Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #84: Randy Tate: The Night He Almost Became a Legend

Last week, we remembered Joe Ginsberg, the first Jewish player to wear a Mets uniform.

Ginsberg's Mets career lasted exactly two games, but one of them happened to be the first home opener in franchise history. Sometimes you don't need a long Mets career to leave a permanent footprint.

This week, we're going back to 1975 and a pitcher who came considerably closer to becoming a Mets legend.

His name was Randy Tate.

And if you're wondering why you've never heard of him, that's understandable.

But if you were at Shea Stadium on August 4, 1975, you probably never forgot him.

Tate was a 6-foot-3 right-hander from Florence, Alabama, who was selected by the Mets in the fifth round of the 1972 draft.

His first professional season wasn't exactly a Hall of Fame audition. With the Marion Mets, he went 0-9, battling the control problems that would follow him throughout his career.

But there was something the Mets couldn't teach: Tate could throw.

Slowly, things began to click.

In 1973, he threw a seven-inning no-hitter at Pompano Beach. The following year he moved up the ladder, eventually reaching Triple-A Tidewater and pitching well enough to catch the attention of Mets manager Yogi Berra.

Berra liked what he saw.

A lot.

After Tate impressed during the Mets' 1974 trip to Japan, Yogi decided the kid belonged in the 1975 starting rotation. So suddenly, Randy Tate was pitching alongside Tom Seaver and Jon Matlack.

No pressure, kid.

Tate made his major-league debut in April 1975 and quickly showed both sides of his personality as a pitcher. The fastball was good. The curveball could be nasty. The control? Well...let's just say it was still under construction. He finished the season 5-13 with a 4.45 ERA, striking out 99 hitters in 137⅔ innings while walking 86. Those numbers don't exactly scream "Mets legend."

But there was one night, August 4th, for seven innings, Randy Tate looked like one.

The Mets were playing the Montreal Expos at Shea Stadium.

Tate took the mound and proceeded to mow through the Montreal lineup.

Seven innings.

No hits.

The Mets had given him a 3-0 lead.

And suddenly Shea Stadium was watching something special.

Tate struck out 13 Expos that night, including two in each of the first five innings.

He was three outs away from a no-hitter.

Then, in the eighth, pinch-hitter Jim Lyttle lined a single to left.

The no-hitter was gone. But the Mets still had a two-run lead.

Tate walked Pepe Mangual. Yogi Berra came out to the mound.

And Yogi stayed with him. Tate struck out Jim Dwyer for the second out.

One out away from escaping.

Then rookie Gary Carter singled home Montreal's first run.

And former Met Mike Jorgensen stepped in.

Jorgensen hit a three-run homer.

Just like that, the Mets were losing 4-3.

Tate had gone from nearly throwing a no-hitter to being the losing pitcher without ever giving up more than one hit.

And, because this is the Mets, the story didn't end there.

The following day, Yogi Berra was fired as Mets manager.

His decision to leave Tate in the game became part of the conversation surrounding his dismissal. But Yogi wasn't about to throw his young pitcher under the bus. "Don't blame the kid for the home run," Berra said. "Blame me if you're gonna blame someone." That's Yogi.

Tate would get one more start and later earn his final major-league victory with a complete-game win over San Diego on August 26. But the Mets were moving on. So was Tate.

Tate returned to the minors in 1976 and struggled with his control. He eventually moved to the Pirates organization, but a torn rotator cuff ended his career before he had another chance to return to the majors. He was only 25 years old.

His entire major-league career consisted of 23 games.

Twenty-three games. And yet one of them nearly became one of the most memorable games in Mets history.

There was also one other rather unusual piece of Randy Tate trivia.

He never got a major-league hit. Not one. Tate went 0-for-41 at the plate.

Forty-one at-bats. Zero hits.

He did reach base on a walk, and then, apparently deciding that getting on base wasn't nearly strange enough, tried to steal second. He was thrown out.

Baseball can be a very humbling game.

That's why Randy Tate belongs in Forgotten Faces of Flushing.

Not because he became a star. He didn't.

Not because he had a long career. He didn't.

But because for one night at Shea Stadium, a young pitcher from Alabama was three outs away from throwing a no-hitter for the New York Mets. Instead, he got the loss. The next day, his manager got fired.And eventually, his career ended before he had a chance to find out what might have happened if everything had gone differently.

Tate eventually left baseball behind and worked as a welder. For a while, he wanted little to do with the game that had given him so much frustration. But as the years passed, he came to appreciate just how fortunate he had been to reach the major leagues at all. And then, in March 2021, Randy Tate's life came to an end far too soon. He died in Alabama from complications of COVID-19. He was just 68 years old. That's the part of these stories that sometimes gets lost when we focus on the statistics. The 5-13 record. The 0-for-41. The no-hitter that wasn't.

Behind all those numbers was a kid who once stood on a mound at Shea Stadium and came within five outs of doing something that would have made his name part of Mets history forever.

He didn't become a legend.

But for one unforgettable August night, Randy Tate was close enough to touch it.

And sometimes, in baseball, that's where the most memorable stories begin.