.

He retired quietly in March of 2005.

One home run short of 400.

And somehow… that almost makes the story feel even more beautiful.

Because baseball is full of unfinished numbers.

Unfinished endings.

Almost moments.

And for one brief spring, Mets fans got to dream that one of baseball’s great comeback stories might have one final chapter left.

It never happened.

But for a few weeks in Port St. Lucie, hope was alive.

And honestly?

That’s about as Mets as it gets.