METS FANS SHARE THEIR MEMORIES OF THE JUNE 26, 1998 GAME:
Mets2Moon
April 28, 2004
Mel's Massacre.The First ever Mets/Yankees game at Shea brought, shockingly, a sellout crowd (me in attendance), and saw Irabu and Leiter duke it out. Yanks scored their runs by running on CF McRae and his awful throwing arm. They must have scored 3 runs on singles with runners on second. Rey Ordonez made an amazing grab of a Chad Curtis liner in the 2nd with the bases loaded and nearly turned it into a triple play. Posada just barely beat the relay to 1st. Alfonzo and McRae homered off Hideki in the 5th, and the Mets led 4-3 into the 7th. Then it happened. Jeter dragged a bunt to the right side with a man on. Leiter, as best he could, pounced off the mound and got it, fell awkwardly, and couldn't get the throw off. Leiter ended up injuring his knee and had to come out of the game (and on the DL with a strained patella tendon). In comes the great, amazing Mel Rojas to pitch to O'Neill. We all know what happened next. 1st pitch - BOOM. 6-4 Yanks. Goodnight.
djh
April 23, 2011
I had a Boy Scout function at age 8 and when I got back home the game was underway. Key thing about this game is of course the Leiter knee injury. Up to this point he was maybe the first half front-runner for NL Cy Young. After suffering the injury he wouldn't be the same until 2000. Mets also, if I remember correctly, took the names off of the back of their jerseys for this series, foreshadowing 1999.
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