NewsMets have history of hauling in hardware
New York unusually absent from awards circuit in 2009
By Marty Noble / MLB.com
12/22/09 11:32 AM EST
NEW YORK -- With acknowledgment of and apologies to Cleon Jones, Rusty Staub, Darryl Strawberry, Mike Piazza and David Wright, the Mets usually have made their bones on the mound. Once the franchise established itself, pitching became the most prominent and critical component, and it has remained in the forefront despite challenges from the guys in the batter's box.
First it was Tom and Jerry (Seaver and Koosman); then Doc and Darling, then Coney, Sid and Sabes. The Mets always had a lot to throw at opponents. Leiter, Hampton, Reed; then Glav, Pedro, El Duque and now Santana. Even the franchise's greatest disappointments -- Paul Wilson, Jason Isringhausen and Bill Pulsipher -- and biggest mistakes -- Nolan Ryan and Scott Kazmir -- were pitchers.
It stands to reason then that the major awards, those presented by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, won by Mets players often have gone to pitchers.
The franchise never has won a Most Valuable Player Award, and no Met has come closer than Seaver did in 1969 -- 22 points. Moreover, the Mets have won four Cy Young Awards, three by Seaver, and four Rookie of the Year Awards, three by pitchers, since their inception in 1962. And the only player wearing a Mets cap in Cooperstown is Seaver.
Given their history, it might have been more appropriate for Citi Field to have been built on a bump.
Not only is Seaver the Mets' lone Hall of Fame inductee, when he was inducted in 1992, he had been voted in with the highest percentage of the vote -- 98.84, quite close to a perfect score for a man considered by some to be the perfect pitcher -- precise, powerful, professional and productive.
Seaver was the recipient of the first two major awards won by a Met. He was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1967, and two years later, he came within one vote of being a unanimous choice for the NL Cy Young Award. In between, Koosman finished a close second to Johnny Bench in the 1968 Rookie of the Year election.
Seaver finished second to Ferguson Jenkins in the 1971 balloting for Cy Young a year before Jon Matlack became the Mets' second Rookie of the Year. Seaver won his second and third Cy Young Awards in 1973 and '75.
The Mets won no other national award until 1983, when the best position player they ever developed won the Rookie of the Year Award. Strapping Darryl Strawberry was a runaway winner the same year his teammate, Jesse Orosco, placed third in the Cy Young voting and Keith Hernandez brought his string of Gold Gloves from St. Louis to Queens. Hernandez won the sixth of his 11 straight defensive awards in 1983.
But the best was yet to come on the person of Dwight Gooden. He took the game and the city by storm in 1984 with his dominant pitching. For two seasons, the Doctor did for the letter K what Bo Derek had done for the number 10. He placed second to Rick Sutcliffe in the Cy Young election -- Hernandez placed second to Sutcliffe's colleague Ryne Sandberg in the MVP vote -- and came within one vote of a unanimous election as Rookie of the Year.
The followin
Marty Noble is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
