What You Don't Know About New York Mets' Hall of Famers

The New York Mets began play in 1962. Since then they have had just two Hall of Fame players who could say they spent considerable time with the club in Tom Seaver and Gary Carter, a Hall of Fame battery if there ever was one. The New York Mets had players such as Nolan Ryan, Willie Mays, Richie Ashburn and Duke Snider either begin or end their careers with the team, but none was there for any length of time. Here are some things you might not have known about the only two New York Mets' Hall of Famers that they can legitimately lay claim to.

1. Tom Seaver never had a 300 strikeout season!

The 311 game winner is 6th all-time with 3,640 strikeouts, but not once did he break the 300 whiff mark in a single season. Seaver's best year on his way to Cooperstown was in 1971 when he fanned 289 hitters. On 10 different occasions Tom struck out at least 200 batters in a season; 4 times he had 249 strikeouts or more.

2. Seaver had only 3 losing seasons-all towards the end of his career!

Breaking in with the Mets in 1967, Seaver won double-digit games every year through 1981. Then he went 5-13 with the Reds before returning to New York at the age of 38 in 1983 to go 9-14. Seaver finished his career with 2 very solid years with the White Sox before posting a combined 7-13 record with the White and Red Sox in 1986, his 20th in the major leagues. Had he called it a day after his 14-2 campaign in 1981 he would have retired with a 259-143 standard, but he went 52-62 in his last 5 years to wind up 311-205, still more than 100 games over .500.

3. Gary Carter never hit .300 in a full season!

If you were to discount his .407 average in 9 contests for the Expos in 1974, Carter never hit .300 in a season. He did manage to bat over .290 twice, both times with Montreal. With the Mets he hit .281 in 1985 and then never approached that number again in his other 4 years with the club. Gary wound up a .262 lifetime hitter in 7,971 at-bats, garnering almost 2,100 base hits, which for a catcher is always a remarkable feat.

4. In his 19 seasons, Carter led the National League only once in an important offensive category!

His 106 runs batted in were the most in the senior circuit in 1984. Other than that, Carter never led the NL in any other major statistical category. He did have the most sacrifice flies in the league in 1986 with his 15. The closest Carter ever came to taking a home run crown was in 1984 when he finished a distant third to Dale Murphy and Mike Schmidt's 36 with his own 27 round trippers.

5. Richie Ashburn hit .306 in his one year with the Mets, but Willie Mays hit just .211!

Ashburn came to the Mets for the final season of his Hall of Fame career. The speedy leadoff man was 36, but was the best player on the woeful Amazins. He played in 139 games, banging out 119 hits to finish the season just a couple points below his lifetime average of .308. Mays, on the other hand, is the shining example of hanging on too long, as he embarrassed himself during his final year. He hit just .211 with 6 home runs in 209 New York Mets' at-bats while becoming a liability in the outfield.

6. Two of the worst trades in history involved Mets' Hall of Famers!

The Nolan Ryan trade for Jim Fregosi always comes to mind when discussing the absolute worst transactions in history. Now consider that Ryan was one of 4 players the Mets sent to the Angels for Fregosi, who had all of 43 runs batted in his less than 2 years in New York. LeRoy Stanton was also sent to the Angels, an outfielder who had a couple decent years in California. The Seaver trade to the Reds was equally disastrous, as Tom had 122 wins left in his right arm while the men the Mets got back from Cincy- Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson, and Dan Norman- all had laughable stays with New York.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/hof.shtml