On Canada Day 2026, let us remember that since 1962, our neighbors to the north have given (or at least loaned) the New York Mets a dozen of their countrymen, sending them south from their home and native land to play baseball for the likes of us. Therefore, we salute:
Ray Daviault — who pitched in the Mets’ very first home game at the Polo Grounds;
Ken MacKenzie — who posted the only winning record for the Original Mets;
Tim Harkness — who belted a 14th-inning walkoff grand slam to defeat the Cubs in 1963;
Ron Taylor — who saved 13 games for the 1969 World Champion Mets;
Brian Ostrosser — who briefly filled in at shortstop for Buddy Harrelson during the prelude to the Mets’ pennant run of 1973;
Jason Bay — who ran into walls as a Met left fielder, only because he couldn’t run through them
Mike Nickeas — who used the custom R.A. Dickey knuckleball mitt behind the plate when Josh Thole needed a breather;
Jim Henderson — who followed in the no-relation tradition of Met Hendersons Steve, Ken, and Rickey;
Rob Zastryzny — who waited patiently through roster roll call for a spell during 2022;
Zach Pop — who is better known to us in the northeastern United States as Zach Soda;
Jonah Tong — who remains talented and eager to show it again soon;
and Jared Young — who is the Mets’ incumbent first baseman, partly on merit, partly because there’s not really anybody else on hand to be that.
Canada, in the form of its lone existing Major League Baseball team, also gave the New York Mets a whuppin’ on Canada Day 2026, a 9-3 decision in favor of the Toronto Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. The Jays gave it to Freddy Peralta in particular, but in the spirit of North American brotherhood, they gave it to us all.
Let us forget that.
This reminds me of the great Jarry Park, the original home of the Montreal Expos.
I will never forget watching games played there in the 70’s on Channel 9. Sometimes, they needed to stop the game in the middle due to the glare in the First Baseman’s eyes right around sunset.
And today, JUL01, is also Bobby Bonilla Day. Who says the Wilpons were afraid to spend. Hey, since he is still under contract, maybe he can get out there for a few innings. Can’t be any worse than what we got out there now.
I do not enjoy watching Freddy Peralta pitch.
The Mets have become something I watch when I have nothing else to do rather than something I make time for.
So Peralta got beat up – but I consider us lucky to go 1-1 in two games where all we could score is 3 runs in each. Pitching is bad depending on who is up. Offense is pathetic.
I am proud to say I withnessed Brian Ostrosser’s only appearance at Shea Stadium. It was the 2nd game of a Sunday Doubleheader vs. St. Louis (he was a fill-in while Harrelson did weekend Military duty).
Still waiting to see him put a ball in play (struck out both times).
(Edit) Not sure what happened to the Edit feature, but I sure could have used it, or spell check. Sorry about the morning typos.
Seconded. What happened to my half hour to edit?
Sometimes the genius just pours out of my fingertips too fast and I misspell stuff, y’know.
Cool. That’s quite impressive, actually.
eric1973,
Yes, those games at Jarry Park were great fun to watch. Do you remember that the Expos had this one fan, an especially large French-Canadian-looking guy, who would get up and perform a lively and spirited dance during the seventh inning stretch at Jarry Park? He was sort of the Expos’s “answer” to the New York Knicks’s “Dancing Harry” of the 1970s, I guess?
And, Brian Ostrosser, he was one of those “can’t miss” Mets prospects, whose photograph you would see in the Mets’s yearbook along with such other minor leaguers as Rich Puig, Greg Harts, Paul Womble, Tommie Moore and Hank Webb.
I believe that feature on those minor league players in the Mets’s yearbook had a title with something like, “On The Way To Shea!” (Maybe David Stearns can use that same exciting concept today with an updated Citi Field version in the Mets’s 2026 yearbook?)
And of course, the great Randy Sterling.
I really shouldn’t take joy in the pain of others but I’m petty that way, at least when it comes to sports.
Saw that St. Louis has (so far) put up 17 vs the Cubs and wondered what poor guy had gotten so badly lit up so I checked out the box score. My baseball pain is marginally less now.
eric 1973,
Oh, yes, Randy Sterling (no relation to the late, great NY Yankees announcer, I guess?), another “promising, young starting pitcher, like Juan Berenguer, “The Panamanian Nolan Ryan” as the Met beat reporters once nicknamed him and, Julio Valera, who was the great Howie Rose’s favorite “can’t miss” Mets pitching prospect.
One last note on Jarry Park, I recall that the Expos’s ballpark announcer spoke in both French and English. The fellow apparently took great delight in announcing Expo relief pitcher (and native Canadian) Claude Raymond’s name with perfect French pronunciation.
Of course, I loved it when that Expo announcer pronounced the name of the late, lamented Mets first baseman/occasional outfielder, Jim “The French Okie” Beauchamp, as “Bow-shamp” instead of “Bee-Champ” as we philistine Americans had been mispronouncing it for all those years.