Mike McCann's Field of Fotos

Nick Plummer picked a great time for his first big league hit. Seen here earlier this season with Triple-A Syracuse and playing in his just his fourth MLB game, the veteran minor leaguer who'd caught Buck Showalter's eye in spring training crushed the game-tying homer in the bottom of the 9th to erase a Phillies lead and force extra innings. In the 10th, it was Eduardo Escobar 's turn. With the game still tied and runners on 1st and 2nd, he sliced a double down the right field line to bring Starling  Marte home and give the Mets a 5-4  win and cap a weekend series sweep.  Long known for his meticulous work habits and clubhouse leadership, the former Twin and Diamondback was one of the players brought to Queens to help change the culture of an underachieving club. So far, so good. The Mets hit Memorial Day -- normally the season's first "important marker" with an 8-1/2 game lead in the NL East.

  ...you share it with White Sox 3rd baseman  Yoan Moncada . The  The Cuban expat  has been slowed so far in '22 by an oblique injury.    Jose Berrios  has become one of the American League's better starting pitchers, winning a dozen or more in each of the four full seasons. He posted a 14-8 mark and made the All Star team in 2019 as Minnesota won the AL Central. The two-time all star was traded to the Blue Jays midway through the 2021 season and signed an long-term extension not long after. They share their big day with a pair of Hall of Famers,  Frank Thomas and Jeff  Bagwell . Not only sharing birthdays but birth years (1968), each  played over 2000 games, hit more than 400 homers and compiled lifetime averages around .300: Bagwell, spent his entire career with the Astros, and Frank Thomas, whose road to Cooperstown passed through both Comiskey Parks, as well the Oakland Coliseum and Rogers Centre.   Todd Hundley enjoyed b...

Joe Pignatano , the Brooklyn native loved by both fans of the Dodgers and Mets, died earlier this week at 92. I captured this image in 2008 where he joined teammate Tommy Davis for the team's 50th anniversary L.A. celebration. (Ironically, Tommy passed just six weeks ago.) While he played only eight games with a B on his cap, Joe earned a forever place in Brooklyn baseball history, behind plate for the final pitch of Danny McDevitt's shutout in the last game ever played at Ebbets Field, on September 24th, 1957. After moving west with the club, including an appearance in the 1959 World Series, Pignatano returned (after brief stops in Kansas City and San Francisco) to his native city as one of the 1962 expansion Mets. With a touch of irony, Joe's final at bat for the losingest club of the 20th century was hitting into a triple play against the Cubs on September 30th. But that was just the start of his association with Mets.  In 1965, two years after his retirement, he joined...

It was a rough week for the Yankees... After starting the season with a remarkably injury-free run, they've lost two key pitchers to Tommy John surgery. Luis Gil (above) and Chad Green  (below) both left games with forearm pain -- and were quickly told they needed the procedure that will sideline them for 12-18 months. Gil dazzled when he debuted last August, while Green had been a consistently effective middle reliever and setup man since his breakthrough in 2017. With Aroldis Chapman struggling this year, Brian Cashman's challenge to corral more reliable relievers gets even tougher. With the Mets also dealing with pitching injuries, Thomas Szapucki -- the opening night starter for AAA Syracuse -- will get a chance to fill in for Scherzer, deGrom and Megill sometime this week. There's a nice local angle to the soon-to-be 26 year old lefty; a Toms River, New Jersey native, his family moved to the Palm Beach area (about 50 minutes from the Mets spring training home) when h...

...you share it with David Wells . While his public image has been that of a hard partying lefty, the California-born lefty was a darned good pitcher, winning 239 games over 21 seasons, highlighted by his Mothers Day 1998 perfect game with the Yankees. Jayson Werth , the most prolific member of a three-generation baseball family, was a late bloomer. Once a top Blue Jays then Dodgers prospect, the Phillies picked him up after he missed 2006 with a serious wrist injury. He then rose to stardom on four consecutive NL East winners -- highlighted by the club's 2008 Worlds Championship.  As for that family tree: his grandfather and uncle, both named Dick Schofield, were longtime big league infielders; while his stepfather Dennis Werth saw time in the majors with the Yankees and Royals. Also on today's cake and candles list: Todd Stottlemyre spent 13 seasons in the majors, winning in double digits eight times. His family is also well represented in the majors: his father Mel was the ...

Ronny Mauricio had another impressive game Tuesday as the Binghamton Rumble Ponies hosted Akron's Rubber Ducks . The Mets top infield prospect used this swing for a home run down the right field line. Just ask the fan standing a few feet from me whether it was fair or foul.    The switch-hitting shortstop's ticket to Queens might require a position change. He's blocked at by the locked-in-for-a-decade Francisco Lindor. Still, his bat and athleticism could easily translate to 3rd base or center field. Below, he stretches to pull in a pop-up. Tuesday served up some perfect spring weather, the sun overtaking the clouds and temperatures in the mid 60s. I didn't realize that Cleveland outfielder Josh Naylor has a kid brother. Noah "Bo" Naylor was the franchise's first round pick in 2018. His minor league career was interrupted by the pandemic-related shutdown of 2020. But from what I saw Tuesday, he appears to be back on track. He touches home plate after leadi...

The Yankees are sizzling! Off to a 25-9 start with the best record in baseball, plenty of credit goes to their reliable defense and deep, strong pitching staff (did you ever think you'd see the words "Nestor Cortes" and "all star" in the same sentence?. But we can't overlook the obvious. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are not just healthy and productive, but crushing baseballs in a way one could compare to some fabled Bronx slugging duos. You know those names: Mantle and Maris; Ruth and Gehrig. Obviously, when both are smacking home runs, the team is going to do better. That becomes fact in the statistic that Yankees TV voices Michael Kay and Paul O'Neill shared on Friday night. The team is 21-1 when Judge and Stanton both homer in the same game. Here's one more from mlb.com:  Judge and Stanton have joined Babe Ruth (14) and Lou Gehrig (10) from 1930 and Mickey Mantle (16) and Yogi Berra (12) from 1956 as the only pair of Yankees teammates to mash...

