If Your Birthday is January 30th...

...you share it with the late Davey Johnson, the winningest manager in Mets history (595-417 in 6-1/2 seasons), and a four-time All Star second baseman with the Orioles and Braves during the '60s and '70s.  It was 40 years ago this summer that his Mets of Doc, Daryl and Keith Hernandez steamrolled through a 108 win regular season, narrowly held off the Astros in the NLCS and battled back against the Red Sox in one of the most exciting World Series ever to give the Mets their most recent championship.  Johnson was also on the losing side when the Miracle Mets finished off their remarkable run in 1969 -- his fly ball to Cleon Jones went for the last out of that Series!

Kodai Senga had a productive first year with the Mets in 2023, winning  a dozen games.  But injuries and underwhelming performance have labeled him a question mark since.  I snapped this photo during his 2024 rehab assignment with AAA Syracuse.

Nick Evans, a bench player on the 2008-'11 Mets, didn't have many big moments.  Luckily, I was at Citi Field for one of them: this tumbling catch robbing Jimmy Rollins in right field on September 24th, 2011. 


Finally, it's back to the memory bank to remember Charlie Neal.  One of the parade of ex-Brooklyn players on the Polo Grounds-era Mets, he looked like a budding star during the Dodgers final two years in Brooklyn.  He then led the NL in triples in LA's first pennant-winning season.  But his numbers fell off in '60 and '61, leading a trade to the original Mets for Lee Walls.  He was in the lineup for the club's inaugural game -- going three-for-four and driving in the first-ever Mets run in a loss to the Cardinals.  He was traded to the Reds in the middle of the '63 season, where his big league career concluded.  (Neal died in 1996.)

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