Buddy Carlyle, the 1000th player in Mets history...or maybe not.

So on Opening Day 2012, I noticed in the Mets yearbook that it said 918 players had appeared in at least 1 game for the Mets. Each player was listed alphabetically, and a total was given for each letter of the alphabet. There had been 40 A names, 88 B and so on. There were no Q names yet as Omar Quintanilla would make his debut later in 2012.  It got me wondering as to who their 1000th player would be and when he would play, so I started keeping track of guys making their Mets debuts just for fun.

When the 2013 yearbook came out, they didn't list a grand total, but still had a number after each letter of the alphabet. I added those numbers up to double-check my list. I had it at 941 as 23 players (including notables like Matt Harvey and such legends as Jack Egbert, Justin Hampson, and Fred Lewis) made their debut in 2012, but the yearbook total was 961, so I adjusted accordingly, figuring the 918 a year earlier was a typo (and if you add up the 2012 totals for each letter, it came to 938).

At the start of this season according to my count, which I double-checked against the numbers in the 2014 yearbook, the number was at 989.  Once again, no grand total was given, but I added up the letter totals 3 or 4 times and kept getting 989. 28 players had made their Mets debut in 2013, from "faces of the future" Zack Wheeler and Travis d'Arnaud to the forgettable Sean Henn and Aaron Laffey.

With 11 more to go, it was clear 2014 would be the year we'd reach the historic milestone. Would #1000 be one of our great prospects like Rafael Montero, Jacob de Grom, or Noah Syndergaard, or another "all but forgotten except to the most die-hard of fans" player like Gary Rajsich (1982-1983), Jorge Fabregas (1998), and Mario Diaz (1990), who should not be confused with Victor Diaz (2004-2006) or Carlos Diaz (1982-1983)?  10 more players had made their Mets debut this season prior to yesterday's game.  We were getting close! However, unless someone got hurt or we made a trade, it looked like we'd be stuck at 999 for awhile, which turned out to be de Grom, or so I thought.

But then Friday night's 14-inning marathon depleted our bullpen, and up came journeyman pitcher Buddy Carlyle, who last appeared in the majors in 2011, for Saturday's game. Might he be the one? With de Grom cruising early, it looked like we'd have no need for the bullpen. Too bad since I was down in Philly for the game as part of the raucous The 7 Line outing and it would be cool to witness "history". Then the Phillies tied it up and the parade of relievers started: Edgin, Dice K, Rice, Familia. They had all pitched the night before. Wasn't Carlyle brought up to give these guys a break? Why wasn't Terry Collins bringing him in?

Then the bottom of the 11th arrives and who jogs in from the Mets bullpen? Buddy Carlyle, the 1000th player in Mets history!!!! I was so excited. I sent out tweets, tagging the Mets, SNY TV, and Kevin Burkhardt in them. When he managed to pitch 3 innings in relief and get the win, I didn't care that the historic #1000 wasn't someone like Syndergaard. Buddy had earned the honor! Then I waited for the Mets to tweet about this historic milestone. It never came. How could that be? In a sport that like no other is all about stats, surely this couldn't have gone unnoticed. After all, 30 seconds after his hit on a 3-0 count Friday night, SNY was telling us it was only Duda's 2nd hit ever on a 3-0 count. Maybe Howie or Josh mentioned it on the radio. Maybe my tweet caused KB to mention it on the PIX11 broadcast. But as far as I knew, in the words of Yukon Corneilus,"Nothing!" Nothing in the papers today. Nothing at mets.com.

Had I been wrong? That couldn't be. I had been so careful, checking and re-checking my numbers against what was published in the Mets yearbooks. So I decided to email Anthony DiComo, who writes most of the articles at mets.com, to let him know of the event that I was pretty sure had taken place and the rest of the world had missed. I got a pretty quick reply from Anthony. Intrigued by what I had written, he had done some quick research and according to the Mets media guide, the count at the start of the year was 988, making Buddy #999.  I shared with him the numbers for each letter of the alphabet from the 2014 yearbook to show him why we began the year with 989, but in doing so discovered something I hadn't noticed in 2+ years.  It had said we had 39 O players in the 2012 Yearbook but then Garret Olson played for us in 2012, so it's been 40 in the 2013 and 2014 yearbooks. I looked at the list, which included the likes of Charlie O'Brien, Jesse Orosco, and John Olerud. It seemed awfully short. "That can't be 40 names," I thought. Sure enough, it was only 20. And just like that, my moment of glory was gone, snatched away like the kid who thinks he has a date to the prom only to find out she's decided to go with someone else. Buddy as it turns out ended up being #979. The 1-player discrepancy between the number I thought it should be (1000-20 less O players) and what Anthony had discovered lay in the letter V. After seeing the error with the O players, I had counted all the names (not easy on my 44 year old eyes as I'm not yet ready to admit I need glasses!!!!) and compared the total number listed. The yearbook said we had 21 V players, but there were only 20 names listed. Anthony confirmed for me through the Mets PR department that our total now stands at 979.

So it looks like we'll have to wait awhile longer for the 1000th player in Mets history. But that's okay. If nothing else, we Mets fans are a patient bunch :-)