There are cloudy skies looming behind this week’s mystery Met, but you’d never know it by the look on his face.
Our boy fixes his baby blues at the camera, looking for all the world like the love child of Shaun Cassidy and Gary Busey. He opens his mouth slightly, as if intent on forming the word “shucks,” but no sound comes out.
All you have to do is be the first to identify the overjoyed/overawed young Met pictured here, and you will win a 2014 Topps Chrome Xfractor rookie card of Rafael Montero along with a Curtis Granderson Refractor from the same set. And trust me, these cards are shiny enough to brighten even the rainiest day…
Good luck!
Man – I want that Montero card but I have no idea who this is.
Rich Puig
Good guess, Tim, but not Rich Puig. I actually thought about doing Puig, but I had written about him just a couple of months ago: https://mets360.com/?p=23002
I’ve got to at least guess.
Rick Ownbey
Phil Mankowski
Pre-mustache Dave Von Ohlen
None of the above, Brian.
Jeff Grose. (Without help — I remembered the teeth…)
Now that’s gross.
You got it, Charlie! Send me your contact info and I’ll send you the cards.
Grose never made it out of the minors, spending his whole career in the Mets farm system.
Roger Angell observed the following in his book Five Seasons regarding Spring Training, 1975:
“Between [Jerry Koosman and Randy Tate], there was an appearance by a good-looking Mets sprout named Jeff Grose, who is only two years out of high school. Grose, a southpaw, showed us a live fastball and a smooth, high-kicking motion, and he hid the ball behind his hip on the mound, like Sandy Koufax. He seemed poised, but he was working a little too quickly, and he gave up three hits and a run in his first inning of work. In the next inning, his fastball began missing the corners. He kept falling behind the hitters, and then forcing things and overthrowing to make up for it. He gave it a battle, though. With two out and a run in, he went to three and two, saw the next pitch barely tipped foul, then threw the fourth ball way inside, to load the bases, then swiftly walked in another run and gave up a single, and was lucky when Rusty Staub threw out a base runner at the plate. It was painful to add up his totals: four runs, six hits, and four walks in two innings. Spring training is good young pitchers falling behind on the count and then disappearing until next year.”
I need your e-mail address…
Todd Hundley
One of my colleagues where I teach found this. Really cool. Thanks for the memories.