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The Rick Reed Game

Willets Point Jun 12 2008 08:01 PM

Missed an anniversary. June 8 was the tenth anniversary of the Mets first ever meeting with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (listed as merely TAMPA on the Shea scoreboard). More importantly, this is the game where Rick Reed took a no-hitter into the 7th inning. I was at this game and it was fun and tense sitting on pins and needles with each pitch until Wade Boggs hit a 2-out double. Reed still won though on a three-hit complete game shutout. Piazza had a great game too with a monster home run and a double. This was back when Piazza was new with the team and not quite welcome yet. The game was sparsely attended. Actually there were a fair amount of Yankees fans there because the game was included in a "Six Pack" which also included games against the Yankees. Still, it's probably of the most memorable games I've ever attended.

Nymr83 Jun 12 2008 08:46 PM

]This was back when Piazza was new with the team and not quite welcome yet he was never "not quite welcome yet", there was a sellout his first game i think. if anything his welcome wore out during his tenure here

G-Fafif Jun 12 2008 08:47 PM

I had that six-pack and was at that game. It was great the way everybody assumed all the approved "don't say anything" tics that accompany no-hit bids. Or at least that's what we Mets fans hear goes on.

Willets Point Jun 12 2008 08:59 PM

Nymr83 wrote: ]This was back when Piazza was new with the team and not quite welcome yet he was never "not quite welcome yet", there was a sellout his first game i think. if anything his welcome wore out during his tenure here Piazza got lots of boos in the first 6-8 weeks of his Mets career. There was a lot of speculation that he was not happy in New York and would sign elsewhere as a FA after the season. Yeah, Mets fans sucked back then too.

Gwreck Jun 12 2008 09:04 PM

Nymr83 wrote: he was never "not quite welcome yet", there was a sellout his first game i think. Nope. They did get a healthy walk-up crowd that day but attendance was 32,908.

AG/DC Jun 12 2008 10:24 PM

He certainly caught his share of abuse during his first season here. He was hitting well over .300 but was ripped for is perceived lack of power. Hard to miss it.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 13 2008 06:07 AM

There were some meatheads in the crowd, I won't deny that. But I don't like to be among those denigrated for sitting back and seeing what we had before necessarily welcoming him as some kind of savior. The Mets and their fans prove over and over again how vulnerable they can be to that temptation. In 1998, I didn't feel like I should get on my knees and service Mike Piazza just for having been good for the Dodgers and perceived (rightly or wrongly) as anxious to reject their contract offer, and replacing a pretty good player in the team's plans if not immediately than soon, and coming in such a fire sale you could barely praise management for shrewdness in acquiring him. I wanted to see what he could do for us first.

AG/DC Jun 13 2008 06:12 AM

No doubt he was owed nothing but an honest response to what he did in a Met uniform.

Frayed Knot Jun 13 2008 07:24 AM

="John Cougar Lunchbucket"]In 1998, I didn't feel like I should get on my knees and service Mike Piazza just for having been good for the Dodgers and perceived (rightly or wrongly) as anxious to reject their contract offer, and replacing a pretty good player in the team's plans if not immediately than soon, and coming in such a fire sale you could barely praise management for shrewdness in acquiring him. I wanted to see what he could do for us first. I was at either the first or one of the first games Piazza played at Shea (pre-bought tickets - didn't buy them just because) and was amazed at the number of Piazza shirts already covering the backs of fans as if to say; 'MIke's been my favorite Met since ... like Tuesday' But there's also a difference between not wanting to jump on that bandwagon and the rampant booing and talk-show trashing that went on when he didn't single-handidly win 20 of the first 15 games he played. His "troubles" when he first came here consisted of him hitting .344 in May/June, and .336 w/9 HRs thru July. Hate to see what the reaction would have been had he actually been lousy. What I suspect is that those two extremes aren't unrelated; that those who see the new hot-name arrival as a savior are also the ones most likely to be disappointed to discover he's human (see Santana's opening day) and react like some kind of promise was being reneged on when things aren't perfect from day one.

Benjamin Grimm Jun 13 2008 07:29 AM

The conventional wisdom back then was the he was a rental player, and that he was going to be a Colorado Rockie in 1999. It didn't look like the Mets were going anywhere in 1998 (although they did come very close to winning the wild card) so, for a while, it looked like he was rented in vain. I do remember a game in September that I was watching in a hotel room in Connecticut (on the way home from a vacation in Maine) where the Shea fans started singing Happy Birthday to Mike, and after the game he was interviewed and it seemed like he got a kick out of it. It was the first time I had a feeling that he might stay. I was in Atlanta on business the following month when I learned about the seven-year contract. I had no idea that he'd sign with the Mets without even hearing offers from other teams. So much for conventional wisdom.

