Bud Harrelson

 

I received a text last night and it made me think.

Chris Hunt -- the Hunt of Hunt Scanlon -- suggested that I write a post about the passing of Bud Harrelson, the shortstop on the 1969 Mets and the third base coach for the 1986 World Series winning team.

Yet, as I read it, I felt it shouldn't come from me. I was grateful for the vote of confidence but who am I to write about a Met like this? To me, this is different from Tom Seaver, who transcended from being a one-time New York Met.

Seaver was "The Franchise." He was a star and eventually a Hall of Famer.

Harrelson was a good-glove, limited bat player, typical of shortstops of that era. Across town, Yankees fans had Gene "Stick" Michael.

Harrelson was beloved by Mets fans, not only for his feisty on-field play and being the rare person to be a part of both Mets' titles, but also for something else.

You see, ask me (and many others) about Buddy Harrelson, and one thing comes to mind. In fact, it's just one name.

Pete Rose.

It was Game 3 of the 1973 National League Championship. The Mets were an upstart bunch, having finished at 82-79, but that was enough to win the National League East. The Cincinnati Reds, on the other hand, were the defending NL champs, and had gone to two of the previous three World Series as they became "The Big Red Machine." They won 99 games in 1973 and boasted a great lineup with several players who would make the Hall of Fame.

But the Mets weren't going to be intimidated, living on Tug McGraw's rallying cry of "You Gotta Believe!" Johnny Bench homered off Seaver to win Game 1 but Jon Matlack spun a two-hitter in Game 2.

That got the Reds' attention. More to the point, Harrelson rankled Cincinnati with his praise of Matlack, noting how the pitcher made the Reds look in Game 2.

"He made the Big Red Machine look like me hitting today," said Harelson, a career .236 hitter.

It particularly bothered Rose. So when Joe Morgan hit into a double play with the Mets up 9-2 in the fifth inning of Game 3 at Shea Stadium, Rose decided to take action.

The ball went to first baseman John Milner, who fired to Harrelson at second as part of the 3-6-3 twin-killing. Rose, ever the hard-nosed player, barreled into Buddy in an attempt to break up the double play, but anybody knows there was a message in that contact.

Harrelson wasn't going to take it and, as Milner finished the double play, Rose shoved him. The benches emptied with punches exchanged in one of the more memorable on-field battles.

That was Bud Harrelson. He was the heart and soul of those teams. He was a lunchpail type of player. All fanbases love that kind of player. But, beyond that, it's hard to find anyone with a bad word about him. He was found to be always approachable with fans and media and beloved by his teammates.

The Mets won the 1973 National League Championship in five games over Cincinnati before falling to the Oakland Athletics in seven games in the World Series.

That's where the inevitable screaming about Seaver, Yogi Berra, and a pitcher named George Stone comes into play but that's a longer story for another time. Trust me, bring up the Mets in 1973 to any fan and you'll certainly get the full story.

Harrelson spent his latter years in baseball, including time with the Long Island Duck of the Atlantic League as a co-owner, manager, and coach. I don't recall our paths crossing while I was broadcasting with the Bridgeport Bluefish on WGCH but that doesn't mean I didn't see him.

I suppose, as I considered Chris Hunt's text, what stood out to me was the passing of another of our boyhood heroes. I certainly grew up with those Mets teams and watched a share of their games when the Yankees weren't on but Bud Harrelson wasn't my guy. But to Chris and maybe Dave Torromeo and many others, he was their guy.

We sadly see players of our youth passing so often and, in many cases, we feel bad for that. But players like Bud Harrelson and Tom Seaver and Bobby Murcer and Mel Stottelmyre hit differently. Like it or not, these were heroes to us.

We imitated their batting stances and pitching windups. We had their baseball cards and posters and magazine articles. We clipped their newspaper pictures and created scrapbooks. We memorized their statistics.

For instance: .292 batting avg., 33 home runs, 96 RBI, a gold glove, 102 runs scored, and fifth in the MVP. Who? Bobby Murcer, 1972.

To many, we knew we couldn't be them but we admired the heck out of them. Oh, we tried, playing ball in our yards or towns or high schools or even college. Some make the minor leagues and the majors. That's what Anthony Volpe is now for the Yankees.

But, to most, they achieved greatness that we'd never know and we loved it.

In so many cases, they let us down by either being a jerk off the field or, sadly, worse.

Yet we're often blessed to meet them and have the interaction be beyond our hopes. For me, that was Bobby Murcer and even Mickey Mantle. In fact, as a fan and as a broadcaster/reporter, I've only come across just a few athletes who were difficult.

Reporter Darren Rovell tweeted about his bar mitzvah back in 1991. Word got to Harrelson, managing the Mets at the time, that Rovell was a huge Mets fan. Harrelson went to the bar mitzvah and surprised Rovell.

"This guy was gold," Rovell wrote.

Sadly, again, this is also a case in which Alzheimer's is the cause and I hope we continue to proceed toward advances in eradicating that insidious disease.

Rest in peace, Bud Harrelson, and my condolences to Mets fans everywhere. Baseball lost a good one.