Sunday School: Forgotten Faces of Flushing #93: An Alomar Hat Trick

Last week on Sunday School, Forgotten Faces of Flushing, we celebrated Génesis Cabrera, the left-handed reliever who made history as the first major-league player to wear No. 92 and the only Met to wear it.

Our title played with the Book of Genesis and the beginning of things. This week, we're moving from the beginning to a hat trick.

Actually, three hats.

Three faces.

Three members of the same baseball family who all wore a New York Mets uniform.

And the whole thing started while I was watching a Cleveland Guardians game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

There, coaching for Cleveland, was Sandy Alomar Jr., a former major-league catcher whose playing career ended with the Mets in 2007.

Seeing him brought back a memory. Sandy wasn't the only Alomar to wear orange and blue. His father, Sandy Alomar Sr., had been a Met back in the 1960s. And his brother, Roberto Alomar — better known as Robbie — had arrived in Flushing with a Hall of Fame résumé and expectations large enough to require their own seat in the clubhouse.

Three Alomars.

One franchise.

And three very different Mets stories.

That's the beauty of Forgotten Faces of Flushing. You never know what might trigger a memory, and you never know where a little baseball detective work might take you.

So this week, we're going to meet the father, the Hall of Fame son and the catching son who eventually became a coach.

Welcome to the Alomar family reunion.

First Up: Sandy Alomar Sr. — The first Alomar to be a Met

Before Robbie became one of the greatest second basemen of his generation, and before Sandy Jr. became an All-Star catcher, there was their father, Santos Alomar Sr.

Born in Salinas, Puerto Rico, in 1943, Sandy Sr. was a middle infielder who spent 15 seasons in the major leagues. He played for the Milwaukee Braves, Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Chicago White Sox, California Angels, New York Yankees and Texas Rangers.

That's seven major-league organizations, which is a pretty impressive baseball itinerary even by the standards of a sport in which players sometimes seem to need a change of address every time they change teams.

Alomar Sr. made his major-league debut with Milwaukee in 1964. He was a switch-hitter, a speedy infielder and a player who could handle both second base and shortstop.

He wasn't a superstar, but he carved out a respectable big-league career and eventually became the father of two sons who would make their own marks on the game.

And then, in 1967, he became a Met.

His stay in New York was brief. Alomar appeared in just 15 games for the Mets that season, collecting 22 at-bats and no hits. His time in Flushing was over almost before it began.

Baseball-reference books are filled with players whose careers lasted years, but whose Mets chapters could fit on a postcard. Sandy Sr. was one of them.

He joined the Mets during a period when the franchise was still trying to establish itself. The team was just five years removed from its infamous 1962 season, when the original Mets lost 120 games, and two years away from the Miracle Mets of 1969.

Alomar Sr. didn't stick around long enough to become part of that championship story. He was traded to the Chicago White Sox during the 1967 season and continued his career elsewhere. He would return as a coach for the Mets from 2005-2009.

But he had established something that would eventually become a unique piece of Mets family history.

He had worn the uniform.

And years later, his sons would follow him into Flushing.

One would arrive as a future Hall of Famer.

The other would arrive as a veteran catcher nearing the end of his playing career.

Neither would have quite the same experience as their father.

And one of them would discover that being a great player somewhere else doesn't automatically make you a great Met.

That brings us to Robbie.

Robbie Alomar: When a Hall of Famer Came to Flushing

If Sandy Sr. was the original Alomar in a Mets uniform, Roberto Alomar was the one who arrived with the biggest reputation.

And what a reputation it was.

Robbie was a two-time World Series champion with the Toronto Blue Jays, a 12-time All-Star, a 10-time Gold Glove winner and one of the finest second basemen of his era. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011.

By the time the Mets acquired him from the Cleveland Indians in December 2001, he was already a baseball celebrity.

He was coming off a terrific 2001 season in Cleveland, where he hit .336 with 20 home runs, 100 RBIs and 30 stolen bases. He was 33 years old, still a star, and expected to give the Mets an elite middle infielder who could help return them to the postseason.

The Mets had reached the World Series in 2000 and the postseason again in 2001. They wanted to get back there, and Robbie Alomar was supposed to help make it happen.

There was only one problem.

The Robbie Alomar who arrived in New York wasn't quite the Robbie Alomar who had dominated the American League.

In 2002, he played 149 games for the Mets, batting .266 with 11 home runs, 53 RBIs and 16 stolen bases. Those numbers weren't terrible, but they fell well short of what the Mets and their fans had anticipated.

The team finished 75-86, last in the National League East.

And the following season wasn't much better.