Vince Coleman Firecracker Jun 13 2008 09:40 AM

I wasn't at this start, but I was at Reed's next home start, on 6/13 against the Marlins, when he went 6 1/3 perfect innings before giving up 4 straight hits in the 7th (including the eventual game-winning HR to Cliff Floyd). Reed actually had 7 games (all at Shea) in 98 where he brought a no-hitter into the fourth or later. In his first 11 starts at Shea, he only gave up one first inning hit. Here are his first eleven home starts, followed by how many innings he went before surrendering a hit and his final line: 4/3 PIT 3 (7IP 1R 1ER 6H 1BB 3K ND) 4/15 CHC 3 1/3 (7IP 0R 0ER 4H 2BB 2K W) 4/21 HOU 1 (8IP 4R 4ER 10H 1BB 4K L) 4/27 HOU 4 (8IP 1R 1ER 4H 1BB 6K ND) 5/3 COL 3 (8IP 1R 1ER 5H 1BB 4K W) 5/8 STL 1 (7IP 2R 2ER 5H 3BB 4K W) 5/22 MIL 3 (7IP 2R 2ER 4H 1BB 9K W) 6/8 TB 6 2/3 (9IP 0R 0ER 3H 1BB 10K W) 6/19 FLA 6 1/3 (8 2/3IP 3R 3ER 6H 0BB 8K L) 6/24 BAL 1/3 (Palmeiro double) (7IP 1R 1ER 9H 0BB 5K W) 7/11 MON 1 1/3 (8 1/3IP 4R 4ER 12H 0BB 4K W) Thats an average of 7.73IP 1.72R 1.72ER 6.18H 1BB 5.36K.

Willets Point Jun 13 2008 10:46 AM

Firecracker, thanks for bringing the thread back to Rick Reed. After all the Piazza posts I'd almost forgotten this was a Rick Reed thread.

Vince Coleman Firecracker Jun 13 2008 11:34 AM

Willets Point wrote: Firecracker, thanks for bringing the thread back to Rick Reed. After all the Piazza posts I'd almost forgotten this was a Rick Reed thread. No problem, I'm always willing to talk or post about Rick Reed, the Greatest Replacement Pitcher of All Time (and second only to Kevin Millar as the Greatest Replacement Player of All Time). Take that, Oil Can Boyd!

G-Fafif Jun 13 2008 11:51 AM

Reed's Mets career was all upside. They never could have expected more than a marginal contribution and he became a horse in their rotation from the moment he entered it. He was perfect for the pitch count era (fewer than 80 pitches in seven innings of Game Four of '99 NLCS, I would have brought him back on two days' rest for Game Six and saved Leiter for Game Seven because Reed on short rest was a WAY better bet than Leiter; not that I haven't let that go already). He almost always came up big when the Mets were desperate for a long and solid start. A couple of fluke injuries sidelined him on a couple of occasions but he never had arm problems in New York. He never uttered a disparaging word for public consumption. The trade of him to Minnesota, made for payroll considerations (so why'dya give him the contract?), was nonsensical. Reed was the best pitcher they had to that moment in 2001. Lawton provided a slight spark as a leadoff hitter, but trade your best pitcher? Because Steve Philips gave Kevin Appier and Steve Trachsel untradeable contracts? You had a guy who loved pitching in New York, loved being a Met, and you get rid of him? It's never talked about in the pantheon of horrible Met trades, but it should be. Reed's near no-hitter, the Devil Rays bid, was one of the truly electric Shea nights just as we were getting the feeling that Shea could be plugged in. Thank you for giving it some much-deserved attention.

Willets Point Jun 13 2008 11:51 AM

I was a big Reed fan myself. I remember at that game feeling excited that not only may I see the Mets first no-hitter but that it might be Reed who'd throw it.

Willets Point Jun 13 2008 12:01 PM

One more story from that night. I got to Shea very early and they hadn't even opened the gate yet. The Mets had just acquired Hideo Nomo and a Japanese man approached me outside Shea and told me he was a sports journalist. He asked me a few questions about the Mets including "Preach to me the Mets pitching rotation." I was confused by this but I figured the word for "tell" could be translated as "preach" by mistake. I told him the pitchers' names and he repeated them back to me. When I got to Rick Reed he said "Lick Leed?" I'm glad I restrained myself from laughing out loud, but for evermore Rick Reed was Lick Leed to me.

Vince Coleman Firecracker Jun 13 2008 12:29 PM

When I saw the subject of this topic, [url=http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199910020.shtml]this[/url] was the game that came to mind for me.

SteveJRogers Jun 15 2008 07:46 PM

Hail