Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #91: Dal Maxvill: The Cardinal Who Found Himself at Third for the Mets

Last week on Sunday School, Forgotten Faces of Flushing, we took a stroll down memory lane with Fran Healy — a guy whose Mets career was just one chapter in a baseball life that somehow managed to include playing, broadcasting, catching, clubhouse stories and enough interesting twists to make you wonder if somebody was writing his résumé after a few too many trips to the press box.

And that, of course, is the whole point of Forgotten Faces of Flushing.

Every Mets fan remembers the stars.

We remember the home runs. The no-hitters. The championships. The guys whose baseball cards ended up in the spokes of our bicycles.

But baseball history is also filled with the guys who were there for a year, a month, a cup of coffee — or, in this case, one season standing about 90 feet from home plate.

So, after Fran Healy, let's head back to 1978.

And this week’s Forgotten Face of Flushing is a man whose name you probably associate with another National League city, another uniform and another position.

His name was Dal Maxvill.

Yes, THAT Dal Maxvill.

If your first reaction is, “Wait… Dal Maxvill was a Met?” congratulations. You have just qualified for Sunday School.

Maxvill was born in Granite City, Illinois, in 1939 and grew up rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals. He wasn't exactly built like your typical future major-league shortstop. He was listed at 5-foot-11 and 135 pounds coming out of high school, and some scouts thought he was simply too small to make it.

They were wrong.

Very wrong.

Maxvill eventually spent 14 seasons in the major leagues, primarily with the Cardinals, and became known for his glove and his dependability. He won four World Series rings during his playing career and eventually moved into coaching and front-office work.

But before he became a Cardinals executive, before he became the man making baseball decisions in St. Louis, Maxvill took a detour through Flushing.

And it came in 1978.

By the time Joe Torre became manager of the Mets in 1978, Maxvill had already retired as a player.

He was 39 years old and apparently wasn't quite ready to completely divorce himself from baseball.

Torre, who had been a teammate of Maxvill’s with the Cardinals, knew what he was getting.

Maxvill knew the game.

He knew fundamentals.

He knew infielders.

And, perhaps most importantly, he knew what Torre was trying to teach.

So Torre brought his old teammate to New York and installed him as the Mets' third-base coach.

Which means that somewhere in the vast baseball universe there is a photograph of Dal Maxvill standing in a Mets uniform, waving a runner toward home.

The man who had spent the majority of his playing career as a Cardinal was now wearing orange and blue at Shea Stadium.

The 1978 Mets were not exactly the 1969 Mets or the 1986 Mets. In fact, they were about as far removed from those teams as you could possibly get without actually moving the franchise to another state.

New York finished the season 66-96, in sixth place in the National League East. The Mets scored 607 runs and allowed 690.

The starting lineup included John Stearns, Willie Montañez, Doug Flynn, Lenny Randle, Tim Foli, Steve Henderson, Lee Mazzilli and Elliott Maddox.

And over at third base, helping Torre run the operation, was Dal Maxvill.

It was not exactly a season that would wind up getting its own Disney movie.

But for Maxvill, it was an important year.

He wasn't there to hit.

He wasn't there to field.

He was there to teach.

And Torre believed that Maxvill's knowledge of the fundamentals — particularly when it came to the infield — could help his young players.

That was Maxvill's specialty.

He had built a 14-year major-league career around doing the little things correctly.

He wasn't the guy who was going to hit 40 home runs.

He was the guy pitchers wanted standing behind them when a ground ball came screaming through the infield.

And now he was trying to pass that knowledge along to the Mets.

There is an interesting irony to Maxvill's Mets season.

He spent 1978 helping the Mets.

Then, when the season ended, he went home.

Literally.

Maxvill resigned from Torre's coaching staff because he wanted to be closer to his family and his travel business in St. Louis.

Apparently even baseball lifers occasionally realize that being home for dinner beats spending another night in a hotel.

But Maxvill wasn't finished with baseball.

Not even close.

By October, he was back in St. Louis, this time joining the Cardinals' coaching staff alongside Red Schoendienst.

So his one season in Flushing became a brief detour in a baseball life that kept finding its way back to St. Louis.

And eventually, it would take him all the way to the Cardinals' general manager's office.

In 1985, Maxvill became the general manager of the organization he had grown up watching as a kid.

That same little boy who once dreamed of playing for the Cardinals was now running the Cardinals.

Not bad for a guy scouts once considered too small.

But wait… there's another Mets connection

Here's where things get even more interesting.

When Maxvill became Cardinals general manager, one of his early moves was to acquire José Oquendo from the Mets.

So years after Maxvill had left Flushing, the Mets and Dal Maxvill crossed paths again.

This time, he wasn't standing in the third-base coaching box at Shea.

He was sitting in the Cardinals' front office.

His Mets story isn't about a big hit.

It isn't about a dramatic catch.

It isn't even about a particularly memorable Mets season.

It's about a baseball lifer who briefly passed through Queens, wore the Mets uniform, stood in the third-base coaching box for Joe Torre and then quietly went back to the baseball life he had built in St. Louis.

Sometimes the most interesting Mets aren't the guys whose names are carved into the franchise's history.

Sometimes they're the guys who were simply there.

And for one season in 1978, Dal Maxvill was there.

At third.

At Shea.

For the Mets.