In 2003, Alomar appeared in 73 games for the Mets, batting .262 with two home runs and 22 RBIs before the club traded him to the Chicago White Sox in July.

His Mets tenure had lasted about a season and a half.

For a player with his résumé, the results were disappointing. The Mets had acquired a future Hall of Famer, but they didn't get the superstar they thought they were buying.

That's baseball.

Sometimes you sign a player coming off a brilliant season and he delivers another one. Sometimes the player ages, the numbers decline, and the uniform seems to weigh a little more than it did the year before.

Alomar's time with the Mets was a reminder that baseball greatness and baseball timing don't always cooperate.

He was still a Hall of Famer. He was still one of the best second basemen of his generation. But his time in Flushing became a footnote in a career that was otherwise filled with championships, All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves.

And here's the family connection that makes this story even better.

Robbie wasn't the only Alomar son to wear the Mets uniform.

His younger brother, Sandy Alomar Jr., would join the Mets in 2007.

Which brings us to the third face in our hat trick.

Sandy Alomar Jr.: The Catcher Who Came Home to New York

Sandy Alomar Jr. had built a very different career from his brother's.

A catcher, he spent most of his major-league career with the Cleveland Indians, where he became one of the franchise's most recognizable players. He was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1990, won a Gold Glove that same season and made six All-Star teams.

He also became famous for his postseason performance with Cleveland, particularly in 1997, when he drove in a then-record 19 runs during the playoffs.

His career lasted 20 major-league seasons, and he finished with a .273 batting average, 112 home runs and 588 RBIs.

Not a bad résumé for a catcher.

By 2007, however, Alomar was 41 years old and nearing the end of his playing career. He signed with the Mets and began the season in the minor leagues before getting his opportunity in the majors.

He made his first start for New York on July 8, 2007, against Houston.

The Mets were in the middle of a season that would end in heartbreak, when a late collapse allowed the Philadelphia Phillies to overtake them in the National League East. Alomar wasn't brought in to be the franchise's next great catcher. He was a veteran presence who could provide depth behind the plate.

He appeared in just eight games for the Mets, collecting three hits in 22 at-bats and batting .136.

There were no grand farewells. No postseason heroics. No long farewell tour around Shea Stadium.

It was simply the final stop in a long playing career.

And it gave the Alomar family another unique distinction: Sandy Jr. became the third member of his immediate family to wear a Mets uniform.

His father had played for the Mets in 1967. His brother Robbie had played for them in 2002 and 2003. Now Sandy Jr. had his own Mets chapter.

It was short, but it counted.

And unlike his father and brother, Sandy Jr. would go on to make a name for himself in the dugout long after his playing days ended.

From Behind the Plate to the Coaching Box

After retiring as a player, Alomar Jr. moved into coaching, eventually returning to Cleveland, where he had enjoyed the greatest success of his playing career.

He became a respected member of the Guardians' coaching staff and has served as the club's first-base and catching coach.

So there he was, years after his final game as a Met, coaching in a major-league game against Tampa Bay — the very scene that inspired this week's column.

Watching him brought the story full circle.

The catcher who once wore orange and blue was now wearing Cleveland's colors, helping guide a new generation of players.

And somewhere in the history books, his name sits alongside those of his father and brother, all connected by the same franchise.

The three Alomars were never Mets stars. They didn't win a championship together. But they each had a moment in Flushing.

Sandy Sr. had his brief stop in the 1960s and a longer one coaching.

Robbie arrived with enormous expectations and left with a Hall of Fame career that had little to do with his time in New York.

Sandy Jr. finished his playing career in Queens before moving on to a second career as a coach.

Three men. Three stories. One family connection.

The Alomar Hat Trick

The Mets' history is full of family connections, from fathers and sons to brothers who wore the same uniform. But the Alomars offer something particularly memorable: a father and two sons who all played for the same franchise, each during a different era.

They weren't all remembered for the same reasons. They didn't have the same impact. And they certainly didn't leave behind the same kind of baseball legacy.

But that's the point of Forgotten Faces of Flushing.

We aren't just remembering the home runs, the championships and the players whose names are etched into Mets history.

We're remembering the guys who passed through, the players whose time in orange and blue was brief, and the connections that make the story of a baseball franchise so much richer than a list of statistics.

This week, one baseball game reminded us of three of them.

Sandy Alomar Sr.

Roberto Alomar.

Sandy Alomar Jr.

And that's a hat trick worth remembering.

For the Mets, anyway, it was a hat trick without a championship, without a parade and without a single family photograph of all three wearing orange and blue together.

But in the pages of Forgotten Faces of Flushing, they all have a place.