Mets Card of the Week: 1981 Mike Jorgensen

1981 DONRUSS MIKE JORGENSEN

We all knew that the world of baseball card collectors was going to be turned upside down back in 1981, when Fleer and Donruss were allowed to compete with Topps. Their first offerings in 1981 weren’t the most-polished, as there were error cards galore in the two non-Topps sets. Additionally, the Donruss ones didn’t seem to be on the greatest stock, nor cut with especially good accuracy.

But the one thing that Donruss had going for them were tightly cropped shots, like this Mike Jorgensen one. This card got picked for today’s COTW entry because it showed his uniform number. It’s amazing to me how quickly we forget uniform numbers. Sure, we all remember the stars and their numbers. But the bench players? They rarely make the leap to long-term memory.

You could have given me 10 guesses on what was Jorgensen’s number in his second go-round with the Mets and I would have come up empty. Shoot, you probably could have given me 20 without the right answer arriving. To me, he’s 16 and the reason that sticks out is because it’s visible in his 1971 Topps card, the year before he was in the package the Mets gave Montreal for Rusty Staub. The simple fact is that there was a ton more time spent by me looking at ’71 Topps than ’81 Donruss cards.

And while Jorgensen had a history with 16 and the Mets, when he re-joined the club for the 1980 season, as the PTBNL when the Mets sent Willie Montanez to the Rangers, the team’s biggest star at the time had that number. He wasn’t getting Lee Mazzilli to switch numbers for him. So, 22 it was.

How many guys on the Mets can you name who wore 22? For me, not many. That was Donn Clendenon’s number. It was also worn by Ray Knight. Well, those players were on the team’s two World Series winners. There was also Kevin McReynolds. He was on a team that played in the NLCS. And then it gets tricky. Dom Smith wore that number. And now it’s Brett Baty.

My memory gives me five Mets players to wear the number. Going to The Ultimate Mets Database site, you find out that 34 different players have worn 22 for the Mets. In the Mets360 era, seven players have worn the number besides Smith and Baty. They were: Raul Valdes, Willie Harris, Eric Young Jr., Kevin Plawecki, Tom Goodwin, Rick Porcello and Ender Inciarte.

Probably should have remembered Young and Porcello. Plawecki only wore 22 in his first year with the Mets. The rest of the time he wore 26. Goodwin had that number when Plawecki made his MLB debut but switched to 22 the following season. Did Plawecki ask for the number 26? Did he give Goodwin a monetary incentive to switch? Or as a coach, did Goodwin feel obligated to give Plawecki the number? It shook me up when first looking at Goodwin being with the Mets from 2012-17, as I had no memory of him playing for the team at all. Goodwin’s playing career ended in 2004.

Regardless, Jorgensen spent three years and part of a fourth with the Mets as 22. And after being involved in trades for recognizable players when he first left and then came back, his second tenure with the club ended with him being sold to the Braves. In all Jorgensen played with six different clubs – Mets, Expos, A’s, Rangers, Braves and Cardinals – making him a sneaky-good play in Immaculate Grid.