...you share it with Justus Sheffield , the Seattle Mariners lefthander who was their key pickup in the 2019 James Paxton trade with the Yankees. He's shown bursts of talent, but hasn't yet attained the hoped-for success or consistency. ( The above image is from Spring Training 2018 .) Mickey Moniak , the young Phillies outfielder whose terrific spring training ended with a broken hand when he was hit by a pitch in the final Grapefruit League game. The first overall pick in the 2016 draft appeared to finally have found his game in Florida after disappointing in the minors and brief Philadelphia auditions. Now, he'll have to prove that his five home run burst accompanied by a 1.286 OPS wasn't just a mirage. John Ryan Murphy spent parts of eight seasons as a backup catcher. He impressed enough with the Yankees that the Twins swapped him for Aaron Hicks, who remains with New York today -- while Murphy never hit above .202 in his time with Minnesota, Pittsburgh or Arizona....

  Tom Seaver wins the 100th game of his career, working the first eight innings as the Mets edge the Dodgers 2-1 at Shea Stadium.  Yet this milestone isn't even New York's biggest baseball story on May 11th, 1972. The other headline was the Mets bringing home Willie Mays. The beloved center fielder, whom owner Joan Payson tried to trade for ever since the franchise was established, was now 41 and far from his prime. Giants owner Horace Stoneham was dealing with financial problems and felt he could no longer afford Mays' $165,000 salary, nor the five-year post-retirement commitment the club had with its franchise icon. The timing for was right -- as was the price.  The Mets sent pitcher Charlie Williams to San Francisco. Willie made his Shea Stadium debut three days later; his 5th inning home run was the deciding run in the Mets 5-4 victory . With the anniversary of this date uniquely connecting Seaver and Mays, I remembered the 2012 BAT Dinner in New York, where both men...

Did you know that Gleyber Torres leads the major leagues in walk-off hits since 2018? The Yankees once-again 2nd baseman added to his total Sunday with a game-ending homer in the bottom of the end to beat the Rangers. That was his seventh walk-off hit, bookending his walk-off homer against Cleveland four years ago to the day. The blast added to another interesting Torres stat: he homered for the second year in a row on Mother's Day -- an occasion on which twice homered as a minor leaguer. Max Scherzer 's remarkable streak of 24 consecutive starts without a loss finally ended on Sunday, when the Mets lost 3-2 to the Phillies in the first half of a doubleheader. Looking at it another way, the future Hall of Famer took an "L" for the first time in 343 days -- when he was still with the Nationals. And, as noted by mlb.com , Max went 15-0 with a 2.55 ERA while striking out 183 batters over 141 innings during a 24-start run that spanned three teams. One of Scherzer's f...

... you share with  Willie Mays . Baseball's oldest living Hall of Famer and the greatest player in Giants history turns 91 today. Beloved on both coasts, the centerfielder -- and the first name in Terry Cashman's classic pop music homage, "Willie, Mickey and the Duke" --  remains the basis of comparison against which young "five tool" players are judged. 1951's NL Rookie of the Year, two-time MVP, four-time home run champ and four time NL leader in stolen bases. And that only tells part of his remarkable story .  ( I shot the above photo when Willie, accompanied by Giants executive Larry Baer, brought the 2014 World Series trophy back to the club's ancestral home, for a reception with the New York Giants Preservation Society .) Jose Altuve  is likely on track for Cooperstown, as well, with three AL batting titles and the 2017 MVP already on his shelf. Tack on his on-field leadership -- yes, I'm aware of his role in Houston's trash-can bangin...

Congratulations to Dusty Baker, who became the 12th manager to reach 2000 career wins on Tuesday night. Already the winningest African-American manager ever, the Astros skipper notched that magic number as Houston shut out the Mariners 4-0. All five teams Baker has managed -- the Giants, Cubs, Reds, Nationals and Astros -- have gone to the postseason under his guidance. He is also one of just nine men to have managed pennant winners in each league. He is a lock for the Hall of Fame. Now, let's zoom in on a few games timestamped May 4th : 1965 : Yogi Berra is the Mets starting catcher for the first time. Playing for his longtime manager Casey Stengel, the future Hall of Famer  gets two hits and guides Al Jackson through a complete game. The Mets hold off the Phillies 2 - 1 at Shea Stadium, with Ed Kranepool and Roy McMillan driving in the Mets runs.   1960 : With just six wins in their first 17 games, the Cubs replace manager Charlie Grimm with broadcaster Lou Boudrea...

My first trip back to PNC Field since the ballpark's extensive renovation was for a matchup of the Yankees and Phillies AAA clubs, the RaiRiders and Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. A perfect baseball day, with sunshine and temperatures hitting the lower 70s to capture its Dodger Stadium-ish setting, in a valley just below a cliff -- but just before the trees turned green. Nice to be greeted by the home team's mascot, say hi to Champ. I know, you're ready for the talent on display. Four weeks into the minor league season, Estevan Florial has been Scranton-Wilkes Barre's most consistent hitter. While wet and chilly weather in the northeast has suppressed offensive numbers, a warm May afternoon helped the young center fielder go 2-for-5, highlighted by a booming double to right field. Top prospect Bryson Stott made the Phillies opening day roster off a sizzling spring training. But his bat turned cold once the games counted. Matriculating his way back to the show, he delivered a ...